Nova is my new favorite character, even though he wears a bucket on his head
I really only have icons for DC stuff. So my favorite two space cops seemed the most fitting for this, even though I am talking about Marvel stuff.
So a couple of weeks, possibly a month and a half ago. Not important when. I was clicking around on tvtropes looking at the list of Marvel series published by, well, Marvel. To look at what I might want to read. I quite by accident, to be honest, clicked on Annihilation and was going to click away when I suddenly saw two words: Space Opera. I immediately knew I had to read this.
I am so glad I did. ^^
space space space space! No, okay let's focus for a bit here. I found it amusing that I went "let's take a break from DC and read something from Marvel" and the first thing I notice is a familiar name among the writers. Oh, well, still is a different universe. (I actually recognized the names of two of the writers, but the second one was because he's the writer/producer/what have you on The Middleman.
Anyway, let's split this all up into bits and pieces. Starting with one short comment on the prologue. I liked it, it was well done, a good set up, with action and emotional beats that actually affected me despite still feeling really new to this universe.
There were bits that confused me, but I blame that mostly on not being completely familiar with Marvel yet, and not on the writer.
Anyway, this was a good set up for the following event. I'm only bringing that up because I still feel that Convergence #0 was a bit boring.
And now let's split this up into parts.
Nova #1-4
This one was my favorite. Richard Rider and all he has to deal with, the survivor's guilt, having a sentient computer thing that is the only thing left of Xandar collecting everything about the world and it's people, in his brain and its main motivation to keep itself alive and only tries to protect Richard to keep itself from dying. Also Drax who is or is not the destroyer (I have no idea what is going on), and the earth human girl tagging along with Drax. She fluctuated between being annoying or just there for the ride.
I am pretty sure I fell in love with Richard Rider after like two scenes or something. I'm also pretty sure he's dead in current comics continuity, but who the hell knows. It's comics.
This is the guy I latched onto, and who I felt the most emotionally invested in. Also I love the banter between him and the worldmind.
Silver Surfer #1-4
I liked these. Silver Surfer actually taking some time to try and figure out the difference between what the annihilation wave is doing and what he helped galactus in doing. While I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions, it's still an interesting idea. How is it that allowing Galactus to feed on planets is okay but when Annihilus does it it's wrong? Granted Galactus doesn't seem to be doing it on the same scale as Annihilus does, and so his destruction could be seen as more manageable? I guess. Also it turns out that Annihilus wanted to destroy everything and be the lone ruler in an empty galaxy, which sounds like a super boring end game but whatever. We all have our own dreams.
I found the other heralds really intriguing.
Thanos was... Inevitable I guess. I had taken a long enough break to not still be completely exhausted by him. Though I am still not sure about "I was curious" as his motivation for anything. He must have had a different plan, some angle he was going to be playing.
Ronan #1-4
These I could not see why they were tied into the larger event at all to begin with. I didn't really pay attention, and was very confused by all the names and all the actions by the characters and everything was very strange. After a while though I kinda came around to it all though, because when you break it down, Ronan is on a quest to reclaim his honor after being falsely accused and having his name dragged into the dirt and basically been exiled from his people (whether or not he was actually guilty or not I don't think was settled? I don't know). He was just interrupted in his quest by the whole alien bugs invading and decimating and killing everything and everyone. Towards the end I kinda liked Ronan actually, which was a surprise, but he's an interesting character.
I don't quite understand why he's the big bad evil guy in the guardians of the galaxy movie.
Super Skrull #1-4
Okay, so this one is good because it explains a lot. Like A LOT of backstory in the narrative (all issues of all the books have these handy pages that explains characters and brief summaries of events, but having it explained in the narrative is so much preferable for me. I get that it might not be super interesting for readers familiar with the characters and their back stories, but it's a lot easier to digest than the wall of text) which I was super thankful, because well the skrull and the kree are completely new to me. A super skrull just sounds like something ridiculous. He kinda isn't though because he has all the powers of the fantastic four and is really good at using them?
Anyway, I found him to be a relatively interesting character. Yes, not exactly a hero or necessarily a good buy, but at the same time he does do some pretty selfless acts to protect others. But while he's not a hero, selling out your whole race and a whole planet just to spite him is kind of overkill.
Annihilation #1-6
Now we have our characters and the set up for the next part. Although I forgot to mention Gamora, though I am not sure what I felt about her in this. Though a few more characters managed to get into the story starting here, such as Phyla-vell but I'll get to her when I do Conquest, and Peter Quill formerly known as Starlord. So, all in all we have Nova, feeling guilty about being the only survivor of the Nova Corps and every additional death weights heavily on him, he's been thrust into being not only a hero but also in charge of the entire resistance fight, and he's aided by a bunch of characters who aren't exactly heroes but have to be, some who are in actual fact enemies. This is what the whole series is about though, overcoming difficulties, and also to come together and work along side even your enemies for the greater good. I LOVE IT!
Other things I loved was Nova and Peter "don't call me Starlord. Starlord is dead" Quill who have a lovely chemistry together and do things like banter a lot and save each other's life (mostly Nova saving Peter). Peter also does things like calling Richard 'Richie' which is amusing only because Richard tells him to stop every time. And I like to point out that I could be calling him Dick instead because uh, Dick Rider is amusing to me. My sense of humor is so mature. X)
Galactus was turned into a weapon! Even I find that idea scary! A super powerful entity has not only been defeated but is now being used as a weapon? That's freaking scary.
To be honest these six parts were all amazing, they were action packed, had a lot of emotion and had interesting characters all trying to save the day, and beat the bad guy. Also SPACE! Alien cultures. The whole universe is in danger! Heroes having doubts and being beaten and
standing up again because that is what heroes do. What's not to love?
There are some things I've left out, probably because it confused me but did not take away my enjoyment of this, because I really did like this story.
I do have one minor complaint though, this goes for the tie ins as well, that sometimes one issue would end on a cliffhanger but the next issue does not pick up exactly where the final one left off. There are also times in the middle of issues where it feels like surely there must have been some page I missed.
Also Richard's narration summing up a lot instead of showing us things feels like a cop out.
Annihilation - Heralds of Galactus #1-2
These I could probably have skipped. There were four stories split into two issues. The first one while a good ending wasn't that interesting. The second one was both confusing and interesting. I'm fascinated by this being called Stardust.
Firelord is kind of awesome, that's really all I can say about him. Silver Surfer is badass and has impressive powers being returned as a herald of Galactus.
I seriously loved this series, and this is where I should have started my exploration of Marvel in the first place. I don't regret reading the Infinity sagas, I just feel that these were more fitting to me, because uh. SPACE OPERA! It was really, really good.
Okay, I will have to split it into two posts and do the Annihilation: Conquest stuff in a second post.
So a couple of weeks, possibly a month and a half ago. Not important when. I was clicking around on tvtropes looking at the list of Marvel series published by, well, Marvel. To look at what I might want to read. I quite by accident, to be honest, clicked on Annihilation and was going to click away when I suddenly saw two words: Space Opera. I immediately knew I had to read this.
I am so glad I did. ^^
space space space space! No, okay let's focus for a bit here. I found it amusing that I went "let's take a break from DC and read something from Marvel" and the first thing I notice is a familiar name among the writers. Oh, well, still is a different universe. (I actually recognized the names of two of the writers, but the second one was because he's the writer/producer/what have you on The Middleman.
Anyway, let's split this all up into bits and pieces. Starting with one short comment on the prologue. I liked it, it was well done, a good set up, with action and emotional beats that actually affected me despite still feeling really new to this universe.
There were bits that confused me, but I blame that mostly on not being completely familiar with Marvel yet, and not on the writer.
Anyway, this was a good set up for the following event. I'm only bringing that up because I still feel that Convergence #0 was a bit boring.
And now let's split this up into parts.
Nova #1-4
This one was my favorite. Richard Rider and all he has to deal with, the survivor's guilt, having a sentient computer thing that is the only thing left of Xandar collecting everything about the world and it's people, in his brain and its main motivation to keep itself alive and only tries to protect Richard to keep itself from dying. Also Drax who is or is not the destroyer (I have no idea what is going on), and the earth human girl tagging along with Drax. She fluctuated between being annoying or just there for the ride.
I am pretty sure I fell in love with Richard Rider after like two scenes or something. I'm also pretty sure he's dead in current comics continuity, but who the hell knows. It's comics.
This is the guy I latched onto, and who I felt the most emotionally invested in. Also I love the banter between him and the worldmind.
Silver Surfer #1-4
I liked these. Silver Surfer actually taking some time to try and figure out the difference between what the annihilation wave is doing and what he helped galactus in doing. While I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions, it's still an interesting idea. How is it that allowing Galactus to feed on planets is okay but when Annihilus does it it's wrong? Granted Galactus doesn't seem to be doing it on the same scale as Annihilus does, and so his destruction could be seen as more manageable? I guess. Also it turns out that Annihilus wanted to destroy everything and be the lone ruler in an empty galaxy, which sounds like a super boring end game but whatever. We all have our own dreams.
I found the other heralds really intriguing.
Thanos was... Inevitable I guess. I had taken a long enough break to not still be completely exhausted by him. Though I am still not sure about "I was curious" as his motivation for anything. He must have had a different plan, some angle he was going to be playing.
Ronan #1-4
These I could not see why they were tied into the larger event at all to begin with. I didn't really pay attention, and was very confused by all the names and all the actions by the characters and everything was very strange. After a while though I kinda came around to it all though, because when you break it down, Ronan is on a quest to reclaim his honor after being falsely accused and having his name dragged into the dirt and basically been exiled from his people (whether or not he was actually guilty or not I don't think was settled? I don't know). He was just interrupted in his quest by the whole alien bugs invading and decimating and killing everything and everyone. Towards the end I kinda liked Ronan actually, which was a surprise, but he's an interesting character.
I don't quite understand why he's the big bad evil guy in the guardians of the galaxy movie.
Super Skrull #1-4
Okay, so this one is good because it explains a lot. Like A LOT of backstory in the narrative (all issues of all the books have these handy pages that explains characters and brief summaries of events, but having it explained in the narrative is so much preferable for me. I get that it might not be super interesting for readers familiar with the characters and their back stories, but it's a lot easier to digest than the wall of text) which I was super thankful, because well the skrull and the kree are completely new to me. A super skrull just sounds like something ridiculous. He kinda isn't though because he has all the powers of the fantastic four and is really good at using them?
Anyway, I found him to be a relatively interesting character. Yes, not exactly a hero or necessarily a good buy, but at the same time he does do some pretty selfless acts to protect others. But while he's not a hero, selling out your whole race and a whole planet just to spite him is kind of overkill.
Annihilation #1-6
Now we have our characters and the set up for the next part. Although I forgot to mention Gamora, though I am not sure what I felt about her in this. Though a few more characters managed to get into the story starting here, such as Phyla-vell but I'll get to her when I do Conquest, and Peter Quill formerly known as Starlord. So, all in all we have Nova, feeling guilty about being the only survivor of the Nova Corps and every additional death weights heavily on him, he's been thrust into being not only a hero but also in charge of the entire resistance fight, and he's aided by a bunch of characters who aren't exactly heroes but have to be, some who are in actual fact enemies. This is what the whole series is about though, overcoming difficulties, and also to come together and work along side even your enemies for the greater good. I LOVE IT!
Other things I loved was Nova and Peter "don't call me Starlord. Starlord is dead" Quill who have a lovely chemistry together and do things like banter a lot and save each other's life (mostly Nova saving Peter). Peter also does things like calling Richard 'Richie' which is amusing only because Richard tells him to stop every time. And I like to point out that I could be calling him Dick instead because uh, Dick Rider is amusing to me. My sense of humor is so mature. X)
Galactus was turned into a weapon! Even I find that idea scary! A super powerful entity has not only been defeated but is now being used as a weapon? That's freaking scary.
To be honest these six parts were all amazing, they were action packed, had a lot of emotion and had interesting characters all trying to save the day, and beat the bad guy. Also SPACE! Alien cultures. The whole universe is in danger! Heroes having doubts and being beaten and
standing up again because that is what heroes do. What's not to love?
There are some things I've left out, probably because it confused me but did not take away my enjoyment of this, because I really did like this story.
I do have one minor complaint though, this goes for the tie ins as well, that sometimes one issue would end on a cliffhanger but the next issue does not pick up exactly where the final one left off. There are also times in the middle of issues where it feels like surely there must have been some page I missed.
Also Richard's narration summing up a lot instead of showing us things feels like a cop out.
Annihilation - Heralds of Galactus #1-2
These I could probably have skipped. There were four stories split into two issues. The first one while a good ending wasn't that interesting. The second one was both confusing and interesting. I'm fascinated by this being called Stardust.
Firelord is kind of awesome, that's really all I can say about him. Silver Surfer is badass and has impressive powers being returned as a herald of Galactus.
I seriously loved this series, and this is where I should have started my exploration of Marvel in the first place. I don't regret reading the Infinity sagas, I just feel that these were more fitting to me, because uh. SPACE OPERA! It was really, really good.
Okay, I will have to split it into two posts and do the Annihilation: Conquest stuff in a second post.