Black Knight (Dane Whitman)

• 1. Introduction

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  Dane Whitman, the Marvel Comics hero known as the Black Knight, began his career by being attacked by the very team he hoped to join. In his first outing in costume, the Avengers took him for his own uncle, a villain who had used the same name and armor. The mistake mattered, because that uncle's crimes were the reason Whitman put the armor on at all. He is a scientist who inherited a sword handed down through his family, and over the decades he has served on many teams, crossed into other universes, and ruled a kingdom of his own. The sword is the thread through all of it. Does it corrupt the man who holds it, or does it only reveal him? Who built this character, and from what older pieces? And why does a hero with so many allies keep finding himself alone with a single blade?

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• 2. A Patchwork Creation

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  Writer Roy Thomas was candid that the Black Knight was assembled from earlier ideas. Visually, Thomas said, he blended a Black Knight that Stan Lee and Joe Maneely had devised in the mid-1950s with a villain of that name from Lee and Jack Kirby, who rode a winged horse. A third ingredient was a nod to Shining Knight, a DC hero Thomas had enjoyed in the 1940s. He also had one regret, which he stated plainly: "I shouldn't have named his horse Aragorn, though." He added that he was not even much of an admirer of The Lord of the Rings.

  John Buscema was supposed to draw the story that first showed Whitman in the Black Knight costume. Stan Lee pulled Buscema off the book for a single issue, so George Tuska drew it as a guest. Thomas and John Verpoorten designed the costume together. The character debuted in The Avengers #47, dated December 1967, with Thomas and Buscema credited as creators.

  Marvel Super-Heroes #17, dated November 1968, gave him his first solo story. A decade later, the Marvel UK weekly Hulk Weekly carried a black and white Black Knight feature from 1979 to 1980. Steve Parkhouse wrote it, with art by Paul Neary and John Stokes. It outlasted every other feature that originated in the UK for that title, appearing in most of its 63 issues.

  In the mid-1980s, fans who loved him in The Avengers asked for a miniseries of his own. Marvel instead scheduled a three-part story set during the Crusades for Marvel Fanfare. That story was badly delayed, and it finally ran in 1990 alongside a four-issue Black Knight miniseries, which appeared from June to September. The husband-and-wife team of Roy and Dann Thomas wrote it, with Tony DeZuniga and then Rich Buckler as pencillers. A one-shot called Black Knight: Exodus followed in December 1996, written by Ben Raab and penciled by Jimmy Cheung.

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• 3. A Family Inheritance

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  Gloucester, Massachusetts is where Dane Whitman was born, into a wealthy family. He studied physics, and he eventually earned a master's degree in the subject. He also became proficient in genetic and mechanical engineering, and he tends to approach even magical problems as a scientist would. His physical skills are formidable too. He is an expert horseman, and he has beaten the Swordsman in a duel. Whitman has also held his own against fighters as skilled as Captain America and Wolverine.

  The family legacy began in medieval England, in the age of King Arthur. Whitman's ancestor Sir Percy of Scandia was the first Black Knight. Percy was murdered by his nemesis Mordred, and that killing started a line of successors, each a descendant of Percy.

  Nathan Garrett, Whitman's uncle, revived the name in modern times. Garrett was mortally wounded in a fight with Iron Man and dragged himself back to his estate. There he summoned his nephew, confessed, and begged him to atone by restoring the family's honor. He handed over the weapons he had used as a criminal. Those tools were a javelin that fired energy blasts, a suit of body armor, and a winged white horse. The horse was no true Pegasus. It was a mount altered with the genetic techniques Garrett had used to make it look winged.

  Garrett also left behind his signature power lance. It looks like an ordinary jousting shaft, but it is packed with modern weaponry and reflects his skill in mechanical automation. Whitman used it for a time in place of the Ebony Blade.

  Whitman proved himself to the Avengers by infiltrating the Masters of Evil, and they offered him provisional membership. He then inherited Castle Garrett and traveled to England. There he met the spirit of Sir Percy, who gave him the Ebony Blade. Soon he was helping Doctor Strange fight the extra-dimensional threat Tiboro.

  While still provisional, he faced Kang the Conqueror, who had been handed power over the Avengers' deaths by the Grandmaster as a prize in a game. Because Whitman was not yet a full member, Kang's power could not touch him, and he beat Kang with little trouble. That won him a place on the team. The blade soon turned up in other hands. The war god Ares used it to snuff out the Promethean Flame and turn most of the Olympians to crystal.

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• 4. The Cursed Blade

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  Every time the Ebony Blade draws blood, it pushes its user closer to madness. Whitman learned this on returning to modern times, and he freed the spirit of Sir Percy from the earthly plane, which purged the curse from the sword.

  The curse came back when Namor used the blade to kill his wife, Marrina Smallwood, after she had become a monster. This time it began turning Whitman's body into the same mystic metal as the sword. A creeping paralysis forced him into an exoskeleton, and his mind began to slip. Eventually the curse grew so strong that it drew blood from anyone who merely touched him. After the Avengers disbanded, he joined Thor in defending Asgard against an invasion by the Egyptian god Seth. The curse then converted him into a statue.

  The statue was carried to his castle in England, where an old friend named Lady Victoria Bentley looked after it. Sir Percy took over Whitman's body to fight the curse and chose a young Irishman, Sean Dolan, as his squire. They went to Doctor Strange for help against Morgan le Fay and Mordred, who wanted to return to the physical world through Morgan's old castle in Ireland. Morgan summoned the demon Balor, and Valkyrie rescued the heroes. Percy's spirit then merged with the sword, ending the curse and restoring Whitman. He began a relationship with Lady Victoria.

  Sean Dolan came to a bad end. Angry that Whitman had abandoned Lady Victoria, he took the sword himself and could not bear its curse, becoming the Bloodwraith. In a three-way fight against the Black Knight and Deadpool, the Bloodwraith accidentally killed her. Later, near the Slorenian border, he used the blade to absorb the souls of an entire population killed by the android Ultron.

  In the mid-2000s, during his time with New Excalibur, Whitman opened a museum in England about the Black Knights of history. Through it he learned that Sir Percy was not the first. Eight men had held the blade before him, and it had corrupted all of them. Percy was judged the only one noble enough to wield it. Merlin also told him he must not destroy it, contradicting earlier advice.

  Whitman came to doubt that his sword was the genuine one. During the Secret Invasion crossover, as part of MI-13, he carried a blade that urged him to kill. It was a fake made by Dracula, and it had a mind of its own and fed on blood. In Wakanda he got the real Ebony Blade back, though he kept the vampiric fake as well.

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• 5. Lost in Legend

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  The Enchantress turned Dane Whitman to stone with a kiss. He was traveling with her to the realm of the Asgardian sorceress Casiolena when both were captured. The Defenders were trapped by the witch as well, and Whitman became the team's first casualty. Doctor Strange tried to reverse the spell and failed.

  Whitman's spirit was then drawn to the 12th century by the sorcerer Amergin the Druid. He took possession of his ancestor, the Crusader Sir Eobar Garrington, and held that body until Garrington died from the Evil Eye. He chose to stay in that era. He fought the Fomor alongside time-traveling Avengers, then used the Evil Eye to seal the portal between Earth and Avalon.

  The wizard Merlyn took Whitman as his champion and sent him to find Captain Britain, who was wandering the coast of Cornwall with amnesia. Merlyn needed him to defend Otherworld, his realm, against the Nethergods. The sorcerer Mordred set many creatures on the knight. Along the way he was helped by the old witch Sarah Mumford, the elf Moondog, and the old king Vortigern. The last two were sent by Merlyn.

  The Iron Ogre, a creature summoned by the evil Walker Cormac, defeated the heroes and shattered the Ebony Blade. Only a precise arrow from Moondog stopped it. A devastated Whitman then met the Lady of the Lake, who gave him the sword Excalibur. With it he defeated Cormac.

  The White Rider, a servant of the Nethergod Mandrac, killed Captain Britain at the passage to Otherworld. Mandrac, Lord of the Slain, took the body, and the heroes fought him. Merlyn trapped Mandrac inside the earth and rescued Captain Britain's spirit. Later, Whitman and Captain Britain tried to save Camelot from the Nethergod Necromon. Merlyn reforged the Ebony Sword, and King Arthur returned. Whitman and Arthur killed Necromon, but Camelot was destroyed. British readers followed Whitman wielding Excalibur against Necromon in Hulk (UK) issues 42-63, before he gave it up to the reborn Arthur. The Grandmaster also briefly kidnapped Whitman and Captain Britain for the original Contest of Champions.

  Whitman returned to the 20th century and his own body. Amergin sent a parting gift, a black winged horse called Valinor, named after a place in fiction.

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• 6. Sersi and the Multiverse

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  Operation Galactic Storm took the Avengers to Hala, the capital world of the Kree Empire. Appalled by the genocide the Kree Supreme Intelligence had inflicted on its own people, Whitman followed Iron Man to kill the entity. Whitman struck the mortal blow. Captain America left the team afterward, and Whitman became the Avengers' de facto field leader. In this period he built an energy weapon that projected a blade of force to stand in for the Ebony Blade.

  He also fell for Sersi of the Eternals, while feeling drawn to Crystal of the Inhumans' royal family. The Avengers were repeatedly attacked by alternate versions of themselves, the Gatherers, led by a mysterious figure called Proctor. On the planet Polemachus, Sersi killed the tyrant Anskar the moment he murdered an innocent girl. The Eternals, led by Ikaris, explained that she suffered from an incurable disease called the Mahd W'yry. To steady her, Ikaris bound her and Whitman through a mental link known as the Gann Josin. It gave Whitman greater strength and red eyes, but it did little for Sersi, and he resented having it imposed.

  Proctor turned out to be a version of Whitman himself, from Earth-374. His own Sersi had rejected him, and the Gann Josin and a cursed blade had twisted him. With the Gatherers and a captured Watcher named Ute, he traveled the multiverse to kill the Sersi of every reality. Sersi finally killed him with his own Ebony Blade. Ute opened a gateway to another universe where she might heal, and Whitman went along. He felt responsible for what had happened, and he did not want to come between Crystal and her husband, Quicksilver.

  That universe was the Ultraverse, home of the Malibu Comics heroes, and the Black Knight landed on Miami Beach. There he met Prime and Prototype of the team Ultraforce and joined it. After the Infinity Gems were scattered, a reality-warping event called Black September made Whitman Ultraforce's leader. Eventually he and the other exiles went home through a portal made by the alien robot Maxis.

  A trip back to Marvel's present with Sersi went wrong and dropped them in the 12th century. There Whitman faced Apocalypse, who pushed Bennet du Paris, the future Exodus, to kill his friend. Du Paris refused, so Apocalypse froze him in suspended animation. Whitman founded an order of knights to guard du Paris through the ages until Magneto found him.

  The journey home separated Whitman from Sersi and tore their bond apart. In New York, he learned the Avengers had apparently died fighting Onslaught, Crystal among them. The Lady of the Lake then named him the Pendragon of his era, and he joined Iron Fist's Heroes for Hire. Years later it emerged that Sersi had given him a literal stone heart, meant to keep him above it all.

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• 7. Sanity and Sovereignty

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  Rebecca Stevens, a historian, learned during the Original Sin storyline that Whitman had nearly killed a new Savage Steel under the Ebony Blade's influence. She begged him to hand the sword to S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers. He refused and insisted he was fine, yet his home was covered in slash marks and he was found curled on the floor in a mentally unhinged state. He also led Euroforce, a team of European heroes. His passed-over status on Captain America's new Avengers roster was implied to come from his deteriorating mind.

  Weirdworld came next. In July 2015, Marvel announced that Frank Tieri and Luca Pizzari would write and draw a new Black Knight series after the Secret Wars relaunch. Whitman arrives there after killing Carnivore while losing control to the blade. He then kills King Zaltin Tar to found a kingdom called New Avalon, building an army with two warriors named Shield and Spear. He expects the Avengers Unity Division to come for him. The Uncanny Avengers, led by an aged Steve Rogers, arrive to arrest him over a killing from his Avengers days.

  The story also reveals that Whitman had wandered into Weirdworld from 1945, along with a Hydra submarine. Its crew became the Fangs of the Serpent. After a truce, Rogers took the blade, but it possessed him and he attacked his teammates. Rogers and Doctor Voodoo concluded that only Whitman could bear the blade's toll, and the sword harmed no one in his presence. Whitman had held on to his sanity better than anyone thought. Marvel was unhappy with sales and cancelled the series with its fifth issue in 2016. It was the first All-New, All-Different Marvel series to end.

  During King in Black, the god Knull invaded Whitman's mind and exposed the sword's true nature. It amplified cruelty already in its wielder, and Merlin had lied about its being usable only by the pure of heart. Whitman had never been corrupted by it. His rages were his own. With encouragement from the young heroine Aero, he accepted his faults and used his inner darkness to unlock new powers in the blade, helping save Shanghai from Symbiote Dragons.

  He was later killed by an unseen attacker using the Obsidian Dagger, the opposite of the Ebony Blade. In England, Jackie Chopra, an Arthurian history buff he had hired as a liaison, revived him with a blood offering to the sword. Afterward he panicked over dying and returning, then asked Sir Percy how it had happened. Percy hinted at hidden powers, including self-revival for those of Arthur's bloodline, but never explained how Whitman died anyway. Elsa Bloodstone burst into his home while tracking a string of murders tied to the blade. Jackie, who had visions of the past since touching the sword, helped them realize that other relics from the same starstone were still in the world.

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• 8. Beyond the Page

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  Gregory Ellwood of Collider called Dane Whitman a "true Marvel legacy character" and a hero many fans still hoped to see on screen. IGN ranked him 22nd in its list of the Top 50 Avengers. Kevin Lee of Screen Rant counted him among the 10 best heroes Roy Thomas created.

  Alternate versions of him are scattered across the multiverse. In Marvel Zombies: Dead Days, a zombified Whitman from Earth-2149 makes a minor appearance. In Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates, the Earth-1610 version is a former Marine corporal who was left quadriplegic after saving fellow soldiers from an IED. For it he received the Purple Heart, the Silver Star Medal, and the Medal of Honor. The Gatherers' leader Proctor, from Earth-374, debuted in The Avengers #344, dated February 1992.

  Beyond comics, Whitman makes a non-speaking cameo in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, in the episode "Come the Conqueror". He is a playable character in several video games, including Avengers in Galactic Storm and Marvel Avengers Alliance. In Marvel Avengers Academy, Ian Russell voices him. He is also playable in Lego Marvel's Avengers, through the "Masters of Evil" DLC pack, and in Marvel Puzzle Quest. He appears as a card in Marvel Snap. Funko released a figure of him in 2021, and Hasbro released a Marvel Legends figure in 2023.

  The Marvel Cinematic Universe introduced him in the 2021 film Eternals, where Kit Harington plays Dane Whitman as a history professor at London's Natural History Museum. In a post-credits scene, Arishem captures Sersi. Dane then takes up the Ebony Blade to look for her, and an unseen voice, identified off-screen as Blade, asks whether he is ready for it.

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