BIOGRAPHY - Page 10
What eventually happened in New Avalon is unknown. The Black Knight was seen back in the employ of Euroforce during the Hydra takeover of Paris. [U.S. Avengers #9] He was briefly deprived of the Ebony Blade again during the War of the Realms. Fighting alongside Union Jack and Spitfire in London, Black Knight went for Malekith, general of the invading Dark Elf armies, but 
was disarmed. Malekith used the Ebony Blade against Venom on the scene but the backlash forced him to leave the sword behind for Dane. [War of the Realms crossover] Feeling vindictive, the Black Knight pursued the Dark Elves back into Svartalfheim after the war was over. He was met by Frank Castle and Juggernaut, looking to avenge some war orphans created after the battle for New York. [Punisher Kill Krew #4-5]
The Black Knight’s efforts redeemed him in the eyes of the Avengers somewhat. During the Cotati invasion, Black Knight was part of the Avengers reserves called upon to defend various trouble spots on the map. Captain America personally welcomed Dane and commended him on his recent actions. With Doctor Voodoo and Scarlet Witch, the Black Knight traveled to the Savage Land to defend it against the invading plant people. [Empyre: Avengers #1-3] At the request of Doctor Strange, he also participated in a noble quest alongside Magik, Conan and Juggernaut to 
lay siege to the dragon Sadurang. The base creature held the second of three Eyes of Agamotto and ‘twas needed to gain noble victory against yon necromancer, Kulan Gath. [Savage Avengers #14-16] And lo, the good knight even attended a tourney by the Phoenix Force to test the mettle of potential hosts, before falling to the perfidy of the vile Red Widow, most ignobly. [Avengers (7th series) #40-43]
In truth, Dane was still struggling to deal with the Ebony Blade’s curse and the darkness of the blade trying in vain to infect his noble spirit. He had fallen on old habits, like using archaic grammar to make himself feel more knightly and cloning winged steeds on demand rather than 
forming a true bond with his horses like Valinor or Strider in the past. His eccentricities were seen and tolerated by the Avengers, but Dane knew his time as anything other than “Avengers-Adjacent” status was in the past. When the symbiote dragons of Knull began to attack Earth, the Black Knight eagerly jumped at the sword’s provocation to slay a dragon. However, the God of Darkness wanted the blade and the blade wanted to be found. Dane was separated from his sword over Shanghai, losing it in the fall as his horse died, and he had to be rescued in midair by the local heroine, Aero.
Dane’s ego took a beating when he learned Aero was also Avengers-Adjacent and knew all about his obsession with the sword. Another Chinese hero named Sword Master showed up Dane with a magical blade of his own, the Sword of Fu Xi. However, when Sword Master attempted to beg off Knull’s invasion to continue his private quest, the Sword of Fu Xi instead flew to the Black Knight’s hands as he tried to summon the Ebony Blade. Temporarily rearmed, Dane tried to convince his new companions that he wasn’t crazy and the natural purity of the bloodline of Arthur was needed to hold back the Ebony Blade’s curse. However, Knull assaulted Black Knight’s mind through his 
symbiotes and showed him the truth he had denied: the darkness came from him all along. Merlyn hadn’t chosen Percy because his goodness and willpower outshone the Blade’s darkness – the wielder of the Ebony Blade must be impure of heart to access its full power, darkness reflecting darkness. And so was every true Black Knight in the family line, up to and including Dane Whitman himself.
Knull coveted the Ebony Blade because of the dark symbiosis it created with a wielder, much like 
the Dark God’s own creations. His revelations struck the truth Dane had known for years, but never admitted to himself. The pure Sword of Fu Xi rejected him with these revelations and returned to Sword Master. But now that he was consumed with darkness, with self-loathing and doubt, now the Ebony Blade chose to answer his call and return to his side. As Aero and Sword Master fought the local manifestation of Knull, Dane chose to accept his flaws and became the Black Knight for the first time fully cognizant of what that meant. By harnessing his darkness and supercharging the blade, the Black Knight dispersed Knull’s symbiotes and saved Shanghai. [King in Black: Black Knight #1]
Embracing his own darkness (while trying to remain a hero) was not great for Dane’s mental health. He was on call for the Avengers now, but only because of the unprecedented mystical power he could summon from the Ebony Blade on the battlefield. He cloned a goat-headed butler named Phillip (possibly with science learned from the Knights of Wundagore) for company at Garrett Castle and even started venting to the Listenr App to have someone to talk to. Dane also had another startling revelation brought to his attention – he had a daughter. Ashima had died of 
cancer all those years ago because she was pregnant and refused radiotherapy treatments. Now just past twenty, Jackie “Jacks” Chopra was, ironically, a history student writing her thesis on how Camelot was a myth that never happened. Hoping to connect, Dane contacted her as the Black Knight and offered to contribute his knowledge to her work.
Dane’s first meeting with Jacks was delayed when the Avengers summoned the Black Knight’s aid in Central Park against monsters. The battle was a trap set by Mordred the Evil, drawing out Dane so Mordred could steal the Ebony Blade. Mordred had always had a gift for seeing the weakness in all things and he spoke crippling truths to the Avengers that triggered despair and got them out of his way momentarily. Mordred decapitated Dane with the Ebony Dagger, but even dead the Black Knight refused to release his grip on the Ebony Blade. Mordred was forced to flee before 
the Avengers recovered and gave him trouble. Black Knight’s body was returned to Garrett Castle where Jacks and Phillip were waiting. Jacks cut her finger on the Ebony Blade trying to get a closer look and triggered a vision of Camelot, much to her shock. Her blood also helped accelerate the curse of the Ebony Blade and its blood magic revived the Black Knight, binding his head and body together again as Jacks watched.
This wasn’t how Dane intended to meet his daughter and he asked Jacks to leave for her own safety without having the talk he had intended. He consulted with Percy’s ghost to learn more of the secret history of Camelot and the Ebony Blade. In time, Jacks returned after finding her thesis advisor dead and suffering another vision of Camelot and Merlyn’s familiar. She was accompanied 
by Elsa Bloodstone, who was tracking a fragment of her father’s bloodgem being used by Mordred’s Redcap ally. Together, they reasoned that Mordred was reassembling the Ebony artifacts. He already had the dagger and recovered the Ebony Shield from the pools of Acheron. After the blade, all that was left was the lost Ebony Chalice.
With Elsa’s bloodgem providing sympathetic magic for the Ebony Blade, the Black Knight, Elsa and Jacks traced the Chalice to Listeneise, a wasteland realm of forgotten truths. Mordred and his Redcap were there as well, but it was a stalemate as long as the Ebony Blade could resurrect Dane from Mordred’s attacks. Jacks found the Ebony Chalice in the ruins of Camelot as Mordred fled. The Chalice could convey visions of truth to any who drank from its black water and Dane used it to locate Mordred. The unwanted truths of the Chalice kept coming, however, and Dane also saw how corrupt Sir Percy had become by the end as Camelot’s “berserker in black.” He realized Percy deliberately dropped the Ebony Blade to die to Mordred’s dagger at the fall of 
Camelot, having grown so tired of his own darkness. Facing Mordred and growing increasingly powerful yet corrupted by the Blade and the Chalice, the Black Knight chose not to be defined by his darkness. He, too, dropped the Ebony artifacts just as Mordred ran him through with his dagger, dealing Dane a mortal wound.
As Dane crawled away to die, Mordred expounded to Jacks about his full plans. King Arthur once swore on Excalibur that Mordred would be the very last of his heirs to ever inherit his kingdom. This oath created a magic for Mordred to exploit. Jacks’ thesis advisor, like Dane and countless others, was descendent from the line of Arthur and murdered by Mordred to clear his path to the throne of Camelot. The old magic in their blood helped Mordred restore the river Acheron to re-forge the Ebony artifacts (minus the sword) into an Ebony Crown. With this crown and all other heirs to Arthur dead and gone, Mordred would now claim Camelot from Otherworld and rise to power on his own as a Dark Pendragon. Through the Listenr App he constructed, Mordred had convinced the public to vent their misery to him, allowing him to harness their darkness to feed the Ebony Crown and empower him to make his move. Jacks tried to raise the Ebony Blade against him, but Mordred struck her down with his newfound power, reducing her body to ash.
Mordred had underestimated the heirs to the Ebony Blade, though. He had neglected to even consider a woman might lay claim to being Arthur’s heir until Jacks was resurrected by the Ebony Blade thanks to the old magic in her blood. And Dane Whitman – whom Mordred dismissed as utterly pathetic when he opened the Listenr App and spent his last moments confessing to it – shocked the Dark Pendragon by addressing Mordred by name in his recording. The Ebony Chalice had shown Black Knight that Mordred was behind Listenr and Dane had prepared for his own passing. The nature of the resurrection spell was that the blood of Arthur would be restored if they died while in close contact with one of the Ebony artifacts. By pouring his heart out to Listenr as he took his last breath, as it was feeding the darkness of the users to Mordred, Dane was in “close contact” with the Ebony Crown that Mordred wore on his head. Through this loophole of the magic, Black Knight was reborn through Mordred, bursting through his body as he died fighting Jacks and Elsa, letting Dane arise with the Crown in his possession.
Afterwards, Dane and Jacks had a genuine talk about her "bloodline", and she left to process. Back at Garrett Castle, Dane followed the visions from the lost Chalice and reforged the Ebony Crown again into plate for the Ebon Siege, a chair able to convey a more controlled form of truth and knowledge to the user. Jacks returned with a decision to share the burden of the Ebony Blade 
with Dane. She hadn't decided yet about a family relationship with him, but their bloodline left them bound by a curse regardless. Two Black Knights, one wielding the Ebony Bade and the other guiding them from the Ebon Siege, in turn. A new era, where perhaps a burden shared would be a burden halved. [Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #1-5]