Dan Abnett returns to Marvel for IMPERIAL WAR: IMPERIAL GUARDIANS

Marvel Comics has announced Imperial‘s fifth tie-in one-shot will be Imperial War: Imperial Guardians, written by Dan Abnett and Jonathan Hickman, with art by Cory Smith. The comic, starring Captain Marvel, Gamora, Darkhawk, Cosmic Ghost Rider, and more, will see the characters unite to stop a conspiracy in the Skrull Empire, with Kl’rt (the original Super-Skrull) at its center.

Cover art by Francesco Mortarino

In IMPERIAL GUARDIANS, CAPTAIN MARVEL, GAMORA, and DARKHAWK and more assemble as a new space-faring super team to take on the many threats emerging from the conflict raging across the stars — beginning with a dark conspiracy at the heart of the SKRULL Empire! As the events of IMPERIAL explode in fatal fashion, the Super-Skrull finds himself at the center of a seditious scheme with consequences that will be felt by the entire cosmos! But he’s not the only superpower looking for answers — an unlikely team is on the hunt to avert disaster before galactic order is lost for good!

Abnett, who was one of the architects of the Cosmic Marvel comics in the late 2000s (which directly inspired James Gunn‘s Guardians of the Galaxy films), commented, “It’s great to be back telling cosmic stories as part of the Imperial event. My time spent with Nova and the Guardians back in the day was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in comics, and Jonathan’s orchestrating exactly the kind of epic-SF-scale, character-driven and drama-packed epic I love to sink my teeth into. This is quite some ride, and the Galaxy — and the Guardians — won’t be the same again! I’d say it’s the best jumping-on point for Marvel Cosmic since the original Annihilation.”

The book marks the first comic starring the Guardians and Captain Marvel since their last respective ongoings (Vol. 7, by Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, and Kev Walker, and Vol. 11, penned by Alyssa Wong), which both ended after ten issues last year. Cosmic Ghost Rider last headlined a five-issue series by Stephanie Phillips, Juann Cabal, and Guiu Vilanova in 2023, while Darkhawk was previously at the center of a 2021 series by Kyle Higgins and Juanan Ramírez.

The comic will be released on October 1. In the meantime, Imperial #2 (of 4) will be released on Wednesday, July 16, and Imperial War: Black Panther (by Hickman, Victor LaValle, and CAFU) will kick off the five announced one-shots on August 20. Imperial #4 has yet to be solicited, although issue #3 will be released on August 13, indirectly confirming all five Imperial War comics will act as a bridge to the finale. The other three installments, Planet She-Hulk, Exiles, and Nova – Centurion (each by Hickman with Phillips & Emilio Laiso, Steve Foxe & Francesco Manna, and Jed MacKay & Matteo Della Fonte), will arrive respectively on Aug. 27, Sep. 3, and Sep. 10.