Disclaimer: I just finished War of Kings. Gonna use spoiler tags to mention certain important plot points in case you've wondered into this thread without having read those comics and you're curious and probably want to read them too. I hope I don't end up boring you with my very long-winded ramblings! Apologies for the wall of text, anyway.
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I decided to follow this handy image which I'm sure you've seen more than once and due to that amazing Amazon digital comic sale a while ago I started reading those Cosmic Marvel comics outlined there.
Wait, no, that's not how it went.
I actually started reading Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run and was having a jolly good time until I reached a page that showed some stuff out of th Negative Zone and a being called Annihilus and I though: "well, fuck. I haven't read Annihilation yet, and I think I should just to get some context and figure out how did we get from... there to here." So then I decided to put F4 on hold, loaded up that image and submerged myself into that Cosmic goodness.
And, honestly, it was a bit rough at first.
My first/only approximation to all that stuff was the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy (and Vol. 2 earlier this year) and some very superficial knowledge of other Cosmic Marvel stuff (Galactus and Silver Surfer, the Skrulls and the Kree, Thanos and the Infinity Gems) so a lot of this stuff was... a bit overwhelming to me. "Who are these people, why are they here and why should I really care?" was a question in the back of my mind a lot of the time while reading Annihilation - and the characters themselves were really different to what was shown on screen in GOTG. Drax apparently was some dumb brute that somehow
and ended up with a very different personality; Peter Quill was being a mopey, bitter asshole who constantly said "I'm not Star-Lord, Star-Lord is deaaaad" while in prison (!); Gamora ran a gang of female thugs that included Nebula (!) on a backwater planet while Ronan... well, Ronan was the same zealot asshole than in the movie, just a lot less evil and more hilarious in his narrowmindedness. Oh, and there was a teenage girl from Alaska (!) that got paired up with Drax and reaaally got on my nerves - I guess she was supposed to be the audience stand-in but ew, the writers really dialed up the bitchiness and smarkiness up to eleven with her.
Anyway, I wasn't really feeling it until that point. Ronan's was particularly rough in terms of plot and art (once again, I really liked how unintentionally funny the guy himself was) and it all seemed to draaaag on.
Thankfully it started to pick up - thank god for Nova. My man Richard Rider got me hooked on the story, and that guy Quasar seemed like a pretty nice man too
. Silver Surfer's tie in also made me really interested in all what was happening. Sadly, Super Skrull's was just like the Ronan one: shaky, especially the art and colors. Not very pleasant to look at, seemed to clash with the covers and the rest of the books' art.
Then there's a bit of a time skip and the main event proper starts. Annihilation itself is a fairly well done arc of a galactic zerg rush, and I really liked how the Thanos/Drax/Silver Surfer stuff came together in the end:
was some delicious cosmic irony and a fucking kickass moment to be honest. Then the final battle with
was also a kickass moment that was totally earned. Character development, yay!
The event's denouement with Richard Rider gave it a very intimate feel, tbh. Again, character development: how a guy thrust into a very very difficult position copes with the fact that he's absolutely not the same person he was only a year ago. It doesn't take a galactic invasion by space bugs to relate to that.
Then came Annihilation: Conquest and, honestly? I liked it even more than its predecessor. Maybe the fact that I was more familiarized with the (large) cast of characters helped, maybe because I found the tie-ins slightly stronger, maybe because I found the Phalanx a bit more scary than the Annhilation Wave... maybe it was because of all that at the same time. And the fact that it happened thanks to the state of the universe after Annihilation made me like it even more - continuity FTW!
Oh, and it gave us the first iteration of the (modern) incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy, with Peter's rag-tag band of misfits. Loved Star-Lord's tie in, especially because he decided to stop being a mopey bitter asshole and took matters (sort of) seriously. Phyla and Moondragon's tie in was also a very interesting change of pace - I appreciate how natural their relationship felt throughout the book (instead of HEY LOOK THEY'RE LESBIAN AND DOING LESBIAN THINGS) but it turned to be a bit weird when
.
On the other hand, Wraith was... eugh. Stop trying to make edgelords happen. They're not going to happen (again). It was kind of cringe reading how "cool" this guy was with his dark cape and his dark powers and tortured backstory and.... eugh, just stop. At least he saved
, which counts for something.
The whole thing of the Phalanx assimilating people was scary as fuck, which made some fights feel really personal. Gamora was sort of tragic and creepy at the same time
, and then the actual revelation that
shook me. I actually didn't expect it. And, honestly, made me fear the character in a way that MCU movie never did.
Anyway, the endgame of the event feels tense as fuck. So many things happening, the vibe was of constant danger - the feeling that everything depended on minuscule details, it could easily be derailed and everything would be lost.
made me bite my nails. Then
in the nick of time was like a fist pumping moment.
was a "OH SHIT" moment that got even worse when
. Thankfully that was short-lived and even "that fucking edgelord" felt useful in terms of ending the Phalanx threat.
All in all, loved it and definitely wanted to keep reading whatever came next.
Thankfully that meant Guardians of the Galaxy and more Nova stuff. And both are excellent.
At this point I gotta bring back what I said earlier about how my first approach to this was the GOTG movie. Now that I've read the comics I gotta say that Gunn did a fine job capturing the tone of the comics more than the actual details - despite the fact that the movie's team is mostly the same as in the comics (sans
) the personalities are different. Still, it has that whole "bunch of clashing personalities end up forming true bonds of companionship and friendship through hardship" plus "space opera" plus "lots of humor and witty writing" spot on, so I gotta say he did a good job. I do miss Cosmo in the movies, though, beyond that cameo in GOTG1.
Nova had the task, again, of being the center of the denouement and epilogue of the event. And, again, it rose up to the task. This part of the run felt less intimate than what happened at the tail end of "Annihilation", but no less interesting: first, with Richard being all damn heroic trying to
and then, on Earth, with
that turns into something that felt like horror when
. Man, that went sour fast.
Thus ended Annihilation: Conquest. There was a line about what was to come ("analysis from deep range probes indicate heightened tensions between the Shi'ar Imperium and the Kree Empire...") and so it meant I had a choice. I either kept on reading the next big thing in the Cosmic theater, the War of Kings... or I went back and kept on reading Hickman's stuff now that I understood about Annihilus and the Negative Zone and all that.
So I chose the latter.
I'm gonna stop here for now. My next impressions, on a later post on this very thread. Thanks for reading!
Also, what do you think?
TL;DR - started reading Hickman's Fantastic Four stuff and ended up reading Cosmic Marvel. I found Annihilation good (started a bit rough, ended greatly) and Annihilation: Conquest great. Will give my thought on War of Kings later.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I decided to follow this handy image which I'm sure you've seen more than once and due to that amazing Amazon digital comic sale a while ago I started reading those Cosmic Marvel comics outlined there.
Wait, no, that's not how it went.
I actually started reading Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run and was having a jolly good time until I reached a page that showed some stuff out of th Negative Zone and a being called Annihilus and I though: "well, fuck. I haven't read Annihilation yet, and I think I should just to get some context and figure out how did we get from... there to here." So then I decided to put F4 on hold, loaded up that image and submerged myself into that Cosmic goodness.
And, honestly, it was a bit rough at first.
My first/only approximation to all that stuff was the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy (and Vol. 2 earlier this year) and some very superficial knowledge of other Cosmic Marvel stuff (Galactus and Silver Surfer, the Skrulls and the Kree, Thanos and the Infinity Gems) so a lot of this stuff was... a bit overwhelming to me. "Who are these people, why are they here and why should I really care?" was a question in the back of my mind a lot of the time while reading Annihilation - and the characters themselves were really different to what was shown on screen in GOTG. Drax apparently was some dumb brute that somehow
got murdered early on and then somehow resurrected
Anyway, I wasn't really feeling it until that point. Ronan's was particularly rough in terms of plot and art (once again, I really liked how unintentionally funny the guy himself was) and it all seemed to draaaag on.
Thankfully it started to pick up - thank god for Nova. My man Richard Rider got me hooked on the story, and that guy Quasar seemed like a pretty nice man too
shame that he got rek'd by Annihilus though
Then there's a bit of a time skip and the main event proper starts. Annihilation itself is a fairly well done arc of a galactic zerg rush, and I really liked how the Thanos/Drax/Silver Surfer stuff came together in the end:
Annihilus deciding to use Galactus as a weapon to... annihilate the entire universe and remain the last thing standing, Thanos realizing that and deciding to betray Annihilus and then Drax just appearing in time to fulfill his "destiny" and kill Thanos at the worst possible moment
Nova Prime killing Annihilus with "THIS IS FOR NOVA CORPS!"
The event's denouement with Richard Rider gave it a very intimate feel, tbh. Again, character development: how a guy thrust into a very very difficult position copes with the fact that he's absolutely not the same person he was only a year ago. It doesn't take a galactic invasion by space bugs to relate to that.
Then came Annihilation: Conquest and, honestly? I liked it even more than its predecessor. Maybe the fact that I was more familiarized with the (large) cast of characters helped, maybe because I found the tie-ins slightly stronger, maybe because I found the Phalanx a bit more scary than the Annhilation Wave... maybe it was because of all that at the same time. And the fact that it happened thanks to the state of the universe after Annihilation made me like it even more - continuity FTW!
Oh, and it gave us the first iteration of the (modern) incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy, with Peter's rag-tag band of misfits. Loved Star-Lord's tie in, especially because he decided to stop being a mopey bitter asshole and took matters (sort of) seriously. Phyla and Moondragon's tie in was also a very interesting change of pace - I appreciate how natural their relationship felt throughout the book (instead of HEY LOOK THEY'RE LESBIAN AND DOING LESBIAN THINGS) but it turned to be a bit weird when
Moondragon was literally transformed into a dragon
On the other hand, Wraith was... eugh. Stop trying to make edgelords happen. They're not going to happen (again). It was kind of cringe reading how "cool" this guy was with his dark cape and his dark powers and tortured backstory and.... eugh, just stop. At least he saved
Ronan from the Phalanx assimilation
The whole thing of the Phalanx assimilating people was scary as fuck, which made some fights feel really personal. Gamora was sort of tragic and creepy at the same time
feeling without a purpose in the universe and discovering one within the Phalanx assimilation/hive-mind
fucking ULTRON was behind the Phalanx
Anyway, the endgame of the event feels tense as fuck. So many things happening, the vibe was of constant danger - the feeling that everything depended on minuscule details, it could easily be derailed and everything would be lost.
The assault of the Babel Spire by Star-Lord's team and how it ended up in relative failure, plus Groot's sacrifice
Nova's arrival with Warlock and the other technarch, plus Gamora and Drax (free from the assimilation)
Ultron taking over Adam Warlock's body and seemingly killing Mantis
he took control over the sentries to build himself a giant body
All in all, loved it and definitely wanted to keep reading whatever came next.
Thankfully that meant Guardians of the Galaxy and more Nova stuff. And both are excellent.
At this point I gotta bring back what I said earlier about how my first approach to this was the GOTG movie. Now that I've read the comics I gotta say that Gunn did a fine job capturing the tone of the comics more than the actual details - despite the fact that the movie's team is mostly the same as in the comics (sans
Adam Warlock and Phyla-Vell... and Mantis joins the team at the end of GOTG Vol. 2 but is a founding member here
Nova had the task, again, of being the center of the denouement and epilogue of the event. And, again, it rose up to the task. This part of the run felt less intimate than what happened at the tail end of "Annihilation", but no less interesting: first, with Richard being all damn heroic trying to
save that planet's people from becoming Galactus's meal and discovering an ancient entity trying to cause more chaos and grief over there
the paranoia caused by the Skrull's Secret Invasion
the Worldmind started to rebuild the Corps without Richard consent and subliminally manipulating the recruits to do its bidding
Thus ended Annihilation: Conquest. There was a line about what was to come ("analysis from deep range probes indicate heightened tensions between the Shi'ar Imperium and the Kree Empire...") and so it meant I had a choice. I either kept on reading the next big thing in the Cosmic theater, the War of Kings... or I went back and kept on reading Hickman's stuff now that I understood about Annihilus and the Negative Zone and all that.
So I chose the latter.
I'm gonna stop here for now. My next impressions, on a later post on this very thread. Thanks for reading!
Also, what do you think?
TL;DR - started reading Hickman's Fantastic Four stuff and ended up reading Cosmic Marvel. I found Annihilation good (started a bit rough, ended greatly) and Annihilation: Conquest great. Will give my thought on War of Kings later.
