Who the Clix? is a series of articles featuring information on comic book characters that have been made into figures for the popular tabletop game Heroclix. These articles are meant to help Heroclix players learn more about the characters behind their favorite pieces.
Today we look at the eternal enemies of the Skrulls: The Kree
Appearances in Heroclix: Empyre, Spider-Man and Venom Absolute Carnage, Battlegrounds: Avengers vs. Masters of Evil, Captain America and the Avengers, Avengers Black Panther and the Illuminati, Captain Marvel Movie, Earth X, Avengers Infinity, The Mighty Thor, Civil War: Storyline Organized Play, Wizkids Marvel, Age of Ultron: SLOP, Avengers Assemble, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy Movie, Fear Itself, Chaos War, Galactic Guardians: Annihilators, Galactic Guardians, Incredible Hulk, Web of Spider-Man, Hammer of Thor, Secret Invasion, Avengers, Supernova, Critical Mass, Infinity Challenge
First Appearance: Fantastic Four #65
Notable Members: Captain Atlas, Korath the Pursurer, Captain Marvel, Noh-Varr, Ronan the Accuser, Supreme Intelligence, Yon-Rogg
Created by: Jack Kirby and Stan Lee
The first iteration of the Skrull empire is a fairly peace loving group of merchants. They freely share their technology with races that the Skrulls feel can handle it and often will shape shift to resemble these new races in order to make dealings easier. The Skrulls eventually are able to develop long distance space travel and conduct a great tour of the universe. This tour eventually leads them to Hala, home of the then-barbaric Kree and peaceful Cotati. Both races are sent out to different planetoids for a year in order to prove themselves worthy of representing Hala to the Skrull Empire. It is during this time that one group of Kree are taken to the Earth’s moon and build the lost city on the blue area of the moon. During the contest, the Kree feel that the Cotati are going to win and decide to massacre their opponents. When the Kree tell the Skrull delegation this, the Skrulls are horrified and denounce the Kree. In response, the Kree massacre the Skrull delegation and take their spacecraft. The Kree then reverse-engineer the craft, gaining a great technological leap.
As a result of the great distance between Hala and Skrullos, the Skrulls do not learn of the Kree’s treacherous actions until the Kree arrive near the Skrull homeworld and promptly attack it. The Kree-Skrull War that follows lasts thousands of years and radically transforms the peaceful merchant Skrulls into the more familiar modern vicious warrior Skrulls. It is also during the Kree-Skrull war that the Skrull throneworld is moved from Skrullos to Tarnax IV. Technically, the Kree-Skrull war continues to this day, with only relatively short periods of cease fire.
The remaining Cotati on Hala are almost driven to extinction by the Kree while a small sect of pacifist priests of Pama hide and keep surviving Cotati safe. These Kree eventually begin to worship the Cotati before relocating them throughout the universe.
Two and a half centuries later, the Kree Science Council becomes aware that the Skrulls had once created an incredibly powerful weapon called the Cosmic Cube. In response, they design a cybernetic/organic supercomputer and call it the Supreme Intelligence, hoping that it will be able to create a Cube for the Kree Empire. The Supreme Intelligence, or Supremor, deems another Cube too dangerous and refuses to create it. Though this angers the Council, they continue to use the Supreme Intelligence as an adviser.
During the dawn of the Kree-Skrull War, the Kree establish a station on the planet Uranus. The Kree there discover that sentient life on Earth has great genetic potential invested in it by the ancient Celestials. Interested, the Kree begin to experiment on these primitive homo-sapiens. They hope to learn how to push their own evolution forward as well as create an army of super-soldiers to use against the Skrulls. Though the experiments yield positive results, they are scrapped when the Supreme Intelligence predicts his own destruction at the hands of one of these subjects. These subjects eventually begin to call themselves the Inhumans and establish a rich, secluded society. Hoping to keep an eye on Earth, the Kree leave behind a sentry robot on a small South Pacific island. The Fantastic Four eventually battle and destroy this robot, alerting the Kree to humanity’s advanced technological state. Ronan the Accuser is sent to avenge the destruction of the sentry but is defeated by the Fantastic Four, which only serves to further alarm the Kree.
By this time, the Supreme Intelligence has become absolute ruler of the Kree and is worshiped by many of the empire’s citizens. The Kree begin to influence Earth’s events as part of their long time war with the Skrulls. They begin to open relations with the Inhumans. Captain Marvel, a former Kree soldier, brings evidence to the Avengers that Ronan the Accusers and other conspirators are planning to erase humanity. Marvel and the Avengers foil this plan.
This only causes greater issues as the Skrulls send a fleet to annihilate the Earth, the Kree send a similar fleet to annihilate the Skrulls and a power struggle breaks out between Ronan the Accuser and the Supreme Intelligence. The Avengers manage to board and battle the Skrulls on their flagship, turning the Skrull fleet back and averting disaster.
The great Kree-Skrull War is eventually ended when Rick Jones is brought before the Supreme Intelligence and gifted incredible power. Rick Jones manages to freeze both the Kree and Skrull armies in space so that the Supremor is able to reassert his control over his people and end the futile war. Rick Jones collapses from the exertion and is on the brink of death until Captain Marvel merges his life force with Rick, bringing the young man back to full health.
The Kree and Skrulls continue to come into conflict with each other over the years, with many battles fought between the two races. However, the Kree soon manufacture a war with the Shi’ar. This war is short-lived however, as the Shi’ar endanger Earth’s safety with a wormhole opened in its solar system. This leads to the detonation of a Nega-Bomb in Kree Space, decimating the empire and leading to their surrender to the Shi’ar. This was all actually the machination of the Supreme Intelligence in a bid to kick-start the Kree’s evolution.
Remaining Kree evolve into the Ruul through the use of the Forever Crystal. They partially re-establish the Empire before the destruction of the universe, wherein Genis-Vell and Entropy recreate it returning the Kree to their original form.
During Annihilus’ attempt to annex the universe, the Kree make up 90% of the United Front. Ronan the Accuser mercy kills the Supreme Intelligence and takes control of the Kree Empire. They are soon battling the Phalanx, who successfully assimilate large portions of the Empire.
During the Skrulls’ attempted secret invasion of Earth, Noh-Varr proclaims the planet under Kree protection and helps the heroes of Earth in the final battle. He is named a hero by Earth and the Kree Empire before taking the mantle of Captain Marvel and serving on Osborn’s Avengers. When he learns of Osborn’s true motives, he abandons the team and continues to try his heroics. Ronan soon proposes a marriage to Crystal to unite the Inhumans and the Kree.
The Inhumans make war on the Skrull Empire and destroy a Skrull warship as well as three Shi’ar Warbirds before traveling to Kree-lar and claiming dominion over the Kree Empire. Emperor Vulcan of the Shi’ar declares war on the Kree and attacks the wedding of Ronan and Crystal. Black Bolt agrees to power a T-Bomb in Shi’ar space and is presumed dead, alongside Vulcan, when it explodes. Ronan then claims the Shi’ar empire in victory.
During the war with the Builders, Ronan and a resurrected Supreme Intelligence represent the Kree Empire on the Galactic Council. The war ends with Ronan and the Supremor acting as a united leadership of the Kree.
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