Gamora Leads a Brand New Team to Protect the Galactic Union in the Wake of the Events of Imperial
Cover to “Imperial Guardians #1” (published March 11th, 2026) written by Dan Abnett, pencilled by Marcello Ferreira, inked by Jay Leisten, and colored by Rachelle Rosenberg
Cover art by Sean Izaakse and Nolan Woodard
After a chaotic orchestrated assault across multiple space faring civilizations, peace seemingly reigns in the galaxy. A very fragile and uneasy peace. Spiraling out of the wake of the Imperial event, a new team of heroes comes together to try and keep the galaxy from descending into chaos and death: The Imperial Guardians! Legendary Cosmic Marvel scribe Dan Abnett delivers a new story focusing on the team of Gamora, Captain Marvel, Brawn, Darkhawk, and Cosmic Ghost Rider as they are quickly thrust into a crisis that could have galaxy wide repercussions. Join me as we delve into the beginning of a new space opera epic in the mighty Marvel manner!
Warning: This article will contain spoilers for “Imperial Guardians #1”
A Wonderful and Fragile Thing
The Imperial Guardians get to work on their first mission.
We waste exactly zero time as our issue kicks off with the assembled Imperial Guardians themselves front and center. Gamora, Captain Marvel, Brawn, Darkhawk, and Cosmic Ghost Rider charge ahead as Gamora gives the order for everyone to activate incognito mode and for Carol to take point and get their attention as everyone else follows Ghost Rider’s lead and either hide on his cosmic hell cycle or are unceremoniously dragged by his chains. The narration is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, giving us a quick run down on the current status quo of the cosmic landscape of the Marvel Universe while establishing the aforementioned Imperial Guardians don’t officially exist. This effectively confirms that the team is effectively a black ops and top secret unit but for what end and on whom’s behalf? We’ll get to that!
Our antagonists who have earned the full attention of this brand new iteration of Guardians are revealed to be rogue Kree, led by a grand admiral in charge of a warship as Carol takes the fight directly to them. We quickly cut to what appears to be a video journal entry courtesy of Gamora who is explaining the attack on the Kree vessel in the past tense. The rest of the team manage to secure an entry point in the vessel as we start to understand the team dynamics at play here which are somewhat less dysfunctional than the iconic Star-Lord led Guardians but still a riot. Brawn, aka Amadeus Cho, vents on his private log, pointing out how unstable Cosmic Ghost Rider is, which is a lot. Also interesting to note that Brawn is wearing an Iron Man suit. Gamora quickly points out that she’s not having witty banter as it is her team and her rules. Darkhawk voices his thoughts on his own private log, establishing him early on as the odd man out and someone who doesn’t quite feel he fits in with his peers. As Gamora and Darkhawk split up from the Brawn and Cosmic Ghost Rider, he also reveals that his alien tech suit has been feeding him nightmarish visions for some time.
Maximus the Mad, brother to Blackbolt, was one of the primary instigators which resulted in bloodshed and betrayal…and ultimately the Galactic Union.
We take a detour about ten hours ago to reveal that the person calling the shots for the Imperial Guardians is none other than Maximus the Mad, brother of Black Bolt, king of the Inhumans and one of the architects behind the Galactic Union, an uneasy truce of civilizations working together to ensure the whole universe doesn’t descend into chaos and madness following the events of the Imperial mini-series event. Gamora clearly isn’t happy about working for Maximus but also makes it clear to Darkhawk that it's necessary for the greater good. We find out that the above-mentioned Kree grand admiral is Sul-Hek, a nationalist war hero who has very big issues with the Inhumans now the de facto leaders of the Kree nation. He intends to protest the Inhuman rule of the Kree Empire via good ol’ antimatter warheads which are powerful enough to wipe out the Imperial Palace on the Kree home world of Hala and the continent it stands on. Given that the Galactic Union can’t have the optics of dealing with Sul-Hek, it falls upon the Imperial Guardians to get their hands dirty and save innocent lives in the process. With the purpose of the team being there falling into place, we split away from Gamora and Darkhawk to check back with Amadeus and Francis, who run into Kree Sentries and make quick work of them. We then bounce back prior to this mission and slowly put the pieces together of how the team formed in the first place. When tensions run high, specifically when it comes to the fact that Maximus had the Cosmic Ghost Rider kill them (and bring them back, of course) Gamora is stopped by Captain Marvel from executing Maximus here and there as the team reluctantly all come to the same conclusion: despite Maximus’ insidious plans, the Galactic Union *is* working and its head, Peter Quill himself, needs a team to be able to do the things the Union won’t or can’t.
With the how and why established behind the Imperial Guardians, we return to the who. Amadeus and Francis take down the main reactor as Gamora and Darkhawk slink towards their objective. The two share a moment in which he asks the daughter of Thanos if she remembers what it was like being dead. She tries to change the subject but doesn’t need to when Darkhawk is struck with a nightmarish vision involving Null-Trons. Between some nifty exposition between Sul-Hek and his crew and Captain Marvel and Gamora, we find out that the Null-Trons are the actual weapon Sul-Hek intends to use: self replicating silicate automatons coded to exterminate. More than that, we also discover that while Hala was the original target, Sul-Hek (who has since discovered he’s been boarded by the Guardians) decides to unleash these banned weapons on the galaxy itself, threatening all life and organic matter. The Guardians then make an impossible choice. Realizing the Kree grand admiral is mad enough to doom the entire galaxy to make a point, Carol decides to go Binary. In a dazzling display of raw power, Carol blinks out the warship before the mad Kree nationalist can make good on his threat to sic the Null-Trons on the rest of the cosmos in defiance of the Inhuman rule over the Kree as well as the Galactic Union.
Captain Marvel moments after going Binary and wiping out a war cruiser filled with a thousand Kree soldiers.
Luckily, the rest of the Guardians managed to escape the vessel before Carol went Binary, though the fact she had to in the first place weighs heavily on her. They debrief with Maximus, who is all too pleased with the results despite Carol being decidedly less than. He reminds them that their team will have to make uncompromising decisions for the sake of the Galactic Union and that their very first debut mission resulted in saving the galaxy. He rubs salt in the wound by telling them that Peter would be pleased with their actions and rebuffs Gamora’s request to speak to him personally. Maximus dismisses the Imperial Guardians shortly after, prompting Gamora and Captain Marvel to make a pact to bring down Maximum in the event he’s up to his old tricks…which given that he is handed Null-Tron samples from Cosmic Ghost Rider, seems entirely likely. We also discover that the private video logs are not so private as Cosmic Ghost Rider reveals he’s aware of them as he makes one of his own (while searching for cat ear filters because of course).
Our issue ends with Brawn checking up on Darkhawk, who can’t sleep and is haunted by his visions. Brawn tries to raise his spirits by informing him that without his vision concerning the Null-Trons the team would not have fared so well, but Darkhawk ominously states that things are going to get much worse as we get a glimpse of his latest vision which seems to depict haunting figures clad in space suits with one raising tier helmet’s visor to reveal a grim, skeletal like visage.
Darkhawk’s horrific vision…but what does it mean?
A Bittersweet Return to Form for Marvel’s Cosmic Slate
The Imperial Guardians work undercover to serve the greater good.
The landscape of Cosmic Marvel has changed once again following Jonathan Hickman’s Imperial event and there’s probably no one better suited to dictating the direction going forward involving the myriad intergalactic intrigue and action than Dan Abnett. Architect of the iconic Annihilation event and the writer responsible for introducing the line up of the Guardians of the Galaxy that would eventually become household names, Abnett looks to evoke the same sense of epic scale and meaningful character dynamics with Imperial Guardians. Originally planned as an ongoing series, recent solicitations have quietly confirmed that the series will instead only be a five issue mini-series, which is a little disappointing to say the least. Still, as far as first issues go, this one is worth your time.
Similar to Guardians of the Galaxy, Imperial Guardians takes a group of misfits with various personality clashes and crams them together in a volatile can, shakes said can, and then opens the tab. As such, it’s explosive and messy and I mean that as a compliment. Unlike his GotG run, though, Abnett makes it pretty clear that the Imperial Guardians are actually reinforcing the status quo instead of being rogues fighting against it which offers a completely different kind of unstable team dynamic than the beloved rag tag team of heroes. The overall concept is pretty intriguing: Black Bolt and the Inhumans succeeded in pulling off a massive coup, orchestrating a violent series of assassinations and betrayals that destabilized several intergalactic empires to the point where a Galactic Union was formed to keep the peace, a union where Peter Quill aka Star-Lord sits at its head in the wake of his father being assassinating. The Imperial Guardians know the truth and have little choice but to play along, going on black ops missions at the behest of Maximus the Mad (Black Bolt’s brother) to keep the uneasy peace.
Cosmic Ghost Rider can bring back anyone he kills thanks to the Power Cosmic.
This works two-fold. First, it gives the title a definitive direction going forward, even if it’s only for five issues total. Second, it also sets the stage for the Cosmic Marvel line going forward. In an ideal world, Imperial Guardians would be the flagship title going forward given the plot ramifications but instead has to make due with a total of five issues. I can only hope that those five issues are concise and impactful enough to at least provide enough substance for the cosmic corner of the House of Ideas to play with.
Moving on to the issue itself, I enjoyed the dynamic between the team itself and Maximus. It’s quite obvious he has an agenda here and no one wants to be working with him save Cosmic Ghost Rider. At the same time, there is the realization that simply killing Maximus or spilling the beans on what he played a huge role in would result in galactic anarchy, which puts our heroes in a tough spot. The fact that our heroes are forced to wipe out a Kree battleship with its crew to prevent them from literally destroying the galaxy out of spite also sets the tone for things to come. These guys are going to have to make tough choices for the greater good, which is always a solid narrative trope to lean on. Gamora works well as the no-nonsense leader that very much wants to kill Maximus but also realizes the importance of galactic stability. Captain Marvel serves as the powerhouse and voice of reason as a seasoned player in galactic events. Brawn is the smarts and (and well, also brawn given Amadeus Cho is also a Hulk). Darkhawk is the dark horse of the team, a certified C-list hero that has struggled to find identity and is now struggling with some horrific visions. And Cosmic Ghost Rider rounds out the team as the wild card and the one person who seems to be all too happy to work with Maximus. It’s a unique group of disparate personality types and various powers and abilities and a team you can get a lot of mileage out of (mini-series or otherwise).
Ah, good ol’ emotional blackmail!
The plot is interesting and engaging for a first issue but if you haven’t read Imperial or any of the one shots or otherwise have not had a finger on the pulse of Marvel’s cosmic arena over the past year or so, you might be lost. Abnett does a good job of giving people the bare bones minimum of what the status quo is (and why it’s so controversial) but I do think that someone going in blind might not be able to fully appreciate it without doing some homework. I don’t necessarily believe that’s a bad thing, either, as ideally reading comics should make you want to read more comics, but I do think the issue could have possibly done a better job of summing up what happened in Imperial.
Joining Abnett on this book are Marcelo Ferreriera, penciller; Jay Leisten, inker; and Rachelle Rosenberg, colorist. The art team provides dynamic action and expressive characters that feel powerful and capable yet clearly burdened with literally galaxy sized responsibilities. There’s plenty of action here and it's tempered with weight and severity without it being too gloomy. The splash pages are especially evocative as we witness the Imperial Guardians go to work. Some of the best work done here is when it comes to the characters being emotive. Gamora’s anger, Captain Marvel’s frustration, Brawn’s skepticism, Darkhawk’s anguish, and Cosmic Ghost Rider’s…well, that’s just his face, but even so! The art compliments the story and ensures it carries weight, whether in the form of Carol going Binary and wiping out a crew of thousands or the Guardians recording private logs to document their missions as a form of insurance.
Darkhawk has a vision of the Null-Trons, automatons who replicate and destroy matter itself, potentially becoming galactic or universal threats if left unchecked.
Final Thoughts and Review
Despite the disappointment of being reduced to a five issue mini-series as opposed to an ongoing title that would allegedly shape the cosmic landscape of Marvel going forward, Imperial Guardians #1 is very much a good book and I’d expect nothing less from Dan Abnett who has a history of good books and Marvel cosmic story telling. It has a strong premise to anchor the story and enough promise to ensure readers will be inclined to see it through despite the limited nature of the series. You might need to go back and read Imperial and its tie-ins for it to really click, but even without doing so, it’s a solid entry.
Final Review: 8/10
A new team of Guardians for a new era in the Marvel cosmic arena.
Imperial Guardians #1 trades the lovable rogue trappings of the most iconic iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy in favor of a more serious and dour black ops team that is fighting for the galactic status quo instead of rebelling against it. The title is just as concerned with interstellar politics and schemes as it is about cosmic action which makes it a worthy addition to the long line of stories famed Marvel Cosmic architect Dan Abnett has given us over decades.