Kree-Skrull War

The Kree-Skrull War is a fictional series of conflicts in the Marvel Universe between the Kree Empire of the Greater Magellanic Cloud and the Skrull Empire of the Andromeda Galaxy that lasted for several million years. The Kree-Skrull War was first referred to as such in the eponymous storyline of the same name, originally published in "Avengers" v1 #89-97 (1971-1972), written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Sal Buscema and Neal Adams.

Fictional history

Origin of the conflict

The Skrulls were an advanced, benevolent race that first ventured outside their galaxy some ten million years ago and sought to build an intergalactic federation based on trade. On the planet Hala, they encountered the Kree, an industrialized humanoid race, and the Cotati, a race of sentient plants. The Skrulls proposed a test to determine which race was worthy to join them.

The Skrulls took a group each of Kree and Cotati to a barren planetoid in the Milky Way galaxy, Earth's moon, and bade the two groups to create something of worth. The Skrulls then departed. The Kree constructed a magnificent blue city while the Cotati cultivated a beautiful garden (This region would later become known as the Blue Area of the Moon). A year later, the Skrulls returned and their Emperor Dorrek judged the Cotati as the winners. The Kree were outraged, slaughtering the Skrulls and Cotati and seizing the Skrull starship. Due to the immense distance between Hala and Skrullos, news of the atrocity had not reached the Skrulls until the Kree had sufficient time to master the stolen technology.

Battles

Decades later, the Kree ventured into the Andromeda Galaxy, attacking Skrull outposts and finally Skrullos itself. This led the Skrulls to abandon their peaceful ways and become increasingly militaristic to combat the Kree threat.

The Kree built a supply outpost on Uranus, hoping to maintain a weapons base close to this strategic site. From this vantage point, the Kree learned of the vast genetic potential of Earth's people. Kree scientists travelled to Earth in order to perform their own experiments on the natives and develop a breed of super-soldiers to aid their war effort. The scientists created the highly-evolved sub-species called the Inhumans. Subsequently, the Kree administration dropped their immediate plans to use the Inhumans as militia, although they would millennia later attempt to do so. The Kree stationed a Sentry robot on Earth to monitor the Inhumans' progress and any Skrull activity.

Although the Kree never launched an invasion of Earth, a skirmish in the Kree-Skrull War occurred in the Sol system, involving over a dozen of Earth's superheroes, notably the Avengers and Rick Jones. Rick Jones, in particular, played a key role, because the Supreme Intelligence, through elaborate machinations, influenced Captain Marvel to construct a Kree "omni-wave projector" to stimulate the latent psionic potential, the "Destiny Force" [The Destiny Force was later explored in "Avengers Forever".] , in Jones' mind.

Skrull Empress R'kill and the Kree Supreme Intelligence believed that the war had reached a stalemate and proposed a final resolution through single combat between the Skrull warrior Raksor and the Kree soldier Bel-Dann. The Fantastic Four and the Inhumans goaded the combatants until they joined forces to ward off their attackers. The arbiter of the battle, Uatu the Watcher, commented that their willingness to cooperate demonstrated that the Kree and Skrull could work together too. In the aftermath of the conflict, the Illuminati paid a visit to the Skrulls, making it clear that they would not tolerate involving Earth further in the conflict. ["New Avengers: Illuminati" #1, Dec 2006]

Destabilization of combatants

The Devourer of Worlds, Galactus, destroyed the Skrull throneworld, Tarnax IV. Remaining Skrull territory factionalized, and the odds of victory were firmly tipped in favor of the Kree. Subsequent events drew the Brotherhood of Badoon into an alliance with the Kree, and the Zenn-Lavians aligned with the Skrulls. Intervention by the Cotati exposed Kree leader Nenora as a Skrull, and open conflict was suspended with a truce between the Kree and Skrulls. ["Silver Surfer" v3 #25-31]

During the Kree and the Shi'ar went to war. Skrull agents, apparently under the direction of the Kree Supreme Intelligence, managed to detonate the "Nega-Bomb" (a super weapon created by the Shi'ar) in Kree space, killing 90% of the Kree population. The Shi'ar then annexed the Kree Empire.

With the decimation of both the Kree and Skrull empires, the Kree-Skrull War came to an end -- though the two forces almost went to war again over the fate of the Young Avenger named Hulkling, son of Skrull Princess Anelle (and so the next in line to be Emperor of the Skrulls) and the Kree Captain Marvel.

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