The Asgard/Shi’ar War will kick off in next week’s The Mighty Thor #15, but the gods of Asgard will get a rude awakening when the Shi’ar bring along gods of their own, Sharra and K'ythri.

Sharra and K'ythri designs by Russell Dauterman. (Marvel Comics)

The Mighty Thor #15 and #16 Previews 8 IMAGES

Take a look:“I would say they're a colossal threat,” series writer Jason Aaron told IGN. “The Shi'ar Imperium is a race of conquerors. They've conquered a huge swath of the Marvel Universe and imposed their will on different worlds and that's all been inspired by their gods, by Sharra and K'ythri. You have two gods who can inspire this alien armada of space conquerors, they must be pretty formidable gods. We get to see that for the first time in a very real way.”These deities have been mentioned and briefly shown in the X-Men comics where the space-faring Shi’ar aliens made their comics debut, but now they’ll be leading the charge against Asgard in this upcoming conflict, best described as Lord of the Rings vs. Star Wars.“I love the idea of doing a big fantasy versus sci-fi battle. You go back and look at the history of the Shi'ar stuff and Marvel and those very first appearances, it's pretty much a straight ripoff of Star Trek. It's part Star Trek with some Legion of Superheros mixed in. To take all that stuff, all the Shi'ar stuff, all those different toys and then slam it together in a huge way against all of the Asgardian toys we've got, seemed like a lot of fun,” Aaron said. “For me, it sort of boiled down to one image which was this image of Asgardian warriors armed with axes and swords and bows and arrows flying through space in Viking longships facing off against an armada of Shi'ar spaceships. That was kind of at the core of it, of what I wanted to see in terms of the war.”Given that Sharra and K'ythri have only made fleeting appearances -- primarily statues carved in their likeness -- this essentially gave The Mighty Thor artist Russell Dauterman, who has a background in costume design for film, free reign to do a complete redesign.“I did a full overhaul of their design, and tried to make them as separate from the Asgardian gods as I could. I started with elements from the classic Cockrum Shi'ar aesthetic, and mixed in some newer things,” Dauterman said, referring to Shi’ar co-creator Dave Cockrum. “The string veils are attached to these beak-crowns that echo the birdlike Shi'ar look, and were inspired by Eiko Ishioka's brilliant costume design work. I gave them fairly sleek body suits, and scarves that float around their bodies and move autonomously.“Jason had the idea that they would glow very brightly. I ran with that and tried to come up with a color scheme that would be otherworldly and celestial. Their clothes, hair, beaks, and eyes are solid white. Their skin, and the actual drawn-in lines of the characters, are a swirl of colors that move like a lava lamp. When they touch, the colors of their skin are seamless, so there aren't distinct colors for Sharra's hand as opposed to K'ythri's. They're very much partners and two halves to a whole, so I'm almost always showing them holding hands.”One fight that fans will no doubt want to see is Thor versus Gladiator. We’ve seen Thor Odinson take on Gladiator before, but Jane Foster has yet to get a crack at him.“Their fight is pretty brutal!” Dauterman said. “The Thor vs. Odin fight was too, but in a different way. Because of the powers involved there, and it being a fight between two mega-powered gods, their fight was huge in scope and really zoomed-out -- they were bouncing off planets. Contrast that with the Thor vs. Odinson fight. There was so much emotion involved there that the fight was really personal, up close, and even a little desperate. There was the page where we just zoomed in on Odinson trying to literally take the hammer from Thor's hand. The Gladiator fight loses the emotion completely. He's stoic and stone-faced, back straight, he's there to take Thor down because it's his duty. Because of that, the fight choreography is surgical and precise. Gladiator isn't pulling any punches with Thor or any of the other Asgardians.”“That's one battle in the midst of this war, but Thor's also going to be facing challenges even bigger and more surprising than just Gladiator,” Aaron added.Aaron has built up his cast of Asgardian characters throughout his Thor run, and now he’s pitting them against the Shi’ar, a few of whom he worked on during his series Wolverine and the X-Men.“In issue 15 which kicks off the arc is the attack on Asgardia, on the City of the Gods, so we get to see stuff like Gladiator who is the leader of the Shi'ar Imperium, he faces off against Heimdall, the guardian of the Bifröst. Then we get to see all those different forces clashing on Asgard. We've built a nice little interesting court of Asgardia. We've got Cull, the evil brother of Odin sitting on the throne, and he's got his Thunder Guard, these badass golden armored guards that Russell designed. We've got Sif, we've got a tweaked version of The Warriors Three with Hildegarde replacing Volstagg, we have Volstagg in the Congress of Worlds. Of course Jane Foster. All those characters are at play in this. We bring in Gladiator and the Imperial Guard and Kid Gladiator, his son, who I introduced in Wolverine and the X-Men, his bodyguard Warbird. All those characters show up in this in the midst of the fighting. At the end of that issue, we kind of see this is all happening because of Sharra and K'ythri, who are the two gods, husband and wife gods of the Shi'ar, who've been mentioned for as long as the Shi'ar have been around. We've heard those names but have never really seen them or spent any time on these characters. This brings them in in a huge way, and Thor's journey over the course of this arc will bring her face to face these gods,” Aaron said.For Dauterman, it was a challenge to visually distinguish the two opposing sides.“I've been trying to find visual cues that are unique for each society. Some of them are super easy -- you've got swords and dragon boats for the Asgardians versus blasters and spaceships for the Shi'ar,” Dauterman explained. “More subtly, I'm going for a clean-line look for with the Shi'ar. Asgardian clothing, hairstyles, architecture, etc. are all steeped in that fantasy/sword and sorcery world, with some Kirby tech mixed in. That look is really detailed, layered, textural -- there's a lot going on. Whereas the Shi'ar and The Imperial Guard are all pretty sleek. Same sort of thing with their architecture: structured, geometric. I'm also varying up my panel shapes to fit that. For Asgard and the Ten Realms, I like to use a lot of circular panels. But for the Shi'ar scenes, I'm almost always using angular panels with sharp corners. There's a bit in #15 where the panel shapes morph from circular to angular during the course of a scene.”And because the Shi’ar come from X-Men comics, we had to ask Aaron if any familiar mutants would be popping up.“I think that's a safe bet,” Aaron teased. “Gladiator and Warbird pop up right out of the gate, who are characters I introduced in Wolverine: The X-Men. As the arc goes along I wouldn't be surprised to see some more connections to my X-Men run.”Click through the slideshow gallery below to get your first look at lettered pages from Issue #15 (out January 11) and some inked pages from Issue #16.

Joshua is IGN’s Comics Editor. If Pokemon, Green Lantern, or Game of Thrones are frequently used words in your vocabulary, you’ll want to follow him on Twitter @JoshuaYehl and IGN