What Do We Think Of Marvel’s ‘Imperial’ Event?

Last week, Marvel announced yet another event, but this one is one worth getting excited about. So how do we feel about about Imperial?

Coming from Jonathan Hickman, Federico Vincentini and Iban Coello, Imperial promises to completely reshape Marvel’s cosmic universe. It promises a four issue epic about Hulks, Black Panthers, Novas, Guardians and more.

“I’m very excited about this project as I’m obviously a huge fan of all things Marvel Cosmic,” Hickman said. “The goal here is to kind of do what we did with the recent Ultimate line for all of our space titles, except having the setup book (Imperial) be more of an event than a world building exercise (like Ultimate Invasion). The art team is killing it and we’re all just very excited for what’s happening in this special corner of the Marvel Universe.”

“Working with Hickman is a great challenge,” Vicentini shared. “I love his scripts. He writes really brilliant dialogue and puts incredible attention to details when it comes to the story’s setting. I had only knew Hickman as a reader, so it was incredible to be approached to work with him and Iban, who is a phenomenal artist! I’m working hard to produce my best work, and I’m certainly having a lot of fun!”

“Being involved in this project is incredible,” Coello added. “Creating all these new characters and costumes is really fun. Working with Hickman is something I never expected to be able to do, and it’s both cool and intimidating at the same time because of the magnitude of what he’s doing in the scripts. I look forward to being able to rise to the challenge and do a great job!”

Now, this might sound familiar to a lot of Marvel fans, in a few different ways. First, yes, this does have some similarity to Annihilation, the 2006 cosmic event that basically brought Marvel’s space operas back into the forefront, and reshaped that side of the universe. If it hadn’t been for Annihilation, we would not have the Guardians of the Galaxy as we know them today.

Secondly, Hickman absolutely acknowledges this is exactly the same setup as his own Ultimate Invasion and House of X. And really, that is fantastic news. The first year of the Hickman curated X-Men line was one of the best comics Marvel has released in decades, and the Earth-6160 Ultimate line is probably the most interesting alternate take on the Marvel universe created to date. House of X also elevated its artist Pepe Larraz to superstar status (as did its sister book Powers of X’s artist RB Silva), which Coello and Vincentini have been on the verge of for some time.

As far as what’s been teased here, I’m very intrigued. The Hulks front and center indicate that Sakaar is likely a huge part of this story, though it’s not clear if this is Bruce Banner quite yet or not. The latest run of Hulk has been pointing towards an ending recently, and centering this event in two Marvel A-listers alongside Black Panther would truly breathe some life into the space stories that not even Annihilation could. Both Hulk and Black Panther make sense for it as well, considering Planet Hulk and the Intergalactic Republic of Wakanda storylines’ importance to both characters.

It is a little surprising to not see the Shi’ar Imperial Guard teased here at all though. Hickman is a big fan of the characters, and there were several teased Imperial Guard stories from the Krakoa era that never saw fruition. Considering Hickman favorites Cannonball and Sunspot — the two characters with the closest ties to the Shi’ar outside of Charles Xavier himself- are not present in the current X-Men line really shows an opportunity for Hickman to revisit this longtime favorite of his.

As for the story itself, who knows? From the two pieces of concept art, it looks like it might be centered around a Hulk empire invasion of some sort. Really though, even if that were confirmed, I wouldn’t be surprised by Hickman going a very different direction than we’d expect.

Regardless, I’m excited for yet another Hickman-curated story group. Let’s see what happens.

Imperial #1 hits stands June 4, from Marvel Comics.