Ryan Stegman

Dan Slott makes the boldest Spider-Man decision in decades: in Amazing Spider-Man #700, Otto Octavius swaps consciousness with Peter, dies in his body and takes over as Spider-Man. But Otto doesn't want to be a villain: he wants to be the best Spider-Man ever. One of the most radical premises of 21st century Marvel.

Donny Cates built his entire Venom mythology toward a single apocalyptic event: the return of Knull, the God of the Symbiotes, an ancient dark god who created the symbiotes as weapons of darkness. King in Black is the conclusion of years of cosmic horror setup, and it brought the full Marvel Universe into the fight against a villain of genuinely overwhelming power.

Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman's Venom run is the most consequential take on the character since the original McFarlane era — introducing Knull, the King in Black, a god of darkness who created the symbiotes as weapons of conquest billions of years before Venom bonded with Eddie Brock. What started as a horror-inflected superhero title escalated into a universe-shaking mythology that recontextualized every symbiote story ever told. Stegman's kinetic, visceral artwork matched Cates's cosmic ambition panel for panel.