My comic book reading preferences go through 'fashions'. A while ago, I was into the Marvel street-level crime fighter stylings of Daredevil, Captain America, Spider-Man etc, before that it was the mysticism of Doctor Strange, but now it's Marvel massive cosmic Annihilation epic.Not just because it takes us away from the increasingly dull machinations of the Civil War 'event' and its aftermath, but it's truly epic, with galaxy-spanning battles, cosmic scale creatures like Galactus, Thanos and Annihilus and examinations of interesting alien cultures and races (rather than just random varieties of faces in the backgrounds of group shots).
In fact it was so large scale, I kept thinking it must be a DC book!
Although many of my favourite characters were appearing in the Earth-bound Civil War tie-in titles, it was the Annihilation range, running parallel in the far reaches of space, that really piqued my interest.
That too has run its course, but in its wake a new series has arisen - Annihilation Conquest - which sees a previously unknown techno-organic race sweeping into the void left by the pan-galactic war with conquest on their minds!
This beautifully illustrated one-shot, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, illustrated by Mike Perkins, introduces the major players and sets the chess board for the next big war in space. I'm a big fan of Abnett's sci-fi comic writing, but it was really Perkins' stylish art that sealed the deal on this title.
Personally I wasn't looking forward to Phyla-Vell as the next Quasar...but this book won me over to the character.
ReplyDeleteI would say that the only thing that I didn't like about this issue was the main opposing force (which was evident very early on in this issue).
I never cared much for this Alien Race in any of their earlier appearances and their use as the new "Big Bad" has left me less than enthused.
But I'll pick up the various Annihilation titles because, frankly, they were the "surprise hit" of last year and I really enjoyed how things went there.
That earns them a certain amount of leeway with me this year. :)