Marvel Comics

Written by: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

Pencils: Paul Pelletier & Bong Dazo

Inks: Rick Magyar & Joe Pimentel

     War of Kings is the latest space-faring spectacle from Marvel. Pushing its branding even more, Marvel labels this Lead-in issue not only with the new "War of Kings" Moniker, but also slaps on "Secret Invasion" for good measure...I suppose having all 8 issues of that series make the top 10 issues sold for 2008 makes it a lot like stamping "Buy Me" on the cover, but they should really have enough faith in DnA by now shouldn't they? And essentially that's what this review is going to have to rely upon.
    

    Who's DnA, you ask? None other than Misters Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, the Post-Annihilation conservators of all of marvel cosmic-dom(ok so they wrote the Annihilation: Nova lead-in). Much like Rumpelstiltskin, they've been spinning gold ever since, with the Nova ongoing, Annihilation:Conquest, and Guardians of the Galaxy. So I'm going to be giving them the benefit of the doubt here.
    

    Doubt? you ask? Well here's the thing, Secret Invasion: War of Kings, really isn't all that great. The lead-in one-shots for Annihilation and Annihilation:Conquest did their job perfectly : they got me excited about the story to come, but this seems a little like more old retreading. Adding in the fairly unexciting developments from Ed Brubaker's initial X-men arc doesn't really help all that much. Perhaps I'm Jaded here by that arc's particularly lame denoument, but Vulcan has never seemed like a terribly interesting character, so I'm not terribly excited at his apparently major part in the upcoming story. I suppose i can just hope that "War of Kings" will see his end, but if the Havok mini didn't, i sort of doubt that this will.
    

    Back to the main point tho. This book does serve its intent, setting up the story, and Paul Pelletier's Art is reasonably decent (if not his best). And i really do have all fath in DnA, they've earned it. So While Secret Invasion: War of Kings, wasn't a great comic, it wasn't horrible, so I'd rate it 3 out of 5, with hope for the future.