Well, here's this bit of news. *deep breath*
FINALLY, THE SHI'AR. . . HAVE COME BACK. . .TO COSMIC MARVEL!!!!!*
Ahem. Sorry about that.
Well, I've been waiting to see the Shi'ar react to all the upheaval in outer space these last couple of years. There two biggest rivals always seemed to be the Kree and the Skrulls**. Now the Skrull Empire was predominantly wiped out by the Annihilation Wave (has Secret Invasion given us any indication how many Skrulls are left, or how many worlds they currently control?), and what wasn't wiped out has been settled by the Wave. The Kree lost half of their Empire in that struggle, and now they're still trying to pull back together after the Phalanx threw them for a loop. Their defense systems can't be in the best shape while efforts are made to ensure there's no back door for the Phalanx to use down the line. I don't know what other species are out there that can challenge the Shi'ar, and with that crazy, pain-in-the-ass Summers brother running the show, it was inevitable they'd get expansionist.
I can't quite figure how the Inhumans are going to wind up involved. Their grudge should be with the Skrulls. Maybe they won't be distinguishing between aliens when the time comes. I wonder who'll be running the show, whether Medusa will have taken control, or whether Maximus is still running things. I know he' has no love for his brother, but I could see him using this as a rallying point, telling the populace they must retrieve their former liege, his kin, from these dastardly aliens, then using it as a way to eliminate any members of the Royal Family he doesn't trust. It's not out of the question that he's got bigger aspirations, maybe even dreams of assuming control of a galactic empire. I'm not sure the Inhumans have that much pop, but if they could get Black Bolt back, they could certainly make things interesting***.
And of course, Nova and the Guardians of the Galaxy are going to be in the mix, which can't hurt things. I've actually been a little curious about Nova's precise role in the universe. He's essentially a cop, so if the Shi'ar (or Badoon, or whomever) start to conquer another world, can the inhabitants call him for assistance? Or is that outside his jurisdiction? I guess as the sole Nova, Rich's jurisdiction is what ever he says it is, though that's probably not the best way to put that. Too totalitarian.
Even though I felt a bit let down by Conquest, and even though law of diminishing returns has to start setting in eventually, I still trust Abnett and Lanning to bring a good time to the table. For one thing, it's less likely the threat is going to be confined to a single area, like the Phalanx were. The Shi'ar (assuming they're labeled as the threat), are going to be moving outward, endangering other sentient beings, not just making preparations for future expansion, so that should help raise the stakes.
And here I was, worried about my shrinking Marvel pull list.
* One of Ken's friends and customers dropped off some DVD about the Rock at the store on Friday. One of the special features was the Rock's "greatest hits". Man, he was always coming back to some place. Why didn't he ever go anywhere he'd never been before? Anyway, it is kind of infectious.
** Even if those two spent most of their time fighting each other.
*** I demand Black Bolt vs. Galdiator! Does Mohawk Man believe he can survive if Black Bolt whispers something impressive like "Begone"? Actually, I'd like to see Black Bolt dispose of Vulcan, but that's just because Vulcan annoys me. I can't put my finger on it, but he stirs that same feeling Superboy-Prime does, where I'd just like for the character to go away. Gladiator/Black Bolt could be one hell of a battle though.
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6 comments:
I've been pining for the Shi'ar's inclusion in the Annihilation sagas, and now that I get it, I can't help thinking, "Oh no, more Vulcan..."
Nicieza's "third Summers brother" mystery should have been dispatched with under the table, and it almost was. The X-office's decision to dredge it back up was worrisome, but it still could have been resolved and then swept away. But the decision to tie it into a retcon of the entire ANAD era made it doubly difficult to ignore, and turning the whole shebang into a pivotal tragedy of the franchise made ignoring it impossible.
It's not just that Vulcan is a waste of character, it's that HE CAN'T BE FORGOTTEN. DEADLY GENESIS made him a core feature of the X-mythos. But hey, the X-office wants to trash their sandbox, that's their problem. But through some curse of fate, Marvel continues to treat the Shi'ar as though they're as integral to the X-Men as Magneto (perhaps even more so, since they at least let Bendis play with HOUSE OF M); RISE AND FALL... and EMPEROR VULCAN then made Vulcan a core feature of the Shi'ar.
The problem now is that any Annihilation-family event with the Shi'ar MUST feature Vulcan, and in order to be true to the character, Vulcan would pretty much have to be the focus (imagine if Sentry was the leader of the Avengers and trying to then write an Avengers story that sidelined him). But that would most likely bring the story down, so the logical choice would be to quickly disable Vulcan (kill him or depose him or give him an infected paper cut), but THAT would then consume the attention of the New Starjammers or (if he were deposed) veer some portion of the story back toward Westchester.
Put simply, Vulcan can't NOT water down a cosmic event, not without it either becoming X-dominated or the Shi'ar having a minimal role. The bigger the Shi'ar involvment, the bigger the Vulcan involvment, and the bigger the X-Men involvment. The only solution? Vulcan's a Skrull and the real Vulcan was a Krakoa-induced hallucination who was killed by Sinister (or eaten by Onslaught, that'd be ironic). Let Black Bolt be Majestor Shi'ar for a while (he's already got Deathbird-y armpit-wings, and certainly Aerie would appreciate a Emperor who doesn't rant or speak in Claremontian paragraphs for a change). Or hell, Groot -- a race of evolved birds led by a giant tree!
So was Brubaker's Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire run any good? I bailed after Deadly Genesis. I never really cared about the whole third Summers Bro. thins, mostly because it all happened while I was out of comics for a while. But the method of bringing him into the fold, by retconning one of the most seminal X-Men stories, just killed it for me. Why can't they retcon the shitty X-Men stories, there's a lot out there?
Anyway, Calvin, how do you feel about the news that Dan Jurgens is going to be the new, full-time Booster Gold writer as of #15? That went a good way towards allaying my fears that they won't follow-up on the clues they left at the end of #1,000,000.
Another thing that just occurred to me, could this be the point that the power finally goes to Nova's head and he convinces himself that the only way there'll be peace is if he's king?
Especially since Worldmind's status is up in the air right now, Rich may decide the best point to start rebuilding the corps is if he controls the galaxy first.
This Cosmic stuff actually sounds...interesting!
cove west: I'd like to see Groot running the Shi'ar. I'm not sure what kind of attitude he'd take towards his subjects, though. Len suggested that Gladiator should just take over some day when he feels particularly assured of himself. At least we'd be spared this nonsense about him always being loyal to the Emperor, no matter what harebrained jackassery they're up to at the moment.
As to Vulcan, well he is the sticking point. Maybe the best bet is to just make him a generic ruler type, with designs of conquering the entire universe, who just happens to have one of his brothers imprisoned. Then in real small type, oh yeah, he's related to the leader of the X-Men. I doubt Vulcan's presence can enhance the story, but if they focus on what he's going to do, and why that should involve the Inhumans, Nova, and the Guardians of the Galaxy (and whatever other space characters that want to get involved), he might not take as much off the table, as he will if the story gets bogged down in his past.
Other than that, the only idea I have (besides Abentt and Lanning somehow getting me interested in Vulcan, and I'm not sure how they might accomplish that) is that they do write him out of the story early on somehow (death, deposed, whatever), but provide some in-story reason the Starjammers aren't getting sidetracked by that, and the X-Men aren't getting drawn in. Then all we, as the audience, have to do is accept it, on the grounds that they took Vulcan off the board and now the story will be better.
jason: I didn't read it myself, but I heard mostly mixed reviews of Risa and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire. I think Chris Sims was reading though, so you might be able to check his archives for some thoughts.
As to Jurgens on Booster Gold, I'm cautiously optimistic. He certainly ought to understand Booster. I'm not aware of having read anything of his, so I don't really know what to expect. It's a decision that makes at least some sense though, which is nice.
I hadn't thought about War of Kings being the point where the Nova Force gets Rich all wonky. I've been assuming that he'll get the Worldmind back online during his time protecting his brother from Skrulls at Project Pegasus. I'm not sure exactly what the capabilities of that place are, but I'm sure they could help with that.
If he did decide to take over, I'd be curious to see how he'd go about that. Would he offer the Nova Force to people, on the pretense of recruiting them, then somehow use it to control them? That probably wouldn't work, but it's something that occurred to me.
sallyp: As I'm sure the Green Lantern books have taught, outer space makes everything more interesting.
I actually liked Rise and Fall. Admittedly, as I've said before, I have a severe X-men problem, and it did follow up on one of the more distasteful stories (in my opinion, I really didn't like Decimation). But despite all of that...
X-men in space is almost always fun, and it seemed like an old-school adventure in that regard. The problem with it was that they decided to shake it up by letting the bad guys win, and Vulcan is kind of lame. He's just too new without any buildup for his motivations, to make a victory for him seem entertaining.
The bigger problem with how everything plays out (with additional info in Divided We Stand) is that really it forces a later story to resolve a bunch of issues as well, and unless Astonishing is planning to deal with it, none of the other X-titles seems to planning a space adventure.
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