With Knull in Venom: The Last Dance, Marvel Needs To Properly Pay Its Creators

Update: Here’s Donny’s response on the matter.

The Venom: Last Dance trailer came out today, and a surprise face showed up: Knull, the God of Symbiotes, from Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman’s acclaimed Venom run.

After the trailer dropped, Stegman wrote that he had no idea Knull was going to be in the movie but joked that he expected to finally be able to afford a moat around his house.

Previously, Knull co-creator Cates previously suggested they weren’t paid for their creative contributions to Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 video game.

This comes a few years later after Jim Starlin’s public dispute with Marvel for being fairly compensated for the use of Thanos in the Avengers franchise. Famously, Starlin said DC paid him for the use of KGBeast in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice than he earned for Thanos being the main villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Starlin and Marvel later reached a deal that satisfied the talented creator.

It appears getting financial credit for work at Marvel Comics after a project comes out isn’t the easiest thing to do. We’ve previously discussed how Jen Bartel called out the publisher for not getting any financial compensation for the Marvel Snap mobile game.

Hopefully, Stegman, Cates, and anyone else involved in creating Knull will get the compensation they deserve for the villain's appearance in the film — and not just a small cut that doesn’t match their significant contributions. The Venom franchise has made well over a billion dollars, so it’s time to give the creators what they deserve.