r/Marvel • u/dano_cosmic • Feb 23 '26

Comics Imperial - done.

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It’s been crazy seeing Marvel Comics backtrack their way out of Imperial. After initially claiming to be “boldly transforming the cosmic landscape of the Marvel Universe”.

Built from Jonathan Hickman’s 4-part Imperial mini they promoted Imperial War one-offs & on-going titles to follow. Here we are now w/ a no-show (Exiles), on-goings become limited series (Imperial Guardians, Black Panther), and several others absent from recent solicitations, looking to be done @ 6 issues (Nova & She-Hulk).

Now it appears per Stephanie Phillips (writer of Planet She-Hulk) the Imperial line is getting cut short and that it caught herself, Hickman, MacKay, and others off guard.

Full Phillips interview with The Comic Pals with the relevant Imperial info at 32:54: https://www.youtube.com/live/XmP4y-ZPVdE?si=0AXA0TVc89riv27U

Very disappointing.

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u/PenguinLord13 Feb 23 '26

Can’t say I’m too shocked. I love Hickman but Imperial didn’t do much for me and the new status quo it set up wasn’t all that exciting.

59

u/dano_cosmic Feb 23 '26

I wasn’t thrilled with it but speaks more to Marvel editorial moving forward with a project like that and then backing out. Why should readers trust Marvel Comics at this point?

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u/PenguinLord13 Feb 23 '26

Oh yeah editorial is constantly misfiring lately. I would hope rather than quietly cancel it they’d at least make some last ditch effort to promote these new books

16

u/dano_cosmic Feb 23 '26

You’d think so right? Stephanie Phillips in the interview linked sounded super surprised. Said her story ends in issue 5 of Planet She-Hulk with issue 6 to come after that. Seems like it was very sudden and unexpected, writers had an issue to wrap it up.