Warning: The following contains spoilers for Black Knight: Curse of the Ebony Blade #3, by Si Spurrier, Sergio Davila, Sean Parsons, Arif Prianto, Chris Sotomayor and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
Dane Whitman is one of several heroes who have wielded the Ebony Blade as the Black Knight, and he has a particularly complicated history, having been mixed up with the Avengers, the Eternals, and the legacy of King Arthur's court. In his most recent appearance, many of his past struggles came back to haunt him.
The Ebony Blade can cut through anything, but it draws power from its wielder's pain and inner darkness, channeling that darkness back into the person. Dane is weighed down by the traumas and tragedies of his past, and in his recent fight against Arthur's son Mordred, their weight became more than he could bear.
The first Black Knight was Sir Percival, one of the Knights of the Round Table, considered to be the most virtuous of them all until the Ebony Blade corrupted him. As the modern day Black Knight, Dane does not share Percival's moral purity, but he does share a common enemy with his predecessor: Mordred. The two battled one another in the realm of Listeneise, a magical wasteland from Arthurian legend, with Arthur's illegitimate son wielding the Ebony Dagger and Ebony Shield, a pair of magical weapons connected to Dane's Ebony Blade. While embroiled in this fight, they each suddenly had visions of people from their pasts. Dane saw Captain America inviting him to rejoin the Avengers, as well as two of his old lovers, one of whom was the Eternal Sersi, saying she still loved him.
This hearkens back to a relationship the two shared during the 90s, when both Dane and Sersi were part of the Avengers roster. At the time, Sersi was succumbing to a form of madness unique to the Eternals. Ikaris and the other Eternals decided she needed to be killed to prevent the spread of this. To stave off her fate, she bonded her mind and soul to Dane, making him her "Gann Josin," a sacred term among the Eternals for a pair of people who mind-melded. However, she did not reveal the details of what this entailed, and since Eternals were forbidden from binding their consciousnesses to mortals, Ikaris used his powers to alter Dane on a molecular level. Thus, their relationship arose from deception and desperation.
They had become literal soulmates, and despite her lies, Sersi loved Dane--but he was in love with Crystal, another Avenger and one of the Inhumans' Royal Family. In time, Dane did develop feelings for Sersi, and these continued to grow. But matters were further complicated by a villain called Proctor, who was an evil version of Dane from another dimension. He used the Gann Josin bond to drive versions of Sersi to madness and death on multiple worlds throughout the multiverse. During a prolonged battle between Proctor and the Avengers in which both versions of the Black Knight fought each other in the streets of New York, Sersi struck Proctor down with his own sword. She then quit the Avengers and the mainstream version of Dane accompanied her, walking away, hand-in-hand, through a dimensional gate as light flooded them.
It would have made a fitting end to their story, a bittersweet almost-happily-ever-after, but their story continued, and they faced new hardships. In a crossover with Malibu Comics, Sersi and Dane traveled to the Ultraverse and jointed the UltraForce team, whereupon Sersi acquired and then was possessed by the Infinity Gems of that reality. When they tried returning to their own universe, they ended up in the 12th Century and became embroiled in the crusades, where they fought against the X-Men villain Apocalypse. When they finally returned to the present, they learned that Crystal had died. This proved to be the final strain, as, despite caring deeply for Sersi, Dane still had feelings for Crystal. After all they had shared, they parted ways. However, the visions Dane had during his fight with Mordred reveal that after all this time, he has still cares for Sersi, his soulmate.
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