What was the origin of this war, and what was the resolution? Last I read it had been going on for a million years or so. Was it ever explained why the near-omnipotent Shaper of Worlds take sides with the Skrull?
(I felt this was a little too mundane and pointless for GQ, but, nevertheless, inquring minds wanna know. . . .
“. . .why didn’t the near-omnipotent Shaper of Worlds take sides. . . .”
Man, this sounds familiar. Is this from SilverSurfer or something?
I’m almost certain that “Skrull the …” something was a movie of the mid to late 80’s. Yet I can’t find a reference in the IMDB. Conspiracy? I suspect so.
The Kree-Skrull war was an event chronicled in Marvel comics back in the 1960s. The Skrull were a race of green big-eared shape changers (they looked somewhat like the Spielberg/Dante Gremlins at first, but gradually started looked like green, pointy-eared people with bumpy chins) that first appeared in Fantastic Four #2 'way back in 1961. The Kree were another race that looked more like people.IIRC correctly, they were first known through their artifacts, like the Sentry (FF #55 or therabouts), kinda like the Krel from Forbidden Planet (KREE-KREL–naah, must be coincidence!). Later on they showed up and were seen to be white-haired people. One of their number, Mar-Vell, became Captain Marvel (not to be confused with the Billy Batston “Shazam” character from Fawcett and, later, DC), who wore a variety of costumes and eventually died of cancer (a real rarirty for a costunmed super-hero).
That said, I don’t know much about the Kree-Skrull war. I think the idea of his two alien races duking it out appealed to Stan Lee, but the details didn’t show up in Fantastic Four, the comic I bought most often. I think you’d have to go read Avengers or Thor back issues, or maybe Captain Marvel, to get the details.
Somebody HAS to have the history on an on-line site.
…and just to tie this all together, “Kull the Conqueror” was another of those Robert E. Howard characters. It was turnede into a comic boon (after the success of Howard’s “Conan the Barbarian” comic) by … Marvel!
There was also a movie in the mid-80s called “Krull”, an odd little fantasy pic that one of my friends took to calling “Krawl” because of its lethargic pace.
Captain Marvel died of cancer? Bummer. What the hell was his power anyhow? Whenever he turned up in a comic I was reading, he was usually just talking never doing much.
Seems to me that back in the 60s in Worlds of If digest-sized SF magazine, there was a series of stories involving the…Gree? “Slaves of the Gree” rings a faint bell. If so, an interesting variant at about the same time the Kree-Skrull stuff was running in Marvel
Exelcior All!
I’ve been in a kinda geeky mood of late, so I thought I’d try to help out on this.
The origins of the Kree-Skrull War:
[QUOTE]
The Skrull Empire, attempting to foster a galactic empire based on free trade, landed on the planet of Hala in the Greater Magellanic Galaxy to educate the barbaric natives to the point where they could join. However Hala had two equally intelligent races, the humanoid Kree and the plant-like Cotati. The Skrull emperor Dorrek personally journeyed to Hala to oversee a competition between the two species. The Skrulls proposed a test to determine the worthier race. Taking members of both races to a distant planetoid in another galaxy, Earth’s moon, the Skrulls created a planet-like atmosphere, the Blue Area, and bid the two races to use the resources they had to create something of worth. The Skrulls then left. The Kree constructed a magnificent city, while the Cotati created a beautiful garden.
One year later the Skrulls returned to judge the two races and found the Cotati’s accomplishment the more worthy. Enraged, the Kree killed Emperor Dorrek and the other Skrulls, as well as the Cotati. The Kree seized the Skrulls’ starship, and used it to return to their native planet. The Kree then set about deciphering how the technology of the starship worked.
When the Kree abandoned the Blue Area of the Moon, the Watcher Uatu set up his home there.
Within a hundred years of acquiring inter-stellar technology from the Skrulls the Kree empire began to spread throughout the Greater Magellanic Cloud Galaxy. The Kree launched an attack upon the Skrull empire and the peaceful Skrulls were again forced to become war-like and antagonistic to defend themselves. The Kree-Skrull Wars would continue for millions of years.
[QUOTE]
From UNOFFICIAL CHRONOLOGY TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE
More recently the Kre-Skrull War flared up in the Avengers Issues 89-97. You can find a graphic novel reprint of the issues in question fairly easily.
More info:
For an in-depth description of the Kree-Skrull War as chronicled in the Avengers Check out Avengers Assemble
In the “Secret Files” section there’s a link to a page describing “The Greatest Avenger Stories”. There you’ll find a section on the Kree-Skrull War devided into three parts.