Imperial #1 impresses on scale and ambition, but needs a heart

A sweeping Marvel cosmic event! Imperial is a story of intrigue, mysteries and war, which takes place against the backdrop of the formation of a new galactic order in the Marvel Universe. Featuring HULKS, BLACK PANTHERS, NOVAS, GUARDIANS and COSMIC KINGS and QUEENS. It’s the must-read book of the summer!

Imperial #1 was written by Jonathan Hickman, illustrated by Federico Vincentini and Iban Coello, colored by Federico Blee and lettered by Cory Pettit.

Jake Murray: Having spent the last two years sequestered in Ultimate and other alternate universes, Jonathan Hickman’s magical Marvel mystery tour is back in the 616 and has reached outer space with the event miniseries Imperial. With grand ambitions of launching a whole new raft of series, this revamp represents a critical inflection point for Marvel’s cosmic line. Like Annihilation and Infinity before it, Imperial’s objective is to draw (almost) all of the disparate corners of this fictional galaxy into one council chamber before blowing it apart and piecing it back together again. This takes the form of an epic political thriller/ murder mystery, kicked off by a 50+ page opening issue, with two superstar artists building out the world alongside Hickman.

We at ComicsXF have doubled up too, so I’m joined today by Tony Thornley. Tony, hello – what were your first impressions of Imperial?

Tony Thornley: So I’m of VERY mixed feelings about this issue right away. I’m excited to talk about it though.

The game is afoot

Jake: Let’s start with the plot then. We join Hulks Banner, Walters and Cho on board an intergalactic flight to Sakaar En Nevo, the battle planet liberated and formerly ruled by The Hulk and up until now presided over by his estranged and now late son Hiro-Kala. Touching down onto a planet fervent with violence amidst a power vacuum, the Hulks discover via the Galactic Council’s Hive Mind that he was murdered, poisoned in fact. Cut to the Fulcrum City, the interstellar hub for all council territories – J’Son of Spartax is facing the very same crisis. His daughter Victoria has also been poisoned – a crime he sends his son Peter Quill aka Starlord to seek the assistance of Richard Rider to investigate. After a slightly awkward and standoffish conversation, Quill returns to Fulcrum City empty handed. J’Son opens the Galactic Council meeting by accusing the Kree-Skrull Empire of creating the poison that has killed four leaders thus far, which one of the empire’s scientists validates. He reveals that the poison was purchased by another council member, but is assassinated just before naming the potentially guilty party. Hulk manages to catch up to the killer, who is revealed to be a Wakandan. The assassin blows up the council building, ejecting everyone into the vacuum of space, and escapes. Further discussions post-event reveal that the bullet was made of Vibranium, further tracing the murder back to the Wakandans. The issue ends with The Hulk declaring war. 

With the stage set, and stakes established, are you bought in after this first issue Tony?

Tony: So, here it is for me. This feels very much like HOXPOX for cosmic Marvel. There’s a lot of set-up, a little character work and some big ideas in play.

I love to see Hickman go FULL sci-fi here. There’s intelligent poisons. There’s super-assassins. There’s all sorts of different alien cultures. Super science R&D. It’s hard sci-fi with a few superhero elements. I dig it so much.

Where I’m concerned is how little that follows any continuity. HOXPOX made a clean break, but it used continuity and history to its advantage. Here, it’s a hodge-podge. There’s a little Annihilation, a little Empyre, some Planet Hulk and Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda… It picks and chooses to the point that I don’t get it.

The actual story itself is pretty decent for a lot of set-up.

Jake: I liked the plot just fine. It’s a simple conceit, and a decent enough foundation to build from. The worldbuilding elements generally worked for me, although you’d expect that of a 50 page first issue that moves at such a leisurely pace. I thought Coello and Vincentini staged the dialogue scenes really well – the faces and body language of participants and onlookers to each exchange are all crucial to establishing the underlying potential for deception and ulterior motives. The murder mystery element worked ok too – we’re all seasoned enough by now to spot a red herring when we see one. The three stages of the ‘stitch-up’ – Wakanda being absent from the council meeting, the Wakandan assassin, and the Vibranium bullet – are right in front of our faces, so I assume Hickman is relying on the audience to identify this. The issue I have with it is that the audience beats the issue to the punchline, which takes a fair chunk of the excitement out of it.

The main concern I have coming out of this issue, and it’s quite a common criticism of Hickman’s work (sometimes unfairly) is that I struggle to see where the emotional core of this series is going to come from. If Marvel cosmic has never quite taken off previously, I think the lack of relatability and pathos for the lead characters has a lot to do with it. This is an issue in which two characters effectively lose their children, yet the clinical construction of the political stakes take precedent throughout. The scene in which Bruce confronts the death of his son feels written for expedience to me. The fact that the conversation is with J’Son in Fulcrum City and not when he’s standing over his son’s body in Sakaar is symbolic of this issue. It’s used as a means of establishing a shared motivation rather than empathy, and the dialogue is a brief and direct “here’s how I feel about it” type speech that leaves me very cold. The scene’s closing line “Do you have any idea how angry that makes me?” sounds more like a catchphrase than an emotionally resonant character moment. In sum, the scene breaks the cardinal sin of telling not showing.

Tony: Yeah and that’s a very Hickman thing. Where I do think it goes right is inserting the Hulks into it. Too many of Marvel Cosmic’s protagonists are very out there. Richard Rider is the only one of the bunch that’s human, and he’s been through so much that he’s basically not relatable any more.

Bringing in Bruce Banner, Amadeus Cho and Jen Walters as POV characters gives the story more relatable stakes. These are characters we’ve been with for decades, it instantly pulls the cosmic craziness down to something a lot more relatable. Jen is one of my favorites in particular and I’m very excited to see her navigate all of this.

Jake: The return to Sakaar storyline generally excites me though. As well as being a huge fan of Planet Hulk, the prospect of a self-proclaimed space-phobe Jennifer Walters being left to hold down the fort on a war planet in turmoil is just a great story concept. I’m not sure whether it’ll get picked up in Imperial as well as the Planet She-Hulk one-shot by Stephanie Phillips and Emilio Laiso solicited for August, but it’s something I’m already looking forward to.

Continuity cops

Jake: I believe Jonathan Hickman to be the sort of writer who defines continuity as “what the collective consciousness deems to be important” rather than “everything that’s ever happened”. I therefore find it extremely funny that this issue appears to ignore a story that ostensibly leads into it. X-Manhunt is less than three months in the rear view mirror, and it would appear that the handoff of recently resurrected Lilandra Neramani and consort Charles Xavier is already lost in space. Listen I’m all for (and I’m going to borrow some Hickman-esque language here) pruning branches of the universe that aren’t thriving, so reshaping character relationships to progress a story isn’t something I typically have an issue with. There were a couple of beats that took me out of the story a little bit, chief among them the presence of a besieged Xandra at the Galactic Council meeting. I’m sure there’s a perfectly plausible definition here, but I found it a little odd.

Tony: Here’s where the division in the types of editors and creators within Marvel is apparent. We’ll talk about some of the other elements of the issue in a second, but as far as Xandra, this makes X-Manhunt feel very distinctly like a “we need to explain every bit of continuity” mindset that can create incredibly boring stories.

Now I get, Xavier was a huge part of the X-line, even if it wasn’t on-page most of the time. So yes, if he’s playing a part in this event, he needed to be moved off-world. But that event didn’t need to be slavishly devoted of getting Xavier to EXACTLY the point we’ll first see him in the event.

Jake: Stranger still was the interaction between Nova and Starlord. Partners during the Annihilation War, and throughout 21st century Guardians of the Galaxy titles in different, subtextual ways, they read less like estranged friends here and more like office nemeses. The two have paired together well because of their lawful/ chaotic good dichotomy historically, so making it a point of tension and contention here felt incongruous with continuity that very much does matter. 

Tony: Yeah, this is one of two places where the issue fell incredibly short for me. Quill and Rider are basically the Cyclops and Wolverine, Cap and Iron Man of Marvel Cosmic. They’ve been friends, and maybe more, for twenty years, real time. It makes the issue glaringly weird, almost feeling like an alternate universe. The duo have regressed back to their relationship right after Annihilation Conquest.

The other weird continuity thing is the lack of acknowledging what’s going on with Bruce Banner. Now I get that Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Hulk run isn’t quite over, but since the beginning of Immortal Hulk, we’ve had a Banner who’s a wanderer and vagabond dealing with a monster inside him. This Banner is clean and put together, and the Hulk reverted back to the Worldbreaker persona, not the Immortal persona.

It’s weird.

Place your bets

Jake: Continuity grumbles aside, I think we’re in agreement that the stakes are set for the sort of epic, winding tale that Hickman has made his signature. Chief among the mysteries at play here is of the two figures we see at the beginning of the issue manipulating proceedings to their whims. Now my immediate thought here goes to Avengers: No Surrender and Gamesmaster, but that’s too obvious, plus he’s very fresh off messing with the Avengers. Any early predictions?

Tony: It’s the Grandmaster and Mephisto, guaranteed. It’s about time the Elders of the Universe actually DID something in cosmic Marvel, and what better way of doing something than making a deal with Satan to take over the universe.

Giving the Elders an actual role in a story and not just a vague “mover and shaker, power behind the throne” role is long overdue. Let’s see them dividing up the universe for their own enjoyment. The Champion taking over Shi’ar space to duke it out with the Imperial Guard. Grandmaster conquering Kree/Skrull space to use their political maneuvering as their own game. It’s a story I would want to see, and it’s the sort of thing that I could see Hickman writing as well.

Jake: Final thought from me is a general criticism point. Reviewing a comic issue that has at least an auxiliary purpose as a story engine is pretty tough! We’ve discussed Imperial as a standalone piece of art here, which is our job to do, but in the 24 hours after reading this issue for the first time I’ve been thinking much more about its potential. House of X #1 springs to mind as you’ve rightly said, but also Ultimate Invasion. I read Ultimate Invasion as it was coming out, and I found it a real slog. But a year-and-a-half removed, I judge what Hickman was trying to achieve there by the fact we got Ultimate Spider-Man and The Ultimates from it. Both are welcome additions to the big 2 comics landscape. Here’s hoping that Imperial, which is a better comic so far, has a similar legacy. 

Tony: Absolutely agreed. This is a lot of chess pieces, and I’d be willing to bet we’re going to get the exact structure in the end as HOXPOX and Invasion gave us. Putting Black Panther and Hulk in the middle of it gives the line two big Marvel A-listers as well.

And we haven’t talked much about the art, but holy cow is this book gorgeous. This story will do for Coello and Vincentini what HOXPOX did for Larraz and Silva. It’s big, grand, energetic, and always engaging. This is what an event like this needs.

Cosmic Quickies

• If this doesn’t lead to a Sunspot-led Cosmic X-Men series, I’ll be disappointed.
• Amadeus Cho in space is going to be a lot of fun.
• There’s not enough science fiction that uses ejecting people into vacuum as a murder weapon.
• Quill having any sort of relationship with J’Son is off-putting after so much time in Limbo.
• For anyone tracking Sinister appearances post-Krakoa, Orbis Stellaris makes a background appearance in this comic, edging ahead of Mother Righteous and Doctor Stasis in the follow-up appearance contest.
• Hard to say whether the two series will cross over at any point, but worth noting that the big old space bird is, at least in theory, in play.

Tony Thornley

Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble. Follow him @brawl2099.bsky.social.

Jake Murray

Jake Murray spends far too much time wondering if the New Mutants are OK. When he's not doing that, he can be found talking and writing about comics with anyone who will listen. Follow him @stealthisplanet.bsky.social.