Comics War of Kings - Vulcan vs. Blackbolt

[Specter313]

When kings collide, the galaxy will tremble.

That's the forecast the cosmic cabal of writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning and editor of Bill Rosemann have given for War of Kings, a major Marvel outer space spectacular building through the remainder of this year and exploding in 2009. Tying together elements from major events including Secret Invasion and Ed Brubaker's work on UNCANNY X-MEN, "War of Kings" promises upheaval through the cosmos that will make even Abnett and Lanning's previous tour de force in ANNIHILATION: CONQUEST seem like an interstellar picnic.

"Expect to see familiar faces that Dan and Andy—aka DnA—are closely associated with as well as a whole new set of toys that they can smash together," guarantees an

enthusiastic Rosemann. "Readers know that DnA are modern masters of the sci-fi saga, and now they get to cut loose with a much larger list of ingredients."

"We are definitely trying to expand and build upon what has gone before," embellishes Lanning in reference to the game plan for this epic. "The events in War of Kings will develop directly from Secret Invasion and will bring a lot of cosmic characters and races into action. Who they are and how they react to what's occurring will very much tie in to where they have been left after all the previous stories."

At the heart of War of Kings will be Vulcan, the current emperor of the Shi'ar and the spark set to potentially ignite universal chaos. Introduced by Brubaker as the third Summers brother, sibling to the X-Men's Cyclops and Havok, when last we left Vulcan

he had solidified claim to his thrown in the X-MEN: EMPEROR VULCAN limited series written by Chris Yost and seemed set to pursue bigger and bloodier conquests.

"Vulcan's a complicated guy with a seriously screwed up personal history," notes Abnett. "[He's] not the most stable of leaders and [now the Shi'ar] are aggressively expanding their empire. This will put them at loggerheads with the universe around them and will certainly color their response to any potential [obstacles] that might come their way."

Those obstacles will include Havok and his team of Starjammers, including fellow X-Men alumni Polaris and Marvel Girl, though both editor and writing team declined comment on how the middle Summers brother would pose a threat from within the

prison he found himself confided to following EMPEROR VULCAN. They would, however, enthusiastically discuss the most surprising wild cards involved in "War of Kings," the Inhumans:

"The Inhumans have a special place in the Marvel Universe, but they don't really know their place in the human world," explains Abnett. "They're weird. They're wonderful. They are the perennial outcasts. The outsiders. They live in a fabulously alien city with a bizarre caste society and an even stranger Royal Family. That could me why [Andy and myself], as Brits, find them so endearing: they remind us of our own wacky royals!"

At the moment, the Inhumans have their own troubles to deal with in SECRET INVASION: INHUMANS, having just learned their deposed leader, Black Bolt, has been kidnapped and replaced by the Skrulls. Rosemann vows that the limited series—

written by Joe Pokaski with art by Tom Raney with the first issue hitting on August 13—will have huge ramifications on War of Kings as it pertains to the role of the Inhumans:

"The Inhumans' former king was kidnapped, possibly killed, and replaced by a hated enemy. What kind of a mood do you think they're going to be in?"

"They're mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore," tacks on Lanning.

And how will all this impending warfare affect the cosmic protectors DnA write about monthly in the NOVA and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY series, which the writers assure will tie into War of Kings in "easily digestible, bite-sized portions"?

"Here's a rock, here's a hard place—now

choose," posits Lanning devilishly.

As far as whether to expect Ronan, Super-Skrull, Wraith and the rest of DnA's extended cosmic cast, the writers remark simply that "War of Kings is a cosmic-wide event that will have ramifications felt throughout the Marvel cosmos."

In other words, get a telescope and throw on some heavy duty shades and ponder this final ominous question courtesy of Rosemann:

"When kings wage war, can the kingdoms survive?"

http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.4329.SDCC_~apos~08~colon~_War_of_Kings

 

[UraniaChang]

Um...I guess this is the third part of the Vulcan stories and that's why Havok and others won't make it back to regular X-titles just yet.

 

[Havok83]

can they please just end this saga already?

 

[X_fan08]

yeah. i feel the same way.. when did deadly genesis come out again

 

[Havok83]

yeah. i feel the same way.. when did deadly genesis come out again

It came out right after HoM. That was late 2005 I beleive.

 

[Specter313]

In Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” the titular king observed, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” Starting this December, two of the Marvel Universe’s most powerful kings are going to find themselves very uneasy because the fallout from “Secret Invasion” will ignite a war between them and their respective empires. CBR News spoke with writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, collectively known to their fans as DnA, and Editor Bill Rosemann about “War of Kings,” a mega-story which will unfold over a number of titles.


The two rulers at the heart of “War of Kings” command both powerful kingdoms as well as personal super abilities. Vulcan, AKA Gabriel Summers (brother to the X-Men known as Cyclops and Havok), rules the Shi’ar Empire and the only limit on his mutant ability to manipulate energy seems to be his own imagination. Black Bolt was the former (and possibly future) leader of the Inhumans, and his superhuman abilities have transformed his voice into a weapon that can level cities with a mere whisper.


The war between Black Bolt and Vulcan’s subjects isn’t one that breaks out suddenly. “This conflict explodes directly out of events at the end of Secret Invasion; especially out of the end of ‘Secret Invasion: Inhumans,” DnA told CBR News. “We will see it escalate and develop to the flashpoint of open war.”


Bill Rosemann added, “‘Secret Invasion: Inhumans’ definitely start the drums of war pounding. And as the armies march toward the battlefield, the mad geniuses in our marketing & sales department will make sure everyone knows where ‘War of Kings’ is heading next!”


"War of Kings" explodes out of “Secret Invasion: Inhumans,” but the project came about because of plot threads from a variety of Marvel titles. “Recent continuity in ‘Secret Invasion,' ‘Annihilation: Conquest,' ‘Nova,' ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and the cosmic ‘X-Men’ stories have all reached a confluence and gave us the opportunity to allow this story to erupt,” DnA explained “The ‘WoK’ is a natural extension and progression of the events and situations those great storylines have offered up.”


When the “War of Kings” finally does erupt, it won’t be a simple Good vs. Evil type of conflict. “This isn't a traditional heroes versus villains story, but it is going to have a true epic scale with clearly defined sides,” DnA remarked.”


“Each side of this battle thinks they are right " which makes it awfully deadly for those caught in the crossfire!” Rosemann added.


A war between an interstellar empire like the Shi’ar and a super powered culture like the Inhumans is bound to pull in individuals from across the cosmic landscape of the Marvel Universe. As of this writing, teaser images on Marvel.com asking “Who Will Rule?” have revealed that both The Guardians of the Galaxy and the StarJammers will play roles in the war. “The Marvel Universe has a variety of cosmic characters and races that are bound to be affected by such a potentially large scale incident,” DnA explained. “We plan on exploring all the possible story elements this affords us as well as focusing the events through the eyes of specific characters as they become the reader's eyes and ears to the unfolding confrontation.


“War of Kings” may be a cosmic conflict but Earth will have some significance in Black Bolt and Vulcan’s war. DNA revealed that as “War of Kings” unfolds a number of connections to characters and situations on Earth will become apparent.


Recent cosmic mega-stories like “Annihilation” and “Annihilation: Conquest” have been dark and dire affairs and “War of Kings” will feature a similar tone. “I don’t know about you, but the title ‘War of Kings’ doesn’t sound like a light-hearted romantic comedy musical,” Rosemann said. “Although, I’d pay good money to see Rocket Raccoon and Groot burst into song.”


The titles and tie-ins which will make up “War of Kings” have yet to be revealed, but readers can expect a prologue and a core mini-series which will be written by DnA. The writing duo will be keeping especially busy because their two ongoing series “Nova” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” will also tie into the mega-story. “They are all linked together, which means we're going to be burning the candle at both ends and in the middle for the foreseeable future!” the writers said.


Rosemann is all too happy to keep DnA busy with “War of Kings” and its related titles. “Great characterization, side-splitting humor, jaw-dropping cliffhangers, mind-blowing action, delicate plotline interweaving--Hey, DnA, can you recommend any of your fellow UK writers who can deliver that? Just kidding!” the editor said. “DnA have proven issue-after-issue that they’re the modern masters of sprawling sci-fi sagas. Now it’s time for all those X-fans to discover what they’ve been missing!”


http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17456

 

[Specter313]

Marvel's next space epic event will be a war between kings.

Teased by Marvel all week, the announcement at San Diego Comic-Con of the "War of Kings" event was vague, but all indications are that the showdown will feature Vulcan and the Shi'Ar against Black Bolt and the Inhumans. And although the format of War of Kings wasn't confirmed, the writers guiding the event will be Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.

"From X-Men: Emperor Vulcan to Secret Invasion, as events in various corners of the Marvel Universe began to take unexpected twists and turns, we quickly realized that many power players were swiftly heading towards a violent collision," editor Bill Rosemann told Newsarama of the event, which is set to begin in early 2009. "Vulcan vs. Black Bolt? The Shi’Ar vs. the Inhumans? That’d be a pretty good fight, wouldn’t it?"

Teaser images released by Marvel have shown the Shi’Ar, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, the Starjammers, and the Inhumans. "Looks like a volatile group of combatants!" Rosemann said. "When kings go to war, many are caught in the crossfire."

While Marvel's previous "cosmic" events -- Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest -- have mostly been relegated to cosmic characters that don't touch the rest of the Marvel universe, this event will involve much of what is going on now throughout the 616, particularly in Secret Invasion. For example, Marvel editor Nick Lowe said at Marvel's Secret Invasion panel that Chris Yost will be writing something with Vulcan that will lead up to the event and will include Havok, Polaris and Marvel Girl.

Newsarama talked to Abnett and Lanning to find out more about the event, and although the two writers aren't saying much, we talked about the Inhumans, what's up with Black Bolt and where readers should be watching out for clues of what's to come.

Newsarama: How did the idea behind War of Kings evolve?

Dan Abnett: Well, it's growing organically out of things that have happened over the last year or two in the Marvel Universe. It's growing, definitely, out of Secret Invasion and most particularly out of Secret Invasion: Inhumans. And it's coming directly out of all the stuff we've done on the cosmic books and Annihilation: Conquest. And it's also coming out of some of the great stories that have been told in the X-Men area, and it's evolved out of what's been done with the Shi-Ar Empire. Everything's sort of in this critical positioning where this story has to happen, essentially, because all the components are in the right place. If it didn't happen, there'd be something very odd going on.

Andy Lanning: And also all of those books which Dan mentioned have set the background and have created the backdrop on which a story like this can be told. So all the pieces are there through the way everything has been set up, and we're just going to play it out in the most exciting way we can.

NRAMA: Will readers of your Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova series see clues about what's coming?

AL: Without getting too specific, yes. I also think there are certain things that are going to happen in both of those books where it won't immediately be apparent where something is going to go, but it will end up having a surprising impact on the bigger event, or vice versa.

NRAMA: You're getting to play with the Inhumans. Are you Inhumans fans? How are you approaching those characters?

DA: We are Inhumans fans. And they're such outsiders. They're as much outsiders to the Marvel cosmic world as they are outsiders to Marvel Earth. We cannot say too much about how we're going to deal with them, because I think there are going to be some revelations in terms of what they do and the part they play in this. Hopefully this will be a defining moment for the Inhumans as characters in the Marvel Universe. There's something very old and weird about the Inhumas that sets them apart, and hopefully we're able to explore and expand upon what was done with them before.

NRAMA: Wasn't Black Bolt a Skrull?

DA: If he is, he's a very dead Skrull right now. [laughs] Well, the teaser shows Black Bolt or maybe someone who looks very much like Black Bolt -- let's put it that way.

AL: If it is Black Bolt, which we can neither confirm nor deny, he'll be very, very, very angry.

NRAMA: It looks like the Shi-Ar will also play into this. You haven't worked with them before as part of your cosmic stories, have you? What's that going to be like to get your hands on those characters?

AL: No. When we were doing the Annihilation stuff, [Ed] Brubaker was doing the Rise and Fall of the Shi'Ar Empire stuff. So at that stage, the Shi'Ar were kind of off the table for us, because they obviously had their own involved storyline that Ed was working on with the X-Men books. Obviously, now, things have lined up quite nicely so that we are able to involve them in the War of Kings story. It's yet another great cosmic classic that we're getting to work with. Basically, we've done the Kree, we've had Skrulls, so it's been a nice progression to work our way up to the Shi'Ar.

DA: The nice thing for us is that sometimes the characters out of the X-office do remain sort of separated because they have a continuity all their own. And the Shi'Ar are so important, cosmically speaking, I'm glad we get to use them now, because otherwise there would have to be an increasing question in Marvel readers' minds that we've had these Annihilation events, so why haven't we seen the Shi'Ar in them? You'd think it would be affecting them in some sort of way. So it will be great to show there's that we're sort of linking up different parts of the Marvel Universe, and it's really exciting.

AL: It's almost like the Shi'Ar Empire has been sitting there like they've had very noisy neighbors. This is them starting to bang on the walls and yelling to shut up. [laughs]

NRAMA: An advantage of the timing of doing a story with the Shi'Ar Empire is it now has a character like Vulcan, who has been explored quite a bit lately and has ties to the Summers characters in other parts of the Marvel Universe. Can you talk about Vulcan's role in this at all?

AL: Not too much. Not beyond the point that everyone will know going into this book that Vulcan is taking the Shi'Ar into an overly expansive time at the moment. They're kind of expanding their empire. So that, more than anything, at some point, is going to make him butt heads with some of his cosmic neighbors. And that -- and seeing what their reaction to that state of mind is -- leads to what's going to happen in the War of Kings event.

NRAMA: We've see the Starjammers in the teasers as well. So are they going to be playing a part in this?

DA: All the people you've seen in the teasers will play a part, greater or lesser, in this story. We're drawing together strands from different parts of continuity, and it would be remiss of us not to make sure that anybody who would be affected doesn't get touched upon. So we get to connect up characters that wouldn't otherwise have met, necessarily. And I think that's great. It has that sense of cosmic scope where everyone really is in the same universe. And also, if we've done this correctly, all of those characters will have some role to play in the greater story as well.

NRAMA: You guys have gotten such a great response to your events in the past, and here you are doing another one. Why do you think you're so good at juggling big, multi-character stories like this?

DA: It suits us. We like the challenge. We like a story that's got lots of elements in it. And that sort of thing seems to suit the cosmic stories that have a grand scale and grand scope to them. So I don't necessarily know why everybody else thinks we're good at them, but they're certainly something we like to do.

AL: And they asked everybody else and they said no. [laughs]

NRAMA: How much planning goes into something like this? Has it been in the works for quite some time?

DA: Yes, it's fair to say this has been in development quite a long time, and an enormous amount of planning goes into it. Planning gets revived as we go along, with things being changed and going through revisions. It's an ongoing process. And at this time, we're still in that process. We haven't gotten there yet, which is why we're being really vague about certain things because we're still moving things around and figuring out where the best place is to put them.

And also, when we put in the pitches for both Nova and Annihilation: Conquest -- and even for Guardians of the Galaxy -- we talked about all the larger concepts for the Marvel cosmic universe as a whole, which having the room now to do these things and getting even the OK to do an event like this gives you the room to play out those ideas.

NRAMA: It feels like you guys are starting to really build your own corner of the Marvel Universe. Geoff Johns and Brian Bendis both recently talked to Newsarama about how their books all work together -- and because they're on them long-term, it allows them to build toward events in their own little corner of the universe. Do you agree that something similar is happening in the cosmic part of the Marvel universe, and being Marvel exclusive and having control over this arena allows you to plan and carry out these big events?

DA: Certainly we love it. To be able to develop and play out storylines that have a genuinely lasting dramatic effect on the Marvel Universe, without having to sort of put it all back in the box when we're through with it, is great fun. We couldn't do it without the complete cooperation of our editors, who tell us, ultimately, the stuff we can do and what we can't. And that's a fair thing. It's a process of throwing ideas back and forth to see what is the best thing to do.

But yes, the really nice thing about it is, because we did a reasonable job on our own cosmic stories and began to define the cosmic part of the Marvel Universe, there are things that are coming out of Brian's corner of the Marvel Universe and things coming out of the X-Men corner that we're playing directly into now. So I think, creatively speaking, the Marvel Universe functions in an extremely interesting way with an enormous amount of give and take. People will hand over things and allow a story to run out of somebody else's area, which is great fun, 'cause it makes the universe feel more real.

It's almost like, because we've been successful with Annihilation: Conquest and the things coming out of that, we've almost become the "cosmic writers." We knew during Conquest that we were going to get the Guardians book, and it seemed at that stage that Marvel was quite happy to let us play with all the cosmic toys, which has quite a lot of stuff there for us to be messing around with. But it turns out now that it all goes quite nicely with the Secret Invasion stuff, with the Kree being a space-born race. It's like we've been brought back into the fold, as far as being able to overlap with other things as well. We were quite happy to just carry on doing our cosmic stories until the cows come home because there's so much out there to touch upon. But I think it just seems, like we said in the very beginning [of the interview], this has a nice, organic feel to it. Bendis is doing some stuff that we're getting to pick up and run with as well. And we're incredibly pleased with that.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080727-WarofKings.html

 

[Specter313]

edit

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Sign me the **** up! DD

 

[AndThePickles]

Ooo, I'm excited!

 

[Brand]

Here's hoping the real Blackbolt can smash Vulcan somehow and end our suffering. t:

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Gladiator and Gorgon better throw down :heart:

 

[Specter313]

Sign me the **** up! DD

Ooo, I'm excited!

I think you two might wanna check out the Ex Infernus thread a couple lines down. Something else revealed at Comic Con I think you'd like.

 

[AndThePickles]

I think you two might wanna check out the Ex Infernus thread a couple lines down. Something else revealed at Comic Con I think you'd like.

Thanks for directing me there; I more than like, I love! t:

 

[Cdnmouse]

Not too big on the Vulcan involvement, but am hyped about the Inhumans getting some more lime light.

 

[Canemacar]

Can Blackbolt please kill that little ***** so Marvel will drop it already?

 

[AndThePickles]

Not too big on the Vulcan involvement, but am hyped about the Inhumans getting some more lime light.

Exactly! t:

 

[Colossal Spoons]

I'm not even so much a fan of Vulcan, this just means I get to see more of the Imperial Guard, especially Gladiator :heart:

 

[OutcryX]

Colossal loves his big strong burly men

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Mohawks too :heart:

 

[chamber-music]

meh more Vulcan, think I'll pass

 

[Iceburgeruk]

So this is kind of War of the Jobbers?

I mean the Shi`ar have been beat by the X-Men so many times the Imperial Guard prob have Frequent Failure miles. I mean they essentially lose every time, they could send Hong Kong Phooey in and he would whip their asses.

And the Inhumans haven`t done much noteworthy and interesting since.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................I`m sure John Bryne did something with them back in the day.

lol.

 

[Cdnmouse]

And the Inhumans haven`t done much noteworthy and interesting since.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................I`m sure John Bryne did something with them back in the day.

lol.

And thats the shame of it. Hopefully the Inhumans will do something noteworthy now. The Inhumans should be used more, and hopefully this will kick that off.

 

[Arkady Rossovich]

I don't see the reason for this happening at all.

 

[UraniaChang]

Never like the Imperial Guard, they're the worst type of allies the X-Men ever had, every time as soon as their King or Queen replaced they change where their loyalty lies.