An Accuser’s History
When the Fantastic Four defeated the Kree Sentry 459, the Supreme Intelligence sent Ronan to Earth to punish them personally. Ronan quickly located the Four and teleported them inside his “cone of impenetrability” to prevent outside interference from other hostile humans. Ben Grimm, AKA The Thing, eventually forced Ronan to take the brunt of the punishment he had intended for the FF.
Humiliated, Ronan intended to launch a full-scale reprisal against Earth, but the Supreme Intelligence sent the starship Helion to observe it instead. Already disgruntled with the Intelligence’s liberal racial policies, Ronan teamed with Imperial Minister Zarek to overthrow the SI. To this end, they manipulated a love triangle among the Helion’s commanding officers to try to force celebrated war hero Mar-Vell, AKA Captain Marvel, to commit treason so they could frame him for their crimes, only to discover the SI had manipulated them all for its own ends, ultimately imprisoning Ronan and Zarek for their insurrection. Freed by his followers, Ronan overthrew the Supreme Intelligence and activated the de-evolver machine Plan Atavus on Earth, only to have his revenge interrupted by a Skrull attack on Kree territories, renewing the ancient Kree-Skrull War.
Meanwhile, the SI secretly manipulated a Kree soldier into taking human teenager Rick Jones prisoner. Ronan recognized Jones as an ally of Earth’s Avengers and locked him in a cell to rethink his refusal to become Ronan’s personal slave. The SI then stimulated Jones’ latent Destiny Force powers to freeze both Kree and Skrull armies in their tracks and depose Ronan, whom the SI placed under its psionic control.
When Mar-Vell and Jones came to Hala to warn the SI of a Kree plot against it, the SI forced Ronan to fight the two to further its own plans for Mar-Vell. Ronan resisted the SI’s control until his mind snapped. Insane, he somehow left Hala to rampage on hated Earth, only to be captured by an unknown party, contained in a restraint-cube, and placed in custody of Kree doctors Tara and Mac-Ron, who were on a separate mission to retrieve and cleanse Sentry #459 of the “virus of the spirit” they believed caused it to act independently of its programming, and which they also believed infected Ronan.
While leaving Earth, the Kree’s spacecraft was hit by a S.H.I.E.L.D. missile and crashed in rural Texas, damaging the restraint-cube. Escaping, Ronan attacked Mar-Vell, who had been alerted by the two doctors of Ronan’s mental deterioration. Ronan killed Tara and battled Mar-Vell until the “spirit virus” destroyed his mind, leaving Ronan in an infantile state. Mac-Ron took care of him on a Texas ranch, where Ronan slowly recovered until the SI suddenly remade his mind in its own image and sent him to retrieve Carol Danvers, aka Ms. Marvel, for its own secretive ends.
Ronan continued as Public Accuser, serving the Supreme Intelligence and later the various claimants for Kree leadership after an encounter with the Silver Surfer (Norrin Radd) left the SI mentally incapacitated. Under the orders of Supreme Leader Nenora (secretly replaced by Skrull agent K6@), Ronan confronted the Surfer over his destruction of several Kree worlds and military ships, not realizing at the time that the true culprit was a Skrull, Bartak, who was impersonating the Surfer to further the plans of one of the five main claimants to the Skrull throne. Ronan later confronted the real Silver Surfer over the planet Zenn-La (the Surfer’s native world) to prove to the inhabitants that their protector couldn’t defend them against the Kree’s military might, but the Surfer defeated Ronan, and chased off the Kree armada with the aid of the Surfer’s unwanted allies, the Skrull armada.
Sometime after Nenora’s true nature was exposed, a secretly recovered SI manipulated the Kree co-leaders into renewing the Kree-Shi’ar conflict, dragging the Avengers into it as well; whom Ronan captured. The SI sent Ronan and its super-team Starforce to assassinate Shi’ar Majestrix Lilandra in retaliation, but it landed them in prison. After the Shi’ar destroyed the Kree Empire, a disaster secretly engineered by the SI to jumpstart the long-stagnant Kree genetic evolution, the Shi’ar took over the Kree’s territory. Starforce was conscripted as the new Viceroy of Cal’syee Neramani, AKA Deathbird’s guards, and though he initially escaped, Ronan was soon recaptured, pretending to aid Shi’ar interests while plotting their downfall.
During a mission involving deported Kree criminals, Ronan captured the FF’s Susan Storm Richards, AKA Invisible Woman, and forced her to help break into the Watcher Uatu’s lunar home to steal the Universal Power Core of a Psyche-Magnetron unit; though the FF and Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, forced him to leave without the device, Ronan recorded the device’s designs for later re-creation.
After using the Inhumans in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Lilandra, Ronan became one of the first Kree to be evolved by the SI’s use of the time-warping Forever Crystal into the adaptable “Ruul.” The Ruul convinced the Intergalactic Council to turn Earth into a penal institution under Ronan’s control, not realizing until too late that Ronan was part of the SI’s plot to use Ego the Living Planet to devour Earth and siphon its power into itself and all Kree within range. The plan was foiled when Wendell Vaughn, AKA Quasar, absorbed Ego into himself, though the Ruul still managed to retake much of the Kree Empire’s former territory in a series of simultaneous surprise attacks. Ronan once more became Supreme Public Accuser under the Supreme Intelligence’s rule, transforming those Kree initially unaffected by the Forever Crystal into “Ruul.”
A cadre of so-called Nu-Elite Kree, the House of Fiyero, subsequently took over rulership of the Kree Empire. One House member bribed Rigellian dissident Tana Nile into falsely accusing Ronan of colluding with Skrull Baron S’Bak to overthrow Fiyero House, and allowing parts of the Kree Empire to be placed under S’Bak’s control. Exiled from the Empire he had faithfully served, Ronan traced Nile to the backwater planet Godthab Omega, where he was reunited with his old friend Korath, also exiled from the Empire for aiding the Shi’ar years earlier.
Ronan was secretly influenced by unhinged world-shaper Glorian into a battle with the super-assassin Gamora, so Glorian could use the energy from their battle to reshape the planet into a paradise to spite his former mentor, the Shaper of Worlds. Pushed to the seldom-reached upper limits of his powers, Ronan exulted in the combat until his urge to clear his name overcame his battle lust and he left the fight to find Glorian in the spaceport town Abyss.
Ronan and Korath arrived just as Negative Zone ruler Annihilus’ Annihilation Wave hit the planet. Ronan and Gamora joined forces to fight the invading alien insectoids and to confront Glorian, who was catatonic after the forced undoing of his “masterpiece” world. Finally confronting Nile on her deathbed, Ronan confirmed the Fiyeros’ treachery but was unable to learn which Fiyero had bribed her before she died.
Ronan joined other cosmic-powered beings in the United Front alliance against Annihilus, becoming a trusted advisor of UF leader Richard Rider, aka Nova. House Fiyero sent the Kree army to aid the UF, but unknown to the UF leadership, the Fiyeros had secretly lobotomized the Supreme Intelligence to secure their rule, and made a deal with Annihilus to not seriously oppose his army in return for trade arrangements in his new order.
Representatives of the Fiyeros tried to kill Ronan, who killed them instead. Distressed by the Kree’s army deliberate lack of a battle plan and the inexplicable silence of the SI, Ronan tried to convince Nova to lend him some troops to overthrow House Fiyero, but they were interrupted by the arrival of Negative Zone robot Praxagora, who had brought the seemingly dead body of Super-Skrull with her to the front line. Shortly thereafter, the UF was attacked by Annihilus’ head Seeker, Ravenous, and Annihilus’ elite guard, the Centurions. Energies from a battle between Ronan, Ravenous and Galactus’ former herald Pyreus Kril, AKA Firelord, somehow revitalized Super-Skrull, who joined with the UF just long enough to help them escape Annihilus’ newest super-weapon, which drew destructive energies from an imprisoned Galactus.
With the United Front officially broken, Ronan grudgingly accepted Super-Skrull and Praxagora’s aid in his quest to overthrow House Fiyero. On Hala, Ronan discovered the Fiyeros’ deal with Annihilus, and once more faced Ravenous and the Centurions, with Ronan breaking his universal weapon on Ravenous’ head before the Centurions teleported back to their ships. Ronan executed the Fiyero leaders before seeking out the SI. Learning that the SI’s condition was irreversible, Ronan sadly granted it a mercy kill before formally taking the leadership of the Kree Empire, dealing a recovered Ravenous a crushing defeat by launching sections of Kree-Lar city filled with soldiers at Ravenous’ fleet and using them to drive Ravenous from Hala’s skies.
After Annihilus’ death at the hands of Nova, Ronan reluctantly signed an armistice treaty with Ravenous, ceding much of the Kree Empire (including former capital planet Kree-Lar) to him in order to buy time to rebuild the depleted Kree ranks; however, when former UF ally Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord, rebuilt the Kree’s warnet using Galadorian Spaceknight software, he unwittingly gave the techno-organic Phalanx the means to conquer the Kree Empire within hours. Led by Terran robot Ultron, the Phalanx sealed off Kree space by building a modified Babel Spire and phasing the Kree galaxy out of sync with the rest of the universe while they converted everyone within to low level Phalanx, with the “expendables” further processed into food, and a few joining their elite Select ranks. Outfitted with Phalanx converter technology, Ronan resisted assimilation even while obeying Phalanx orders to learn the secrets of a Nameless Kree whom he dubbed the Wraith (the former Zak-Del), whose alien parasitic swarm, the Exolon, could strike deadly fear into the Phalanx themselves.
When a horrified Ronan learned the Phalanx intended to use the SI’s corpse as a weapon to send a psychic order to the Kree to willingly assimilate with them, and that the Phalanx were willing to phase the Kree’s galaxy to oblivion if the Kree continued to refuse, Ronan unhappily surrendered, becoming a Select. When Wraith instead used the SI’s powers to augment his own Exolon fear powers to slay every Phalanx within range, Ronan found himself the only one spared.
Humiliated by his surrender, Ronan tried to get Wraith to kill him, but Wraith told him that the Kree needed Ronan’s leadership more than he needed to purge his humiliation by dying. Recovering, Ronan led a strike team made up of Wraith, Super-Skrull, Praxagora and resistance leader Ra-Venn to Kree-Lar, where he intended to activate a cache of 15,000 Kree Sentries hidden in an underground bunker to destroy Hala and free the Kree of Phalanx infection. Restraining Ravenous to keep him out of their way, Ronan had Wraith coat the Sentries with his Exolon parasites to keep them from being infected by the Phalanx, then had Praxagora put them under her direct control. Arriving on Hala, Ronan ordered the purge to continue despite the presence of Nova and several other cosmic-powered warriors fighting Ultron; however, Ultron took over Praxagora’s body and used it to take over the Sentries before setting Praxagora to self-destruct and leaving.
Surviving the resultant explosion via Super-Skrull’s force fields, Ronan, Ra-Venn and Wraith were horrified to find Ultron had used the Sentries to create a gigantic body for himself. Seeing the cosmic warrior Adam Warlock empower Phyla-Vell, AKA Quasar, to destroy Ultron, Ronan had Wraith use his Exolons to trap Ultron in his gigantic body to keep him from transferring his mind into another host body when Quasar struck the killing blow.
After the Kree galaxy was re-synchronized with the rest of the universe, Ronan, once more the emperor, resumed the task of rebuilding the Empire. He allowed the outlawed ancient Priests of Pama religious order to openly operate in the Empire to help the needy with their medical and food supplies. He forged an alliance with Negative Zone ruler Blastaar to support his rule of that dimension and keep it from invading the positive universe anytime soon. Ronan had the Babel Spire rebuilt to use its shield to protect the weakened Empire from space-based enemies. He also rooted out Skrull agents sent to Hala to prevent the Kree from interfering with the Skrull invasion of Earth.
Contacted by Inhuman Queen Medusa for aid in freeing her husband Black Bolt from the same group of Skrulls, Ronan agreed to a new alliance between their peoples, his price being that Medusa’s sister, Crystalia Maximoff, AKA Crystal, would become his wife. Medusa agreed, and Ronan lent his resources to help locate Black Bolt. Once freed from his captivity, Black Bolt decided it was time for the Inhumans to protect themselves, starting with the Kree race, which created them thousands of years ago, and challenged Ronan for his throne.
Seeing a chance for the Kree’s genetic revival in the Inhumans’ rule, Ronan allowed Black Bolt to take his throne in exchange for the Inhumans using their mutation-inducing Terrigen Mists to uplift the Kree once more and give his then-moribund race a new lease on life; however, during Ronan’s wedding ceremony, Gabriel Summers, the Shi’ar Majestrator Vulcan, ordered the Shi’ar Imperial Guard to slaughter the guests as a first step to conquering the Kree Empire.
Seriously injured in the resultant battle, Ronan was forced to watch the war between Vulcan and Black Bolt from his hospital bed with his new wife Crystal keeping him updated on events, though news of the Uplift program’s apparent failures may dampen his spirits.