In the tradition of I Am Reading Silver Age Marvel, I Am Reading JMS' Spider-Man run, I Am Reading Ultimate X-Men, and I Am Reading Bruce Jones' Hulk run, I am reading Marvel's Annihilation event. Started with the prologue last night, and will bump this thread with thoughts after finishing each miniseries in the overall event, starting as soon as I finish the Surfer mini.

Read along. It'll be fun.

Hmmmm. I just noticed that the hardcover collections on Amazon appear to collect the issues in a different order than I have lined up. Need to find an Annihilation checklist, I guess, before I get too far in ...

I really enjoyed the series, Eric. Though I only followed the Silver Surfer and Ronan minis. Have fun!

I think the hardcover collectes a Drax mini that wasn't a core mini but happened before and set up Drax's status quo.

BTW, the minis as far as i remember can be read in any order.

Annihilation is a mini I passed on but expected to be quite enjoyable. Giffen steered (wrote?) the main story and Divito provided art IIRC. It has gotten pretty good reviews across the web.

Of the Annihilation mini's I liked the one for the Super-Skrull the best. The character kept much of his villainous outlook. But he was given some nice background elements to draw upon. Most comics I've read with him he ends up seeming a stock villain. Ronan I reread recently and found it to be the weakest of the bunch. But overall Annihilation was a solid space story. I hope the continuation of things continues the trend.

I agree Ronan is weak and Skrull is top. I also thought Nova was good too. Surfer was more middle.

It comes down to the artwork for me, more times than not. And Ronin and SS appealed to me more than the other two. That, and I was put off that It was just a bit much for me.

Annihilation - Part 1 - Prologue



http://www.amazon.com/dp/0785129014/?tag=imwan-20

The explosive start of Marvel’s huge cosmic event! Massive starships! The horror of war! Epic interstellar drama!

Errr, what exactly is going on here?

The opening chapter of Annihilation features some good, if here-there-and-everywhere, writing; busy, cluttered artwork that confuses the eye; and the start of several story threads just kind of tossed out there in frayed, unkempt strands.

For a prologue, they sure didn’t make it easy for the reader to figure out what the hell was going on. Honestly, the text items in the back were more informative.

Taken individually, each segment of this lengthy prologue was pretty well done. I really enjoyed the struggles of the Nova Corps., and the sight of the Kyln was very impressive. Lots of razzle dazzle in the colors and plenty of big, big (big!) imagery. The storytelling, however, was painfully unclear in both the writing and the art. What was the Annihilation Wave? Dunno. We start out with a massive space battle (not choreographed particularly well) and just go on from there.

Thankfully by the end of the book you’re decently enough up to speed, well enough, at least, to forge ahead with the overall series. So while the prologue is kind of choppy and scattered, it’s easy to see that the Annihilation event itself has some real promise.

Oh, I'll be posting spoilers for each series as I read it, so skip those sections if you haven't read them.

Annihilation - Part 2 - Silver Surfer



http://www.amazon.com/dp/0785129022/?tag=imwan-20

Now this is more like it. The Silver Surfer miniseries of the Annihilation event was much more enjoyable than the spotty prologue. Giffen’s writing here is very good, the artwork sketchy yet fairly powerful, and – huzzah! – the storytelling is clear.

I really liked the Surfer here. He’s introspective, conflicted about the horrors he sees while also seeking to justify as best he can what Galactus does – but even he doesn’t quite convince himself. And when Galactus once again takes him as a herald, yeah!, the transformation in his character is great. You suddenly get the sense that you need to fear this guy. Very subtle writing by Giffen. Impressive.

The art has a sketchy quality to it; very rough lines, very angular. I like it, though. The inks give a strength to the linework, and the colors are huge and cosmic. Sometimes a bit too cosmic, yes – the characters sometimes feel muddy when set next to those nebula-laden backgrounds -- yet by and large good.

But it’s the story I really care about, and this was a pretty good one. Seekers from the Annihilation wave are searching for heralds of Galactus. Why? Because Annihilus wants to tap into the power cosmic. Good enough excuse to give them all a bit of screen time, I guess.

Good potential with Thanos linking up with Annihilus, curious to see the Surfer’s role in the main event, and the two ancient entities akin to Galactus intrigue me.

Nice stuff. I liked this series and look forward to seeing how it ties into the main mini.

Annihilation - Part 3 - Super Skrull



http://www.amazon.com/dp/0785129030/?tag=imwan-20

I can say without reservation that I expected nothing good to come of this. You’re going to base a four-issue mini-series around the Super Skrull? Really? Give me a break.

Well color me surprised. This was good!

The portrait painted of a disgraced war hero once adored by his people but falling out of favor after repeated defeats at the hands of the Fantastic Four was great. Loved the idea that he was concerned about his legacy; that he was determined to regain his honor and to do right by the son who would carry on his name. Yet the Super Skrull was never turned into an anti-hero. We’re not meant to sympathize with him, only to better understand him. He remains bad guy all the way. He’s loathsome, brutal, ruthless, and villain through and through. It’s a tightrope walk, but they pulled it off. The writing here was excellent. Bravo!

On the other hand, loved the quirky, cartoony style of the art – but the storytelling left a lot to be desired. Shame, that. The exaggerated lines and thrusting jaws and swooping spacecraft were nicely drawn and entirely cool, but without text these pages were a mess. Horrible panel layouts, poor image choices, dreadful panel-to-panel flow. I’d rather have had lousy art with good storytelling than this.

Yet all in all, Annihilation - Super Skrull stood out largely because it was a surprise. Cool enough Fantastic Four villain, but not a character I’d expect to be able to carry a story on his own. Yet he did. This was far more entertaining than I expected.

I told you that already weeks ago Taft. Super-skrull was good.

Yeah, I've been meaning to make that post for a few weeks now. Read it shortly after reading SS, but kept forgetting to post.

You were right, Hewbrenner.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Annihilation - Part 4 - Nova



Say, when did Nova become such a jerk? He was always sort of brash and young and full of youthful arrogance, but I don’t recall him being this much of a self-centered tool.

Been a while since I read Nova, though, so maybe this is a good reflection of the character. And I suppose he was a bit shellshocked, what with the genocide he witnessed and all.

Anyway, dude with super powers sees everything he knows wiped out by savage alien invaders, is filled to the brim with their power, has a super sentient AI lurking in his mind, and goes romping through space tearing apart starships with the help of Quasar?

Yeah, I’m in.

This was good stuff. Nothing too deep or shocking or innovative, just some good, fun, brisk space-faring adventure. Stuff blows up what done and good. LOVED the humor with what’shername, the human gal tagging along with (the new) Drax the Destroyer. The revamped Nova is pretty spiffy as well (though I think I liked the older costume better). Great space battle at the end. Quasar is always a treat.

And did I mention starships getting what done and blown up but good?

Yeah.

Not a bad little mini, this.

That it was good, and you said it was good, and I discovered that a few weeks back, but only just got around to posting it now.

Annihilation - Part 5 - Ronan



So, Annihilation: Ronan, you say?

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Yep, read this miniseries, too.

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Well ...

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Yeah, this was boring, boring crap.

Fin.

I mean the Hewbrenner thing. I have a nice German name.

I might be picking these up.....I like all those fellers....

You're in the wrong thread again, Peach. You want the one called "I am causing Annihilation".