Marvel Just Revealed Who’s Pulling the Strings in Imperial’s Cosmic War (And One Is a Shock)

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WARNING: Spoilers for Imperial #3 below.

Imperial #3 is by Jonathan Hickman, Iban Coello, Federico Vicentini, and Federico Blee. The issue is light on action, but it does deliver some shocking moments. Most notably, the two individuals that are playing a cosmic game of chess while death and war are occurring in the galaxy. In fact, they’re the ones responsible for the deaths of Hulk’s son, Hiro-Kala, and Star-Lord’s father, Emperor J’son, along with the Skrulls turning their backs on their alliance with the Kree, and Wakanda Prime being attacked in retaliation for the assassinations. The first villain, Grandmaster, isn’t much of a surprise, but Maximus of the Inhumans surely is.

An Elder of the Universe and an Inhuman Are Imperial‘s True Puppet Masters

Imperial #3 takes readers back one year to a meeting between Grandmaster, an Elder of the Universe, and Maximus of the Inhumans. It seems that Maximus has approached Grandmaster with a game. Being that he’s the master of games, Grandmaster couldn’t refuse. The Galactic Council is on the verge of forming a new union superpower, but all this order is messing with Maximus’ plans. He thrives in chaos, after all. So if Grandmaster wins, then Maximus hands over the secrets of Terrigenesis along with all the records of Inhuman genealogy. And if Maximus wins, he gets a favor to be named at a later date.

All Grandmaster has to do is put the Galactic Council at each other’s throats, and he has one Earth year to make it happen. As an added bonus, the Galactic Council can’t know that anyone was behind it. Grandmaster lays out how civilizations always turn to war, so artificially creating one isn’t a hard task to pull off. There’s already dissent between empires. You just have to know the right strings to pull.

With victory in hand, Grandmaster makes the shocking decision to let Maximus keep the Inhuman records. He only agreed to the game because of the audacity of the wager and its impossibility. But now having won, Grandmaster intends to put the chess pieces back where he found them, which is something Maximus can’t let happen. There’s another King on the game board that Grandmaster didn’t account for: Maximus’ brother and King of the Inhumans, Black Bolt.

The Inhumans have been lying low since Death of the Inhumans, but Black Bolt now sees an opportunity to claim an empire and help the Inhumans rise up again. Black Bolt doesn’t seem to mind the game that Maximus has been playing, even if it puts other empires in jeopardy and costs people their lives.

Some of our heroes in Imperial are now aware of what’s been going on behind the scenes. Star-Lord, Shuri, and Nova (Richard Rider) traveled to what’s left of Xandar so Nova could access the Xandarian Worldmind. Once he does, the Worldmind reveals the truth to Nova, which should lead to a dramatic showdown in Imperial #4.

Were you surprised to see the return of the Inhumans? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!