Annihilation #1-#6

**** (four of five stars)

Summary

Six months after Annihilation Day, Nova now leads the resistance, called the United Front, with a de-powered Starlord (Peter Quill) serving as his deputy and Gamora (of "Annihilation:  Ronan") serving as his black-ops leader.  The Front is holding the Annihilation Wave on the periphery of the Kree Empire, a world called Daedalus-5, when the Wave manages to break through its force field.  Firelord captures Extirpia, Annihilus' queen, who reveals that the attack was a distraction so that Tenebrous and Aegis could defeat and kidnap Galactus and the Silver Surfer.  Meanwhile, Annihilus sends Ravenous after the remaining Heralds (Firelord, Red Shift, and Stardust).  After the Front retreats behind another series of force fields, pausing the battle, Phyla appears to Drax to tell him that Thanos has captured his daughter, Moondragon, and Praxagora arrives with the body of the Super-Skrull (and the story of their defeat of the Wave).  As Nova and his allies are trying to sort out Praxagora's allegiances, Ravenous appears with a squad (including a mind-controlled Terrax) to engage Nova and his allies.  As they almost start winning, Annihilus' elite guard, the Centurions, arrive, turning the tide in favor of the Wave.  The rest of the Wave arrives, using Thanos' teleportation technology, and Nova is forced to order a disorganized retreat.  Meanwhile, Thanos has been experimenting on Galactus and the Silver Surfer and reveals that he's found the key to siphoning the Power Cosmic.  He activates Galactus against Daedalus-5, forcing Nova to push an even hastier retreat.  The Super-Skrull is revealed to have been resurrected, and Drax, Red Shift, and Stardust stay behind to cover the escape.  Upon regrouping, the Front disbands, given the heavy losses and the revelation that the Wave now has teleportation technology.  Gamora goes to engage in guerrilla attacks on the Wave, Nova decides to take on Annihilus directly, and Ronan takes Super-Skrull and Praxagora to take on the Kree royal family, House Fiyero.

Drax is revealed to have survived the destruction of Daedalus-5 after having worked his way through the Wave troops to a ship.  Annihilus is furious with Thanos that he is diverting even a small amount of Power Cosmic to keep Galactus alive.  Peter Quill questions Nova's plan to go after Annihilus, but decides to accompany him when Nova points out the fact that Earth's heroes are too distracted by the Civil War to help.  Drax kills another queen (Eradica) and takes command of her ship, while Nova takes Peter Quill and Phyla to Xandar in order to get his hands on the Nova Corps' phase technology.  Moondragon reveals to Thanos that, based on reading his mind, Annihilus has staged the war not to conquer the Universe but to use Galactus as a bomb to destroy both the Universe and the Negative Zone.  Thanos agrees to deactivate the apparatus imprisoning Galactus (only he can), but Drax arrives and kills Thanos before he can finish the process.  Drax frees the Silver Surfer who finishes the deactivation of the imprisonment apparatus, freeing Galactus.

Meanwhile, Ronan, the Super-Skrull, and Praxagora storm through Hala, only to discover the Kree have joined the Annihilation Wave, and Nova finds Blastarr, who's leading his own resistance and gives Nova Annihilus's coordinates.  Ronan defeats Ravenous and eliminates House Fiyero, taking up leadership of the Kree after discovering that House Fiyero left the Supreme Intelligence brain-dead.  (Ronan mercy kills him).  Finally freed, Galactus sets about destroying most of the Wave (after shunting Drax and Moondragon to safety).  Annihilus barely survives, extending a great amount of power in so doing.  Ravenous launches another attack from Hala's orbit, but a Ronan-led Kree army repels him.  Nova finds and engages Annihilus.  Before Annihilus kills Nova, Phyla takes back the Quantum Bands from Annihilus, further de-powering him.  Nova realizes his weakness is through his mouth and rips out his heart.

In the epilogue, we learn that Red Shift and Stardust are in fact dead, and Drax, Super-Skrull, and Praxagora have gone MIA.  Ronan ceded certain parts of Kree territory to Ravenous after he sued for peace.  The allies are talking about making Nova chief of police (of the Universe, I guess), though he's unsure what he wants to do.  Phyla is considering taking up the Quasar name.  Ravenous, now in control of the Skrull Empire and the occupied Kree territories, uses a mother to re-birth Annihilus.

The Review

I really, really enjoyed this series.  You'll notice, of course, that I do list a significant number of bads.  The plot, unfortunately, had a number of holes.  If I were going to summarize them, it would be that Annihilus is portrayed during the mini-series and the first half of this series as completely un-defeatable:  he has the numbers, he has Tenebrous and Aegis, he has Thanos, he has the Centurions, and he has Galactus.  But, then, suddenly, it all changes, but not because of anything the heroes did but because characters suddenly disappeared.  Yes, Thanos betrayed Annihilus and freed Galactus.  But, Tenebrous, Aegis, and the Centurions disappear just as he needs them.  It would be like Han Solo and Princess Leia just suddenly disappearing halfway through "Return of the Jedi."  I felt like something should've been used to explain their absence because, in the end, it felt like Giffen had them disappear just so Annihilus could be defeated.

However, despite that, it's a pretty rocking series.  I read it -- and its preceding mini-series -- because Nova is one of my favorite characters.  I just re-read the short-lived "Nova" series by Erik Larsen, and it was a huge disappointment.  As I mentioned in "Annihilation:  Nova," he's portrayed as a girl-crazy, attention-seeking frat boy with few redeeming qualities.  I'm down with girl-crazy and attention-seeking (they're part of his charm, after all), but it was time for Nova to grow up a little and temper out those traits with a commitment to fighting the good fight for a reason other than getting the Avengers' attention.  Giffen gives us that gift here -- a Nova with a cause -- and it's awesome.  He gets the girl, he gets the wise-cracking side-kick, and he gets respect.  Perfect.  It's a long overdue moment and it gives Nova the potential to be one of Marvel's top-shelf super-heroes, not just a poor man's Spider-Man.  I'm really looking forward to making my way through the "Nova" series to see what DnA do with this development.

More than just Nova, though, Giffen and the other authors do a great job getting me to care about all sorts of characters -- Ronan, Drax, Phyla, Super-Skrull -- who existed only on the periphery of my awareness.  They've opened a whole new world of series for me, and I'm excited to see where it goes.  So, despite some of the plot holes that occasionally drove me to distraction, I recommend this series for its heart.

The Really Good

The portrayal of the destruction of Daedalus-5 and its aftermath in issue #3 was really well done.  Nova's narration was pitch-perfect, showing us the emotional impact of the sacrifices of Drax, Red Shift, and Stardust on him and stressing how those sacrifices didn't matter because they lost the war, given than Annihilus' now had large-scale teleportation technology and a weaponized Galactus.  You feel Richard's sense of helplessness, having carried the weight of so many life-and-death decisions for months only to face utter defeat.  Watching Gamora leave to go guerrilla-warfare on the Wave, seeing Ronan take the Super-Skrull and Praxagora to overthrow the Kree rulers, watching Nova decide to take on Annihilus by himself:  issue #3 was really the "Empire Strikes Back" of the series!  We see everyone at their lowest moments, the Front dissolved, the Wave threatening Earth in three months' time, the heroes saying their good-byes to each other as they go their separate ways.  (I particularly liked the dramatic scene between Nova and Ronan at the end, with Ronan telling Rich he considered him a brother and Nova left staring into space.) This issue alone earned this series four stars, despite some of the plot holes I outline below.

The Good

1) Giffen really manages to pull together all the disparate characters from the four lead-in mini-series in a deft way, with everyone fulfilling pretty logical roles within the United Front structure.  I mean, by the middle of the second issue, we've got the entire cast of main characters from all four mini-series in play!

2) As mentioned above, I enjoyed seeing the natural outcome of the sentiments expressed at the end of "Annihilation:  Nova," with Rich going, in his own words, from boy to man.  We still see his charm hidden in there, but the burdens of leadership are evident.  He fears that he's getting too used to the difficult decisions he has to make, like firebombing the wounded soldiers on Daedalus-5 to take out the Wave army so the remaining soldiers can escape.  It's a far cry from the kid fighting crime in part to get the attention of the Avengers.  It's a welcome change (and makes him even sexier than usual...).

The Bad

1) At the end of issue #2, we see the leadership group of the United Front facing the Centurions, who seem poised to overwhelm them.  But, in the start of issue #3, the Centurions are nowhere to be seen.  Instead, the Wave itself is attacking.  Weird.  Moreover, they're only occasionally mentioned -- but not really seen -- for the rest of the series.

2) The Super-Skrull's resurrection is bizarre.  First, the writer and editors seemed to have changed their minds about his death, because I doubt we would've seen the tribute scene at the end of "Annihilation:  Super-Skrull" if they had intended to resurrect him.  Second, even Nova concedes that they don't really know how he was resurrected, noting they all just took it on fact since they were busy fleeing Galactus.  Boo. 

3) I don't get Thanos' reaction to news that Annihilus is trying to use Galactus as a bomb.  I thought his motivation had been to serve Mistress Death, so, um, wouldn't he want as many people dead as possible?  The revelation that he was helping Annihilus just because it was interesting fell a little flat, to say the least.

4) The resolution of the Galactus problem was a little...simple.  Issue #4 ended making it seem like all hope was lost because only Thanos could release Galactus, having keyed the device to his energy signature.  But, then, Drax decides it had more to do with power levels and pretty easily frees the Silver Surfer, who accomplishes the task.  Didn't you think Annihilus would've maybe had better security on Galactus and the Surfer if they were that important?

5) Speaking of security, what happened to Tenebrous and Aegis?  They disappeared much like the Centurions.  You'd figure, if they were in league with Annihilus, he would've dispatched them in his defense as he was in the process of being slaughtered.