RONAN KAIFI

Real Name: Ronan Kaifi

Identity/Class: Extraterrestrial (Sakaarian Imperials) technology user;
    slave of the First Sakaarian Empire; citizen of the First Sakaarian Empire

Occupation: Representative of the Fifth Community Congress

Group Membership: Fifth Community Congress

Affiliations: Lavin Skee;
    loyalists associated with Omaka, unspecified and unidentified number of upper middle class Imperials who were opposed to the Red King's policies, as well as a rebel movement in Fillia;
    formerly princess Omaka

Enemies: Omaka, Red King (Angmo-Asan), Primus Vand, Wildebots;
    he apparently considered the Father Emperor (Angmo the First) a necessary evil, although he nonetheless most likely still resented him for his role in his grandfather's death

Known Relatives: Elloe Kaifi (daughter), unidentified wife (or at least mother of Elloe), unidentified father (deceased), unidentified paternal grandfather (deceased)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Currently unrevealed;
    perished in the Maw, the gladiator training facility in the Mawkaw Mountains
    born in Rundi, Okini province, planet Sakaar, Tayo system, Fornax galaxy

Education: Rundi Secondary Forums;
    privately tutored

First Appearance: Incredible Hulk III#93 (May, 2006)

Powers/Abilities: Ronan Kaifi was a brilliant politician. An idealist whose faith in the legal system never waivered, he was a strong advocate for provincial rights and a harsh critic of the Red King's policies. Not physically adept, he often relied on the muscle of his bodyguard, Lavin Skee.

Height: 5'8"
Weight: 153 lbs.
Eyes: Black
Hair: None

History:
(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) <509 Post> - Ronan was born to an upper middle class family with a long history of public service and political activity in the Okini province.

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) - Ronan was extensively tutored by private scholars well into his adult years.

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) <538 Post> - Upon his father's death, Ronan was popularly elected to his vacant seat on the Fifth Community Congress. 

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) - Ronan was elected to four seven-year terms in Okini province's Fifth Community Congress.

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Great Games: Kaifi, Elloe - BTS) - Ronan's daughter, Elloe, was born years after the end of the Spike War (reported as 540 Post).

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi - BTS) -  Ronan advocated the Emperor's existence as a tool to provide much needed services to the less fortunate. 

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) - At some point (presumably following the death of the Father Emperor in 552 Post and the succession of his son, Angmo-Asan, aka the Red King), Ronan Kaifi concluded that the Empire's increasing greed was causing it to neglect its subjects. After his pleas for the Empire to protect its constituents against the increasinly frequent wildebot attacks went unanswered, Ronan began to speak out publically against the Empire's greed and corruption, joining a growing movement of upper middle class Imperials who were opposed to the Red King's policies.

(Skaar: Son of Hulk Presents – Savage World of Sakaar#1 (fb)) <7 years prior to the main story> - Ronan Kaifi attended a meeting with other loyalists to a secret meeting with Princess Omaka. When Omaka urged her loyalists to join her in taking down the Red King by force, Ronan responded that while they saluted her passion, they dare not match it. Reiterating the Red King's reports of the Fillians attacking their trade ships -- which Omaka considered suspect -- he added how the people loved the Red King for his war on Fillia. The other loyalists agreed that despite Axeman Bone being away, it was still too risky to face the Red King due to Caiera the Oldstrong. 

    When Omaka prepared to attack anyway, Kaifi and the others not only refused to join her but tried to stop her, for fear that she would bring disaster on them all. Kaifi placed his hand on her shoulder and warned that she would bring disaster on them all, while the other loyalists drew their swords, but Omaka slammed her hands together and released an energy discharge that drove Kaifi and the other  loyalists back. She retorted that they brought disaster upon themselves. 

(Skaar: Son of Hulk Presents – Savage World of Sakaar#1 (fb) - BTS) - As the loyalists predicted, however, Caiera overpowered Omaka, and the energy Caiera released shattered buildings, killing thousands of civilians. 

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Great Games: Kaifi, Elloe - BTS) <560 Post> - When tribute from Ronan Kaifi's constituents doubled, he addressed a series of petitions to the Red King, all of which were ignored. 

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Great Games: Kaifi, Elloe - BTS) - Investigating, Ronan Kaifi learned of the true extent of the neglect of his people by the Empire, leading him to begin talks with the growing rebel movement in Fillia. 

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Great Games: Kaifi, Elloe - BTS) - The more critical Ronan became, the more his family began to be ostracized by Imperial Society.

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) - After several other critics of the Empire -- such as Third Community Congress Representatives Vesta Kaito of Lower Vandro and Sixth Community Chancellor Emvo Kairee of Kumar -- were either killed or kidnapped, Ronan began to fear for his own safety and the safety of his family. 

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) - Ronan hired former Imperial Guard captain Lavin Skee to serve as his bodyguard and retainer. 

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi - BTS) - Ronan began secret meetings with rebel groups who planned to overthrow the Empire and continued to vehemently protest the recent increase in tribute necessitated by the war against the Fillians.

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi - BTS) - Presumably under orders of the Red King's agents, Ronan (and his daughter, Elloe) Kaifi, as well as Lavin Skee, were abducted from their home by a Death's Head strike force. Without formal charges, they were taken to the Maw -- the gladiator training facility in the Mawkaw Mountains -- as slaves.

(Incredible Hulk III#93) - Ronan and Elloe Kaifi were present at the Maw, the First Sakaarian Empire's most lethal gladiatorial training school, along with 20 others (including six Brood who were initially out of sight), whom trainer Primus Vand described as criminals, traitors, slaves, and monsters. Vand announced that no one on the planet believed they deserved to live and asked who would prove them wrong. When he told them that they would battle until only 7 of them survived to leave the field, Ronan spoke out, noting this to be insane: "I'm a citizen of the Empire -- an elected representative in the community congress! Does the law mena nothing? I demand to know what I'm charged with! I demand a trial! I demand--"

(Incredible Hulk III#93 / Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi - BTS) - Vand cut off Ronan's rant using a weapon that sent a terminal feedback charge through Ronan's obedience disk, vaporizing Kaifi. When Vand ordered, "Fight. Or die," the remaining 21 entered into battle.

(Incredible Hulk III#93) - Informed that community representative Ronan Kaifi was continuing to protest his increase in tribute, Angmo ordered  Kaifi's death, at which point his aide realized Kaifi had already been killed at the Maw by Primus Vand; Angmo seemed pleased that his will had been seemingly retroactively carried out.

Comments: Created by Greg Pak, Carlo Pagulayan, and Jeffrey Huet.

    Sakaarian calendar

•     I think the Modern Sakaarian Calendar and chronology in the Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook should be considered questionable. While the book was written from Greg Pak's original notes and approved by Pak and editorial, subsequent stories have contradicted those dates and even the order of events to some extent. Even within the Guidebook, which was an impressive work with a ton of great data, there were numerous contradictions.
•      In-story, we already have notes that records of the Father Emperor's life were destroyed during the War of Empires and the Spike War...and that information was pieced together in the New Encyclopedia and established as the official history of Imperial Sakaar. So, some of the information may be erroneous, some from confusion, and some of it perhaps propaganda, altered to make the Father Emperor and/or the Red King look better.
•      Additionally, most in-comic references to the Father Emperor are second-hand accounts given by beings whose motivations in imparting the correct information are questionable, such as Miek (Tales of the Warbound).
•      Regardless dates are included in this profile when listed and not found to be contradictory. Generally, when something notes something as a number of years ago, that's from the stories...when a specific date is given, that 's from the Modern Sakaarian Calendar.
•      566 Post was the date at the time the Gladiator Guidebook was published, which was around the time of Incredible Hulk III#96
•      Based on being born in 509 Post, that would make Ronan Kaifi 57 years old at the time of his death.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Ronan Kaifi should be distinguished from:

•  Ronan the Accuser, former (and probably future, if he isn't already) Supreme Public Accuser of the Kree Empire--Fantastic Four I#65

Ronan Kaifi's paternal grandfather

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) <487 post - see comments> - Ronan Kaifi's paternal grandfather was a councilor to Okini's king until he was slaughtered along with many other associated with the ruling family when General Angmo of neighboring Umegus (later the Father Emperor) conquered Okini at the start of the War of the Empires.

Notes: Ronan's grandfather was never pictured

Ronan Kaifi's father

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) - Ronan's father, who resented the Father Emperor as the man responsible for his own father's death, was eventually elected to the position of Representative in the local Commmunity Congress, a political institution with no real power established by the Father Emperor in all provinces merely to give the conquered masses a false sense of participation in the government.
    Real political power in the provinces was held by the governors, who were personally appointed to their positions by the Father Emperor and, as a result, consisted entirely of his cronies and political allies.

(Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1: The Imperials: Ronan Kaifi (fb) - BTS) <538 Post> - Upon his father's death, Ronan was popularly elected to his vacant seat on the Fifth Community Congress. 

Notes: Ronan's father was never pictured

images: (without ads)
Incredible Hulk III#93, story pg. 5, panel 3 (main; at the Maw) - image actually taken from Gladiator Guidebook profile on Kaifi;
            panel 5 (vaporized remains);
Skaar: Son of Hulk Presents – Savage World of Sakaar#1, story pg. 13, panel 4
        pg. 14, panel 3 (with loyalists standing in Omaka's path)

Appearances:
Incredible Hulk III#93-94 (May-June, 2006) - Greg Pak (writer), Carlo Pagulayan (penciler), Jeffrey Huet (inker), Nathan Cosby (assistant editor), Mark Paniccia (editor)
Planet Hulk: Gladiator Guidebook#1 (2006) - Anthony Flamini & Greg Pak (writers), Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti, Ladronn, Ryan Sook, Alex Maleev, Lucio Parrillo & James Raiz (resource artists), Jim Calafiore (new art), Jen Grunwald & Mark D. Beasley (associate editors), Michael Short (assistant editor), Jeff Youngquist (editor)
Skaar: Son of Hulk Presents – Savage World of Sakaar#1 (November, 2008) - Greg Pak (writer), Timothy Truman (penciler, inker), Jordan D. White (assistant editor), Mark Paniccia (editor)

First Posted: 01/29/2016
Last updated: 01/29/2016

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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