I’ve been raving about how good War of Kings is for months, about four to be exact, and every time a new issue hits the stands I’m blown away all over again. Everything about this book series is awesome from issue one to now. The book has moved along at a pleasant clip and has been full of surprises, but none bigger than this particular issue.
In comics there are all types of moments, some of my favorite moments are the ‘oh crap, what are we gonna do now’ moments that the X-Men made famous for decades. That’s the sense I get from reading War of Kings, oh crap what happens next. The ability to keep the reader guessing is key and Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett have delivered in spades.
The story so far goes like this, the Shi’ar are a galaxy beating monarchy that has been expanding it’s territory ever since Gabriel Summers came to power. Under the name Emperor Vulcan he has waged war on several fronts. His main opposition is Black Bolt of the Kree, and the two sides are locked in combat.
In the middle are two very different super teams, the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Starjammers. Both teams are fighting to bring an end to the war before it destroys the Galaxy. To call the book epic is an understatement as Marvel continues to explore outer space in their books, in fact, ever since Annihilation Marvel has been on a tear when it comes to outer space.
The book covers a lot of ground showing you the war from various angles and through multiple characters. Heck they even went and got Darkhawk out of moth balls for this. Every move has been a masterful one since the first tie-in hit shelves.
In this issue Lilandra finally makes her play to regain her role as Empress of the Shi’ar. At first things are going as smoothly as they can go, but soon enough tragedy strikes. I won’t go into detail but suffice to say that the last page of the book is what brings about the moment I alluded to earlier, make sure to head to your local comic book shop and check out this great issue of War of Kings.
