Product Description: The Annihilation Wave has come! Annihilus, lord of the Negative Zone, has declared war! Hordes of loyal soldiers swarm from the center of the universe, and only a handful of heroes can resist destruction! As the Xandarian Nova Corps meet its doom, only Richard Rider - the man called Nova - survives. Now the sole custodian of the Worldmind, the Zandarian's database of knowledge and experience, can he rediscover himself in time to lead the war effort against the Annihilation Wave? Drax the Destroyer returns from exile on Earth to mentor Nova - but wait until you see his dangerous new persona! Guest-starring Quasar, Ronan the Accuser, the Super-Skrull and Thanos! Collecting Drax the Destroyer #1-4, Annihilation Prologue and Annihilation: Nova #1-4.
Remember the first time you read a comic? Review by Brian Grindrod
Purchasing and organizing the Annihilation saga in the standard comic book format had to be a royal pain in the [...] with a 48 page one-shot, four issue limited series that tied into one another with the event concluding in a six issue mini-series. Oh.... I was about to forget to mention the various spin-offs and sequels! Lucky for me, Marvel Comics realizes the sales potential in repackaging their best and popular material in the over-sized hardcover format that has the same asking price as their original counterparts. No need to sweat or stress myself out about missing an issue with these babies plus I get the variant covers as well as other bonus material.
In the midst of all the Civil War pandemonium, Annihilation was relegated to the driver's seat to be ignored or forgotten by fans. If you are one of them, I regret to inform you that you lifted your nose on one of the best science-fiction yarns within the confines of the super-hero genre. I am the first to agree that the cast is comprised of `b-characters' and a bunch of yahoos that only a bonafide geek like myself would recognize. Aside from The Silver Surfer who is distinguishable with the release of the Fantastic Four film, it will not be the likes of Ronan The Accuser, Super-Skrull, Drax The Destroyer or one of my personal favourites, Nova The Human Rocket, that can flock fans to the local comic book shop. However, this is where the writers use these less prominent characters to their advantage since they are not flogged down by any corporate limitations or the outcry of fanboys who feel that their hero is not written in continuity. Should you be upset that Drax The Destroyer is not scribed with the persona of a retard anymore, I suggest that you walk over to the nearest gun shop to purchase a firearm in order to insert the barrel within your mouth and pull the trigger. The human race will do quite well without you. Trust me.
It is not unusual to have visual inconsistency when several artists are working a project of such magnitude but I can say that this is not the case with pencillers Renato Artem, Kev Walker, Jorge Lucas and Andrea DiVito's contribution. While each artists' pencil work is distinctive, the change in styling is not abrasive when you finish one volume and continue onto another. Perhaps Greg Titus' anime styling of the Super-Skrull chapters will stand out as a sore thumb as opposed to a realistic portrayal from the aforementioned artists but considering that the focus is on two shape-shifters, it works hand-in-hand with the script.
I recommend all the volumes of the Annihilation series where second-rate heroes battle second-rate villains in a story about a cosmic inter-dimensional war but a limited knowledge of the Marvel Universe could be a hindrance. However, if you remember the first time you held a comic book of your now favorite super-hero where you were experiencing excitement unfolding within the borders of your imagination, Annihilation will rekindle those feelings.
What is this Annihilation? DIVULGE! You've probably heard the hype for Annihilation: Strong writing that capatulted Marvel's sci-fi characters to the spotlight again, with momentous changes that brought exciting stories.
Well, guess what: they're all true.
Here, the ground changes from under us, as Drax the Destroyer is killed and reborn with a new mind, and as the entire Nova intergalactic defense corps. is destroyed, save for one Richard Rider.
If you don't know who these characters are, that's okay. By the end of the book, you'll feel an affection for all of them. From Drax's need to fulfill his role as a father to Nova's struggle as the last Nova alive, there's a lot of heart in this book.
But that's not to say, there's a lot of action too. Worlds are destroyed; empires fall, and heroes die, so this book definitely isn't lacking in the visual effects department.
The dialogue is also deliciously snappy. Writers Keith Giffen, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning definitely know how to make banter between heroes, as well as normal people, while maintaining the tension of A WHOLE UNIVERSE ABOUT TO BE ANNIHILATED.
In the end, this was a das't great way to start off the Annihilation event. The characters are strong, as are the plot and the dialogue. My only real criticism is that the art staggers a little in Nova's story. If you're looking to invest yourself in a great story, Book One is where it's at.
classic Classic space opera in comic form. If Jack Kirby were alive today,he would love this storyline. Big bold art,the type that makes children want tolearn to draw and read.
Nine issue 'Annihilation' prologue and Act I featuring Nova and Drax the Destroyer This first volume of Marvel's "Annihilation" event collects the "Drax the Destroyer" and "Annihilation: Nova" four-issue mini-series and the "Annihilation Prologue" one-shot. The Drax and Prologue issues were written by "52" architect Keith Giffen. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning share writing credit for the Nova issues. A prison dredge carrying Drax and alien super criminals crashes in tiny Coot's Bluff, Alaska. After seemingly killing Drax, the aliens chillingly enslave the locals in an attempt to rebuild their spacecraft. Meanwhile, the planet-crippling Annihilation Wave of insect-like spaceships reaches the Nova Corps home planet of Xandar. Drax and his new human sidekick Cammi encounter Nova and later Quasar as the Wave threatens further devastation. This volume also intersperses about a dozen "Xandar Worldmind Database" capsules of key characters and plot elements and closes with eight pages of sketches and preliminary page layouts. This is a good value for Amazon's current price of under $17. I ordered the second volume the same night that I finished reading this first one. Nova starred in his own 25 issue (mostly mediocre) 1970s title that has been reprinted as a "Marvel Essentials" volume.
Big disappointment. I read a lot of positive reviews on Amazon about how cool this series was and how it blew Marvel's "Civil War" series out of the water. Maybe that comparison alone should have been enough to scare me off. Anyway, as a kid, I read pretty much every single comic Marvel put out between 1963-79, and I was well versed in their many attempts at ultra-cosmic, super-duper, mind-blowing meta-fiction from the 1970s. I dutifully consumed all the books with third-rate characters such as Drax the Destroyer, Moondragon, Star Lord, Nova, Darkseid (uh, I mean, Thanos), the Eternals, etc., and more sympathetic (but no less dreary) headliners such as Warlock and Captain Marvel... A youth well wasted.
Anyway, I was willing to give this series a shot and even got all tingly as I lined the big, thick books up on my shelf and got ready for a week or so of super-cosmic zip-zapping. The introductory book, showing the beginning of the "annihilation wave" invasion coming from the alternate-universe Negative Zone, had as an upside the wiping out of the cheesy Green Lantern-ripoff "Nova Corps," and set the stage for the rest of the series. Book Two had one relatively strong plotline, with the quest of the amoral, battle-hardened Super Skrull, as well as a Silver Surfer story that, while it was a chore to get through, was still relatively interesting. Book Three was just awful, though. The uber-cosmic war ground slowly to a plodding end. The invasion's leader, the buglike Annihillus, has never been that interesting, and he proved utterly boring and unimpressive here, although the entire series was supposed to hinge on his creepy, unhuman badness. And yet: yawn. It was a readable plotline, but just barely. The coda, a miniseries featuring the various surviving heralds of Galactus -- Firelord, Silver Surfer and a couple of other utterly forgettable losers -- was so, so, so, so, so very bad, as lame and paper-thin as anything ever published in the '70s. Books One and Two were okay, but it's really hard to say whether it's even worth it to pick up Volume 3, even to see how it all turns out. This was one of the most leaden, sluggish comics I've read in a long, long time. Oh, well. Live and learn. (Axton)
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