War of Kings

One of my long held beliefs, right up there with my famous postulation that Luxembourg is imaginary, is that Marvel underestimates and mishandles its so-called Cosmic characters to an inexcusable degree. Black Bolt is just cool. Gladiator's dedication to the Shiar throne is a neat, never-gets-old plot device. Galactus and Silver Surfer - when they're done well, it works. But the cosmic players are almost always relegated to half-hearted cross overs with DC, or to some ridiculous adventure where there's 6-12 magical objects that turn all omnipotent when together.

Maybe Marvel rarely uses Black Bolt because he doesn't talk, which must suck for the publisher; they can't foist terrible dialogue on him. Or how about Gladiator, who is, unfortunately, almost always tied to the least believable plot lines in comics - M'Kronn Crystal, Cassandra Nova (a twin that Professor X murdered in the womb? is Marvel even trying anymore?), etc. That's why I approached purchasing the first War of Kings with a little trepidation, and that's while I'll casually try out #2 and #3 with optimism (reserved optimism).

Black Bolt is finally kicking some ass. He more or less just looked cool as an Illuminati member, but all he did there was give the old baldy a head to probe. Now, the Inhumans have left the moon, where they were never that consequential in the first place, to rule the Kree, one of the suckier alien races in comics. Two birds, one stone. It's working for me.

So, I won't resort to my usual glib spotlight on specific problems. I'll just recommend giving this one a try. At the very least, the newest event can't be any worse than "What Happened to the Caped Crusader." I'm going to tear that Neil Gaiman "Special" a new one in my next post.