Road To Empyre: The Kree/Skrull War #1: Review

Mar 2020
Robbie Thompson, Mattia De Iulis

Story Name:

(no title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:
4 stars

Road To Empyre: The Kree/Skrull War #1 Review by (April 4, 2020)
Mattia De Iulis does all the art for the framing story. Javier Rodriguez pencils and inks the flashbacks with colouring by Alavaro Lopez.

This 1-shot intro to the Empyre event obviously describes the relevant bits of Marvel history, including the origins of 2 of its major players Hulkling and the Celestial Messiah.

The Skrulls and Kree were both created in the long Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four run, but most of the seminal events described here took place in Avengers titles. So it's only fitting that the 2 teams are both at the centre of the event.

We've seen an earlier lead-in to Empyre - the Incoming 1-shot. There Bel-Dann and Raksor were killed by plants and there was a message saying "Beware the trees". They were working together to unite the Kree and Skrull Empires. And we saw Hulkling become Dorrek VIII to lead both armies. So it seems likely we're heading for Kree & Skrulls vs Cotati led by Celestial Messiah.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Road To Empyre: The Kree/Skrull War #1 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
The Warners are a family of Skrull spies on Earth that we saw in the Meet The Skrulls mini-series. Mother Gloria Warner (G'iah) sends a report to the Skrull High Command informing them (and us) of what happened in that series. Their youngest daughter Ivy was kidnapped by Project Blossom and painfully used to create a method of detecting Skrulls. Father Carl Warner (Klrr) rescued her but was killed by their handler Moloth who had defected to Blossom. Gloria and her daughters (including Madison and Alice) killed Moloth in revenge. But along the way their house was destroyed. Gloria sends this report even though she never gets an acknowledgement and has lost contact with all other Skrulls on Earth.

The female Skrulls are still in the deserted Project Blossom. They've found a lab with evidence that some Kree worked there, and they were studying a leaf that some of them recognise as part of Kree/Skrull history. Gloria summarises the story.

The Skrull Empire was originally based on trade rather than war. Emperor Dorrek I offered Skrull technology to get other planets to join. Eventually they found Hala which was home to the barbaric Kree led by Morag. But they shared the world with telepathic plants, the Cotati. The Skrulls only wanted to deal with 1 species so they proposed a contest. They took a group of each species to separate distant moons, gave them Skrull tech and a year to build something impressive. The Kree came to Earth's Moon (where the Skrulls created the breathable atmosphere of the Blue Area for them) and built a city. On their moon the Cotati created a garden. The Skrulls took both parties back to Hala and adjudged the Cotati the winners. But the Kree rose up and killed the Cotati and the Skrull traders. Both species became warlike and thus began the millennia-spanning Kree/Skrull War. Which eventually spread to Earth (Avengers #89-97).

Gloria wonders if the Kree here were investigating how to finally wipe out *all* Cotati. Ivy wonders if instead it's something to do with the Celestial Messiah, who her mother says is a myth. They take the leaf and computers back to their current base in a motel where Madison starts to decrypt comms messages on the computers. Ivy is tired of war. She believes the Messiah is real and is a chance for peace. She relates *his* story to her sister Alice.

The Kree had a persecuted pacifist group called the Priests Of Pama who discovered surviving Cotati and fled with them to plant colonies on other worlds, including Earth. They had a prophecy of the Celestial Messiah to be born of the union of the Celestial Madonna and a Cotati. Eventually (Av#123-134 including Giant-Size Av#2-4) the Madonna was revealed as Mantis and she married a Cotati inhabiting the spirit of her dead lover Swordsman. Later they gave birth to a son Sequioa/Quoi. At 1st he was raised by the Cotati, but then Mantis hid him on Earth where the Avengers had to defend them against the Thanosi (clones of Thanos) (see the Av: Celestial Quest limited series).

Gloria pooh-poohs all this. Madison figures out some of the Kree info on the computer. And their motel room is blown up by a mystery assassin ...

... but Ivy shapeshifts into a large fireproof monster who swallows the other 3, escapes from the explosion and then spits them out unharmed. Madison has discovered the current GPS location of the Kree from the lab, so they head there in their car. She has also decrypted part of a transmission which reads "Attention Kree, this is Hulkling". They get their onboard computer to tell them about Hulkling.

During the Kree/Skrull War in the Avengers issues mentioned above, the Kree Mar-Vell, who was the Earth hero Captain Marvel, was captured by Super-Skrull and taken to Emperor Dorrek VII. But Mar-Vell and Dorrek's daughter Princess Annelle fell in love which led to a baby boy. Annelle sent a handmaid to smuggle him to Earth, but by then Mar-Vell had died. The handmaid raised him and told him he was a mutant. As Hulkling he was a founder member of the Young Avengers, where Super-Skrull revealed his true origin. The Skrulls wanted him to rule them as Dorrek VIII, but the Kree claimed him as well.

Now he seems to be communicating with the Kree so Gloria assumes he's decided which side he's on. Ivy insists that he might have been negotiating peace between their species, but Gloria fears she's been brainwashed. Ivy reminds them that there once *was* peace.

Some time ago various galactic powers convened on the Moon for the trial of Phoenix (X-Men #137). Raksor represented the Skrulls and Bel-Dann the Kree. Fantastic Four Annual #18 revealed that the pair had remained on the Moon fighting until their Empires chose their battle to decide the winner of the long War. But the duo had to work together to survive and this led their Empires to a peaceful alliance. But it didn't last long. (But to give Ivy's claim due credit there have been other periods of peace between the Empires. 1 of which was after Hulkling agreed to go with *both* the Skrulls and Kree, and share his time between them, but it was actually Super-Skrull in disguise. This phase was terminated by the Annihilation event.)

The Skrulls break into the target house and find the assassin with his Kree family, also posing as humans. Gloria intends to kill them but Madison persuades her not to. The Kree get a message from Emperor Dorrek VIII saying that the Kree and Skrull armadas are now joined in attacking Earth. And we see that the Emperor is Hulkling.



Mattia De Iulis
Mattia De Iulis
Mattia De Iulis
Phil Noto (Cover Penciler)
Phil Noto (Cover Inker)
Phil Noto (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Joe Caramagna.
Editor: Tom Brevoort. Editor-in-chief: C. B. Cebulski.

> Road To Empyre: The Kree/Skrull War: Book info and issue index

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