What blew me away the first time I sat w
Ith the Gorr storyline was how the Necrosword rewired everything I thought I
knew about symbiotes and
cosmic horror in Marvel. In the
lore, the Necrosword is called All-Black and it was forged by Knull, a primordial being who predates much of creation. Knull used the
severed head of a
fallen Celestial as the raw material to craft that living blade—so right off the bat you’ve got an origin steeped in cosmic brutality: a god making a weapon from another god’s corpse. That weapon isn’t just a sword; it’s sentient, parasitic, and capable of bonding to a host and reshaping flesh and reality to
slay gods.
Jason Aaron’s '
thor: god of thunder' popularized the terrifying image of Gorr the God Butcher wielding the Necrosword across time, and later Donny Cates’ runs like 'Venom' and '
king in black' pull the threads back to Knull more explicitly, revealing that All-Black was essentially the prototype for the symbiote species. Mechanically, it grants near-limitless power — constructs, blades, resilience, and the ability to
corrupt moral center — but it also consumes its wielder’s
mercy and identity. I love how that origin ties together cosmic myth, gothic horror, and superhero stakes; it’s bleak and brilliant in equal measure, and the fact that a weapon born of a Celestial skull becomes the
seed for an entire parasitic race is the sort of grim, imaginative detail that keeps me rereading those arcs.