Marvel Rivals- King in Black

 By Mark Rodriguez

Here comes another comic based on the hot still somewhat new-ish hero shooter game Marvel Rivals. This time the crew deals with the King of Black and it looks like we're going to see symbiote versions of several characters. Let's see what happens.

 

The story opens with Galacta introducing the readers to the world of Klyntar, the planet where symbiotes like Venom and Knull come from. The place seriously creeps her out and she says it is definitely not a good vacation spot. 

Sure enough a spaceship arrives as Thing, Squirrel Girl, Jeff the Land Shark and Rocket Racoon continue their party tour. As they step onto the planet, Squirrel Girl steps in some black goop. Thing wonders where the beaches, the ocean and tiki bars are. Rocket asks who told him about this planet and Thing realizes that Johnny was messing with him. Thing asks Rocket why he didn't warn him since he's the space traveler. Rocket says he thought he were going to planet Kree-Lar. He says the last time the Guardians of the Galaxy went to Klyntar they barely made it out alive. 

The symbiote tries to pull Squirrel Girl towards it. As Thing and Rocket pull her away from it, the goop latches onto Jeff. Squirrel Girl does an elbow drop on the symbiote and gets tangles up again. Thing and Rocket try to help but they get snared as well.

Galacta decides to check elsewhere on the planet. She sees that Blade and Shuri are there for some reason. Looking elsewhere, she finds the Phoenix Force fighting against Hela. She checks back on the party crew only to find that they have all been fused by symbiotes. Galacta is shocked to see them this way and wonders why they didn't travel somewhere safer like Battleworld or Ego the Living Planet. She notes there are a lot of scary planets out there.

Elsewhere, Spider-Man is helping Phoenix fight against Hela, who has now being fused to a symbiote as well. 

 

Back to Blade and Shuri, the Daywalker asks her why he was taken out of the fight since anyone could have stayed guard in her place. Shuri says he still hasn't got past his recent trauma with Dracula and figured a lighter mission would help. She is also trying to find a weakness to use against the symbiotes and says Jean Grey will soon be overwhelmed as their allies are being picked off one by one.

Spider-Man get snared by the symbiote tendrils and says he can't let this happen since all the good symbiote names are already taken. As he's overcome he says he should be called Allergen or Kerfuffle.

Shuri tells Blade the faster she gets her work done, the faster they can help in the fight. Just then an acorn is thrown into the building. Blade recognizes this as one of Squirrel Girl's acorn bombs and tells Shuri to get out as it explodes.

Jeff circles around Blade and Shuri and the daywalker smacks the shark back before he can eat them with his whirlpool attack. Thing, Squirrel Girl and Rocket gang up on Blade, but he is able to knock them all back. 

Galacta sees that Captain America and Spider-Man are now symbiotes too. Spider-Man is indeed called Kerfuffle now, and he calls Cap 'Captain Despair-Ica'. Cap is confused by the name and Spider-Man says they'll keep workshopping on the names. Galacta explains that several heroes were given Phoenix powers (Iron Fist, Emma Frost and Magik) and started fighting against the symbiotes. 

 

Back to Blade and Shuri, Thing leaps towards them and Blade knocks him back. Rocket powers up a large cannon but the blast hits Jeff instead. Shuri grabs Rocket in a headlock. Squirrel Girl fires off another acorn bomb, but Blade throws his sword at it, knocking it right back to her, blowing up in her face.

Rocket aims his gun at Shuri, making her and Blade surrender. Blade asks them what's their next move. Rocket says they're going to run. Thing asks why they're running. Rocket says they accomplished their boss's mission in destroying Shuri's research. Now they will head towards the real battle.

Shuri is upset that her research is gone and now the fight can go either way. Blade says he might not have Phoenix powers but he still has a mystical sword and fangs. Shuri gets an idea but says it wouldn't work, and 'no one should have that power', not even Blade. Blade wants to hear more.

Galacta flashes back to another planet, where Blade has been imprisoned by Dracula. Dracula immobilizes Blade with his powers and says he can sense his helplessness and desperation. He then bites into Blade.

We flash back to the present, where Blade leaps into the fight against Hela after hearing out Shuri's plan. Hela fires off a soul drainer attack and Blade smacks it away with his sword, saying he still has a soul. Blade grabs onto Hela and tells Phoenix to telepathically tap into his vampire powers so she can siphon Hela's life force. 

 

Rocket and the party crew join the fight between the symbiotes and Phoenix users, finding that Groot is a symbiote too.

Hela runs her Nightsword through Blade, but the vampire bites onto her and hangs on. Blade is now fused with the powers of both the Phoenix and the symbiote. Just as he says he's the only one that can stop the fighting, Venom shows up who now also has Phoenix powers. Storm and Kerfuffle see this as a chance to strike, but are easily swatted back between Blade and Venom as they discuss their powers. In Venom's case, he found a shard of the Phoenix egg which gave him those powers. Unlike Blade, Venom didn't have to get run through by a sword.

 

All the Symbiote-affected heroes leap towards Blade and he sends them all flying back. Venom jumps in and they both go after Hela. Hela says that Blade has gotten powerful, but not enough to stop her. Venom says he's not alone and brags that he landed a hit while Blade has not. Hela says she'll land several hundred hits as she sends a swarm of crows at them.

Blade taps into his vampiric bloodlust and starts attacking and biting all the crows. He tell Venom to hit her now. Blade and Venom blast Hela with Phoenix blasts and she vaporizes. The symbiotes leave the heroes and they turn back to normal. Spider-Man sees that Hela is gone and says the fight is over. Venom says they still have to deal with Knull but they won for now.

 

Shuri asks Blade how he feels, and he says he feels good and powerful. She says she can't imagine what the Phoenix is doing to him physically, emotionally and psychologically and asks if he knows how to give those powers up. Blade says he knows. Shuri says if he ever forgets, she'll be there to remind him. Blade agrees and knows that she'll do whatever it takes. 

 My Thoughts-

So this was a wild story that probably needed a few pages for more action and story. While Thing, Rocket, Squirrel Girl and Jeff continued their party tour from the last special, the others were already fighting against Hela on the symbiote planet for some reason. Then the Phoenix force laid an egg that split and gave Phoenix powers to other heroes? I would have liked to have seen more of that action between the Phoenix fighters and the symbiotes. Galacta is usually good at explaining what is going on (or at least explain why everyone else was already on Klyntar) but it seems she's as surprised by the events as we are.

I guess the main characters in the story are Blade and Shuri, though the party crew as well as Spider-Man and Phoenix also get some focus. The others like Iron First, Emma, Namor and such are pretty much cameos.

Other then seeing your favorite Marvel characters fight it out, other highlights are Spider-Man calling his symbiote Kerfuffle, and then having other characters call him that. There's also the scene of Blade and Venom discussing their powers, while casually just smacking Squirrel Girl and Rocket away as if they were just minor annoyances.

 

You got to give credit to the series for finding new ways to pit the heroes up against each other. Currently in the Marvel Rivals game the only real villains are Hela, Loki and Ultron, and we've already seen them used in this series. Venom and Magneto are options as well, but they're mostly anti-heroes nowadays, though I guess since we're going by multiverse rules they can still be used. The heroes still do outnumber them about eight to one, and during gameplay you will be more often than not using a team of heroes against another team of heroes.

 

Overall I enjoyed the story, though maybe it could have used less characters if they're going to mostly be reduced to one or two panel cameos.You can't have Marvel heroes with Phoenix and symbiote powers fighting each other and barely show it. Plus it's hard to tell who is and isn't there. As the story progresses it's like 'oh Groot was there too. And um.. Namor.. and Emma too? And then Venom suddenly shows up near the end too?'. How many characters were on this random mission on Klyntar? Was Hela working on her own or with Knull? What was her plan? Where is Null? The comic is even named after him since Knull is the King in Black. A few more pages would have helped.

This time around there's an ad for the next one-shot in the series. It'll be called Cities of Heaven and will feature Luna Snow as well as the two newest characters to date, Angela and Daredevil.