AnnihilationKeith Giffen/
Andrea DiVito/
Laura Villaricovers by
Gabriele Dell'OttoMarvelwe're back ! continuing from
where we left off, the Annihilation really begins as the Wave swarms all over on their way to Earth.
Nova finds himself CIC (that's commander-in-chief for you noobs) for the resistance composed of the remnants of alien races decimated by the Annihilation Wave. they've made their stand on Daedalus-5, a planet in Kree territory.
Nova got himself a smart-alecky
aide-de-camp,
Peter Quill, the artist formerly known as
Starlord, currently known as the artist who never runs out of wisecracks.
Ronan, who has a better and bigger role overall here, makes his presence felt immediately by second-guessing his own fellow Kree commanders's tactics, and disapproving that, takes it upon himself to fire them. this despite
Ronan having a standing warrant of arrest from the ruling house of the Kree, the
Fiyero, and having sold a gazillion records with
Boyzone.
Drax, of course does his own thing - destroying, that is - and
Nova looks up to him as his best advisor.
Drax of course, has his own agenda (destroying someone in particular).
and his human ward, Cammi, knows this so well.
Drax: "darned kids. who invented them!?"speaking of
Drax - who used to be just a musclebound idiot - was he the template for
Kratos, the badass who takes down
Ares in the
God of War series? or was
Kratos the template for this new and improved
Drax?
okay, i know, the new Drax is a combo of
Kratos and the
Martian Manhunter.
up above, the former Heralds of
Galactus,
Stardust,
Red Shift and
Firelord, clear the air of Annihilation ships.
Firelord himself takes out the Wave leader,
Extirpia, allegedly the most favored concubine of
Annihilus, who controls the Hive mind that drives all Annihilation bugs (at least for this invasion force). but not without putting him in a coma.
elsewhere,
Annihilus gives his less-than-useful #2
Ravenous a chance to redeem himself after getting bitch-slapped previously by the
Silver Surfer.
we've tasted your vengeance, Ravenous, and it tastes worse than Dr. Pepper. yeeeech.
sexytime alert! we discover that
Richard's bangin' the "most dangerous woman in the galaxy",
Gamora (or so goes her press release). i'm sure they went uh ... supernova.
as it turns out, the rebel alliance (what else should we call them? call off the lawyers,
George Lucas! we're calling them the United Front!) managed to capture
Extirpia alive and upon interrogation, makes them reach for the Prozac.
Thanos has made an alliance with those two bad Ancient Ones,
Tenebrous and
Aegis, in the name of
Annihilus, and together they stomped on
Galactus and the
Silver Surfer.
awww ... Gawactus got whupped by a gurl!
surf's up! no, surf's down!the big question is, what does
Annihilus (through
Thanos) need
Galactus for? the answer is blowing in the wind. or in this scene.
Phyla, the daughter of the great-but-perhaps-not-late
Captain Mar-vell, shows up and gives
Drax more bad news. to which he reacts like a typical male getting bad news.
slapping the messenger is preferable to shooting them.Thanos has kidnapped
Heather Douglas, a.k.a.
Moondragon, originally a human being whose dead pop was reanimated by the Titans into the current
Drax we know. hence,
Moondragon is his technically his daughter. ah, just read the whole sordid story
here.
Thanos didn't like Moondragon's multiple ear piercings.why did
Thanos resort to kidnapping? because he knows
Drax is out there somewhere, and he wants to keep him away. this is
Thanos' second stupid decision of the series; the first was allying himself with
Annihilus but even he doesn't know it yet.
wait. is there anything going between
Phyla and
Heather? hmmmm-mmmm ....
DUH!
the United Front, trying to figure out their next step, discovers they have their own internal problems. mostly from the Kree side, with
Ronan being at odds with the house Fiyero.
Ronan renders the issues moot and academic by using his hammer, as usual.
Nova gets pissed because of the PR implications.
Peter enjoys the whole drama.
outside, the leaders are called in for an audience with
Praxagora, who has been lugging the
SuperSkrull's corpse around like a symbol for martyrdom. but we all know
SuperSkrull's not gonna remain a corpse for too long. no matter how implausible the reasoning might sound.
and since most of the heroes are gathered in one place, why not bring the bad guys in for a big-ass fight? yes, why not?
Ravenous appears, with his dogs and his Dogs. trigger fingers get twitchy, sweat rolls off people's faces.
the battle is soon joined, and the tide is seemingly turned in
Ravenous' favor by the arrival of the
Centurians, a bunch of super-powered jerks, each representing his/her own Negative Zone world/race. this means
Annihilus is an astute politician and has garnered some support.
of course, in the bleakest of moments, we have
Peter providing comedy relief.
wrong tree, Peter. she likes girls.the overwhelming Annihilation forces get too much for the United Front. up there,
Thanos has managed to use
Galactus as a cosmic energy source, making the big guy 'feed' (as is his nature), but redirecting or siphoning the cosmic energy from his life force to
Annihilus' generators.
the Galactus ice cream factory. yummm.the evacuation begins in earnest, before
Annihilus can use
Galactus. in the midst of it, we witness a resurrection.
Keith Giffen just chalks up the whole thing to
"... thinks Ravenous and Firelord jumpstarted him. that their combined energies did ... something. SuperSkrull is back, baby!"thanks for the well-thought out and extensive info, Mr. Giffen. thanks too, for perpetuating the tradition that no one dies in the Marvel Universe.
as a final distraction to complete the evac of Daedalus-5, the two Heralds,
Red Shift and
Stardust try to stop the planet-draining energy beam from a helpless
Galactus, and
Drax even leaves
Cammi and goes solo against the horde.
Drax hated his fans so much, he dived into the mosh pit to kick ass.
escaping to Earth orbit, the United Front disbands and everyone goes their own way.
Richard and
Peter reassess their chances - guerrilla warfare seems the best option. especially if he doesn't take down
Annihilus somehow, Earth is next.
Ronan goes off to take down house Fiyero, bringing
SuperSkrull and
Praxagora along (strange bedfellows potentially make great partners).
Drax, meanwhile, survives Daedalus-5 and is finding his way to
Thanos.
Thanos, using
Moondragon's telepathic powers to glean
Annihilus' intentions (what? for all his power he can't do that??), he is stunned - stunned, i say! - to learn
Annihilus just wants to destroy the both the (positive) universe and the Negative Zone by using
Galactus as a bomb, and drain him of his cosmic energy, because he just wants to rule the void left behind (boy needs to get out and have a life).
and why is Thanos even here anyway? boredom.
well, curiosity can kill a God ... or maybe just a cat.so it all boils down to this:
Annihilus gets bored, wants to destroy all life.
Thanos gets bored, wants to see what
Annihilus can do. in the meantime, i work my butt off to pay my bills.
jerks.Thanos changes his mind, removes the bug infestation from
Heather, and attempts to free
Galactus.
too much tequila and cement mixersDrax bursts in but
Thanos tries to keep him away to complete his task. however, he sees
Death beckoning to him ...
... and
Drax seals the deal. no thanks to his little useless sidekick
Skreet, who just watches.
Drax: "I ... Heart ... Thanos. get it? heart? hehehe!"Moondragon chides her dad for stopping
Thanos before he could free
Galactus, because
Thanos' power signature was tied in to the switch.
its rare to see Drax stunned and open-mouthed.Drax rectifies the situation by freeing the
Silver Surfer, in turn using him to free
Galactus, but not without eliciting a promise from
Galactus to protect
Moondragon. wait, we never see
Galactus saying yes.
but once freed, the big guy goes ballistic. so this means, you don't need
Thanos' power signature, you just needed enough
power.
i thought the correct slogan was "No Fear". meanwhile,
Ronan invades his home planet, and finds the ruling house Fiyero in bed with
Ravenous (well, not literally, idiot).
at least in every
Annihilation issue, we're treated to more than a few splash pages by hot Italian artist
Andrea DiVito. i've read
Stormbreaker: The Saga of Beta Ray Bill, and his pencils are perfect for such space operas. i actually felt the impact of
Ronan's hammer here.
Ravenous wants to change his name to "Hammerhead" (thank you, thank you). after dishing out justice to the ruling leaders (and
SuperSkrull tagging along just for the freebie of kicking Kree ass), most of the Kree soldiers stand down and rally behind him. Ronan is disheartened to find that the
Supreme Intelligence, the big multi-tentacled brain that every Kree worships as their head diety, has been kept in a coma by the Fiyero. he sadly resorts to euthanasia.
Ronan just got tired of tentacle sex movies.Ravenous leads the Wave to the Kree homeworld and invades it from the sky.
Ronan, being the only leader left with balls, marshalls Kree pride and repels the invasion by using "rocket cities" to reach the Annihilation ships.
the best things in life are Kree.back on
Annihilus' flagship, panic ensues as
Galactus and the
Surfer are freed, thanks to
Drax. all bugs take out their 401Ks and empty their bank accounts and make a beeline to their SUVs.
Galactus takes his anger out on the Annihilation wave.
that thing, that thing, that thing ...
meanwhile, what of
Nova and his band? with teleport technology borrowed from
Blastaar and the
Spaceknights (he-hey! where the hell have you been?) to get near
Annihilus, they ditch
Cammi along the way, and hopscotch right on top of the insects.
and just in time!
Galactus' temper tantrum lays waste to
Annihilus' fleet, but - no surprise -
Annihilus survives. which only serves to bolster his ego. but
Nova is there to slap that down.
Phyla tries to help out, and sets the stage for future stories by capturing the Quantum Bands, taken by Annihilus from the late
Quasar.
hey, wait, that's not a lateral!think you got grossed out with
Drax punching out
Thanos' heart (he had one??), wait till you get a load of this:
man, that phlegm was so hard to expel, Nova had to try the last resort.
that takes too much out of
Nova, and he has visions of seeing
Thanos with
Death (a premonition of next summer's crossover?).
so is there peace for now?
Ravenous (what, he's still alive??) calls for a truce, though
Ronan wants to smash the other side of his face in.
and since we all know
Annihilus' love of concubines (second only to his love of annihilating things), we are left in conclusion with this:
couple of nitpicky stuff -i missed the interaction between
Worldmind and
Nova; i guess
Peter filled in that role. but i hope to see more of that in the upcoming
Nova regular series. and of course we have the deaths that never mean anything. you think
Thanos would remain forever in Death's arms? yeah right.
and what of
Tenebrous and
Aegis? will
Annihilus remain a baby? your guess is as good as mine. the cash registers have spoken. look out for the
Annihilation: Heralds of Galactus spinoffs this spring and
Annihilation: Conquest this summer.
-----
issued read: Annihilation #1-6
