WARNING: The following contains spoilers from Empyre #5 by Al Ewing, Dan Slott, Valerio Schiti, Marte Gracia, and VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
To the heroes of the Marvel Universe, it seemed like one of their own turned to the dark side when Hulkling declared his willingness to destroy planet Earth to stop the Cotati aliens. However, Empyre #5, revealed that this was not Hulkling at all.
Instead, his grandmother R'Klll locked him away in a cell, covering his face with an iron Skrull Inhibitor Mask and using her shape shifting abilities to replace him as the Emperor of the Kree-Skrull alliance.
This alludes to the classic story of the Man in the Iron Mask, an unidentified prisoner who was held in a French prison for 34 years. Legend indicates that he was the rightful heir to the throne, the older brother of Louis XIV. The story was told in the fictional work by Alexandre Dumas in the 1840s and was later a made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In this case, it was Teddy's husband, Billy Kaplan, who uncovered the truth and revealed the deception.
Empyre #3 revealed that R'Kill was already on the emperor's ship masquerading as Tanalth, the leader of the Kree Pursuer Corps. This revelation was something of a surprise, considering R'Klll was believed to have died in John Byrne's Fantastic Four #257 when Galactus consumed the Skrull homeworld. However, she somehow survived, and it's unclear how long she's been posing as Tanalth.
From the start, Tanalth showed signs of arrogance and exhibited darker motives. She mocked Wiccan in front of Teddy, she insulted everyone on Earth and refused to respect the role of Captain Marvel as the new Accuser. When she continued to behave in this manner, it led Captain Glory to realize something was wrong. It was he who discovered that Tanalth was a Skrull, and she finally revealed herself as R'Klll, Empress of the Skrulls, and Survivor of Galactus.
Captain Glory sided with R'Klll and elected to stand by her ideals. However, he had a problem with Hulkling leading the alliance, fearing that the Young Avenger had lived among humans for too long and would cause problems. R'Klll agreed that Teddy was too much of a hero and that they would have to do something about it. Shortly after this, the new Emperor Dorrek VIII suddenly stopped referring to himself as Teddy and began to grow more ruthless.
It seemed at first that Hulkling was buckling under the pressure of ruling over the Kree and the Skrull Empires. However, there was more to it than that. Instead, he was locked away, with an iron mask over his face to block his Skrull powers. Now, Wiccan has freed his new husband, and the duo has joined forces with Captain Marvel and Human Torch to take the battle to R'Klll and her allies, with the fate of the Earth at stake.