All-Black

All-Black's History

Origin

The first symbiote, All-Black was manifested from the shadow of the evil deity Knull and tempered using the divine power of a slain Celestial. Primarily taking the form of a sword made from living darkness, All-Black was wielded by Knull during the dark god's deicidal rampage, earning it the monikers of the Necrosword and Godslayer.

The God Butcher

After Knull was incapacitated during a battle against a group of golden-armored gods, All-Black left him and bonded to a misotheistic alien called Gorr; who unwittingly followed in Knull's footsteps, using it to slay gods across the cosmos and earning the title of the God Butcher. Feeding off the slain gods' blood, All-Black corrupted Gorr into a kind of evil god himself, bestowing him with immortality and a host of other abilities resembling those Knull had possessed. As a result of Knull and Gorr's deicidal campaigns, All-Black became the subject of countless stories and legends containing grains of the truth;[8] with its history being recorded in a divine tome called the Saga of the God Butcher. After being beaten by mortal followers of Thor, Gorr discovered he could use All-Black's living abyss to create semi-sentient creatures called Black Berserkers, which he used to assist him in his killing spree.

King Thor

Taken to the far future of Earth-14412, Gorr used All-Black to construct an artificial planetoid at the edge of space that served as his base of operations for nine-hundred years. All-Black subsequently served as both the detonator and payload of Gorr's Godbomb, which was intended to spread the symbiote's eldritch darkness across time and space so that it could kill every god that ever had and ever would exist across the timestream. In his final battle against Gorr alongside his past and future selves, Thor was able to absorb the Godbomb's blast, bonding to All-Black and using it to finally defeat Gorr, though All-Black stored Gorr's consciousness within itself prior to his death. Before All-Black could corrupt the dying Thor as it had Gorr, King Thor used the Thor-Force to purge it from his younger self's body as he resurrected his past self. To keep Young Thor from claiming All-Black out of arrogance and hubris, he cast the Necrosword and Gorr's dark world into a black hole.

Assumed to have been destroyed, All-Black instead subsumed the black hole. Millennia later, Thor was forced to bond to All-Black when Galactus returned to Earth intending to finally devour it - attacking Thor's granddaughters and throwing Thor into deep space. All-Black influenced Thor into attempting to kill Galactus before secretly transferring to the Devour of Worlds, leaving everyone to believe it had been destroyed by Thor's final attack. After their battle, King Thor gave Galactus leave to consume Mars instead; but while Galactus was devouring it, the symbiote sword revealed itself and bonded to the Devourer of Worlds, turning him into the Butcher of Worlds.

All-Black influenced Galactus into going on a planet-destroying rampage, killing several of Ego's offspring. When Ego sought revenge on the Butcher of Worlds, All-Black transferred to the Living Planet, transforming him into the Necroworld. Ego proceeded to devour Galactus, finally making him pay for all the planets he had destroyed.

While bonded to Ego, All-Black carried out its creator's deicidal mission by killing the last of the Celestials, compelling its host to travel what was left of the cosmos and devour whatever he came across. However, soon after rendering the Acanti extinct, Ego was challenged for possession of All-Black by King Loki; who successfully claimed and bonded to it, dubbing himself Loki the All-Butcher. Loki and All-Black would go on to fight King Thor, as witnessed by Ulysses and the Goddesses of Thunder.

Death

Wielded by Loki, All-Black manifested corvid Black Berserkers called "Necro-Ravens" to kill Thor's granddaughters; and over the course of Loki's battle with his brother disemboweled Thor and blackened the Sun. When Loki resurrected Gorr as the "God of God Butchers," Gorr reclaimed All-Black and used it to defeat both Thor and Loki.After being decapitated by Atli, Gorr's consciousness took over All-Black and the primordial symbiote began consuming the very universe itself - becoming "All-Black the Necroverse". Manifesting a black hole, All-Black attempted to devour Thor but was destroyed when the All-Father unleashed the full power of the God Tempest from within Mjolnir.