Reading Activities: War of Kings 1 of 6

First of a six part review of the main "War of the Kings" mini-series.

"War of Kings #1"

"Asunder"
Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning
Drawn by Paul Pelletier
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We start with the Starjammers (Havok, Polaris, Rachel "Marve Girl" Summers, Lilandra, Ch'od, and Korvus) in a ship desperately fleeing the hounds of hell, sicced upon them by Havok's evil, long lost brother Vulcan. As they reach the border shield protecting the Kree from the Shi'ar Empire, Havok's on the communication system, begging the Kree to drop the barrier to let them through or else they are going to crash and splatter across the energy barrier. When this fails, and with the Shi'ar warships getting a weapon's lock on the Starjammers ship, Polaris takes action. Polaris yells to the Kree soldier in charge of letting people through the forcefield, proclaiming that she's an invited guest to her ex-teammate, I mean half-brother's ex-wife's wedding, to get them through the barrier. This gets them through the force field even as the Shi'ar ships crash into the energy shield like bugs.

We then cut to Crystal and her handmaidens preparing her for the big ceremony as she prepares to marry Ronan the Accuser, as part of a political alliance between the Kree and the Inhumans. The following sequence is pretty lame, since A. Crystal wasn't around when the insane "Polaris is Magneto's kid" retcon was made and B. the whole sequence makes both women look bad. Polaris mocks his name and the absurdity of Crystal marrying someone named "Ronan the Accuser" while Crystal making it outright clear that it's a sham marriage designed mainly so that the Inhumans royal family can consolidate power over the Krees. The whole is made worse when you see that Ronan is outside the window, flowers in hand, as he hears his soon-to-be bride talking shit about him. I suppose this is to make Ronan sympathetic, but still it's pretty much a low blow all things considered and makes you wonder why Ronan would even consider going through with the marriage.

Meanwhile, Lilandra is doing her best to convince Black Bolt to give her and the Starjammers both sanctuary and to form an alliance with her against Vulcan, pointing out that Vulcan's a bad man who "has never seen a tract of space that he didn't think would look better with his flag flying over it". He's also a man who: spent ten plus years buried in an island floating above the Earth, murdered his father and brother-in-law (granted D'Ken deserved it), burned the mighty X-Man Wolverine alive, murdered Banshee and a plane full of innocent people, and tortured his brother and his fellow Starjammers mercilessly for the last couple of months. Sadly Medusa isn't too impressed, even when Lilandra reminds her of the Imperial Guard, including superman-esque Gladiator, under Vulcan's command.

Speaking of which, we cut to Vulcan and Gladiator inspecting the Imperial Guard as they all tell him that "(They) serve at the pleasure of Emperor Vulcan. There is a bit with the introduction of the new Guardsman Smasher (real name Vril Rokk, another Legion of the Super-Heroes nod for a group that are one big homage to the Legion). This leads to us getting narration by Gladiator as he justifies being the biggest tool in the known universe, explaining that he is loyal to whoever runs the Shi'ar Empire, even if they are a complete and total sociopathic monster like Vulcan. As Gladiator tells Vulcan that the wedding of Crystal and Ronan is about to begin, Vulcan crypticall mentions his "present" for the soon to be married couple. And by present, he means "full-on invasion, complete with the Imperial Guard attacking the wedding ceremony on the Kree homeworld of Hala.

As the wedding ceremony begins and Crystal is being led to the altar by Black Bolt, the purple skinned changling Hobgoblin, blows up the tower projecting the massive protective forcefield suicide bomber-style, all while saying (in a cryptically sad tone) "I serve at the pleasure of Emperor Vulcan". There is a blinding flash that can be seen at the ice palace where the wedding is taking place, even as Rachel gets a psychic flash of danger in the form of a "...Huge, huge, huge teleportation burst!". Which makes Lilandra go "Oh Shit!" as she realizes that Vulcan is launching a full-scale assault on Hala.

As the Imperial Guard fall towards the palace with the intent on destroying it and everyone there, Vulcan sits in his spaceship in the Imperial fleet and oks the use of the Nega-Bomb; a monsterous weapon of mass destruction that the Shi'ar used in their last war against the Kree and which kills billions. As the Imperial Guard trash the palace and Gladiator personally destroying the giant sized robot Kree Sentries, Havok once again finds himself questioning how he can be related to such a monsterous figure.

Gladiator's narration shows that the rest of the Imperial Guard don't do as well: the new Smasher and Nightside are killed as Blackbolt attacks Gladiator and starts to strangle him. Sadly, new Imperial Guardsman "White Noise" zaps Black Bolt long enough for Gladiator to incapacitate him.

But it's all a ruse of sorts as far as goals, as Lilandra is quietly knocked unconscious by the Brianiac 5-homage Mentor and taken through a teleportation portal. Ch'od sees this and tries to stop it, but only to fail gruesomely as his hand gets caught in the closing portal and is chomped off as a result. Ronan meanwhile holds his own until his hamer gets broken and he gets slammed into the pavement by giant sized Imperial Guard Titan. As Gladiator kills a Kree soldier with death vision, he tells his troops to prepare to teleport away. As they flee via mass teleportation: Havok realizes that Lilandra is gone, Ch'od blames himself for failing to save Lilandra, Crystal tries to wake up an unconscious Ronan, and Medusa (and Black Bolt, his costume damaged to show off his manly chest), screams that the Shi'ar will pay with their blood for this assault.