Friday, September 13, 2019

It's "Enemy Mine," but with Gorgon and...is he supposed to be Sun Boy or Wildfire?


Oh, and the Hulk's space kid, I guess? From 2009, War of Kings: Savage World of Skaar #1, "The Enemy of My Enemy" Written by Christos N. Gage, pencils by Graham Nolan and Reilly Brown, inks by Nelson DeCastro.

The "War of Kings" was raging, and I have to admit I've read just about none of this crossover. I did read the start of the Vulcan storyline in Uncanny X-Men, but may have skipped or blacked out large portions of it. His mother, Katherine Summers, had been taken by the Shi'ar emperor, and I'm pretty sure the Shi'ar crapped all over the young Vulcan until he developed powers, then the shoe was on the other foot. Currently the new emperor, Vulcan was now at war with the Kree, which were then ruled by Black Bolt and the Inhumans. Vulcan had sent his Imperial Guard at the Inhuman royal family, attempting to kill them at the wedding of Crystal and Ronan the Accuser (I wonder if she'll take his last name...) with Starbolt nearly setting her on fire. Starbolt was marked for death by the Inhumans, and Gorgon is just itching to kill him. So much so, that neither pays much attention to the wormhole they were investigating, and both ships end up sucked in.

Crashing on an unknown planet, the battle continues until interrupted by what appears to be a stampede of feral robots. With both of their ships and men gone, Starbolt wonders if they should keep fighting, but Gorgon is more than willing to. The fight is observed by Skaar and the verbose Old Sam, who chides Skaar for abusing the "old power" and attracting the attention of two warring empires who would love to have that power themselves. Skaar doesn't intend for them to tell anyone about anything. Launching a good-sized chunk of rock at them, Skaar separates Starbolt and Gorgon, and figures they won't survive the night.

With the temperature dropping, Gorgon is cold and hungry, but still figures he's better off: Lockjaw should find him eventually. Starbolt is worse off than Gorgon assumed, though: he needed energy to maintain himself; and thought he might've found it in a magma pit before a monster comes out of it. Gorgon offers to save him, if he'll surrender; having no other way off the planet, Starbolt agrees "...but for the remainder of our time on this world...we are allies." Once teamed-up, the two realize they have a bit in common, and a grudging respect. Still, when they come across a devastated field, an old woman tells him it was the son of the Hulk, and Gorgon realizes they may be in deep. Which doesn't stop either of them from mouthing off when Skaar tells them to leave and never come back. (Whatever Skaar did apparently also caused the wormhole to flare up, bringing them there in the first place.)

Even working together they're no match for Skaar, but Lockjaw saves them at the last second. At the Inhuman Royal Palace though, Starbolt grabs Luna as a hostage: Gorgon calls dishonor on that, but Starbolt points out the Inhumans slaughtered Shi'ar troops without provocation. Lockjaw is smart enough to teleport Starbolt, Luna, and Gorgon to the Shi'ar Throneworld, where Gorgon is able to grab Luna back to safety. Still, both Vulcan and Black Bolt are intrigued by this "Sakaar" and the old power...which I'm not sure either of them did anything about, but okay. I don't know a helluva lot about Skaar either, even though I know I have another few comics with him floating about.

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

I loved Enemy Mine, so yeah, this is defintiely kid of that except for the ending.