*** (three of five stars)
Summary
Summary
Forced to use low-tech weapons that cannot be overtaken by the Phalanx, Blastaar is leading a force of free Kree against the Phalanx when they're overwhelmed. On Terma, a Kree outworld, Quasar explains to a newly reborn Adam Warlock that the Phalanx have overwhelmed the Kree Empire and a "voice" told her that only he can stop it. (Adam had entered a regenerative cocoon after being driven insane by the deaths of billions during the Annihilation Wave.) Before they can finish the conversation, Adam, Quasar, and Moondragon (who's now an actual dragon) are attacked by Kree Selects and flee to Terma's sun, which is revealed to contain the base of the High Evolutionary. Quasar informs him that the Supreme Intelligence is the one that directed her to Adam, and the High Evolutionary informs her that, at the behest of the Supreme Intelligence, he has created a new advanced Kree race called (you guessed it) "Nu-Kree." Meanwhile, Ronan and the Super-Skrull enter the Ceded Territories to ask for Ravenous' assistance fighting off the Phalanx and Blastaar is tortured to death by the Phalanx as they try to get information about the Resistance.
On Hala, a resurrected Peter Quill is leading a Resistance cell containing Mantis and Rocket Raccoon, who reveals that Blastaar is merely in hibernation but spreading Mantis' micro-spores through the Babel Spire so they can get more information about it. In Terma's sun, Quasar begins to suspect the High Evolutionary is actually the one the Supreme Intelligence sent her to find, but they are attacked by Ultron, who had been revealed to be the leader of the Phalanx. Moondragon is killed in the battle, and Quasar, in a rage, attacks Ultron and his forces while Adam suffers a seizure (which he has been experiencing as a result of being awoken from his regenerative state too early). The High Evolutionary detonates the star in an attempt to kill Ultron, who simply uses the Phalanx network to download his consciousness into a new body.
On Kree-La, Ronan has the Wraith incapacitate Ravenous and his soldiers with his fear power, revealing he was there not to seek an alliance with Ravenous but to enter the room under his throne, where Ronan had stashed 15,000 Sentries for the day he took back the Ceded Territories from Ravenous. On Hala, Quill and company set explosive devices throughout the Babel Spire. The Phalanx realize that Blastaar is alive and turn him into a Select; they attack, killing one of Quill's team. Quill resists, but Ultron arrives and captures him, later probing his mind to find out the Resistance's plans. Mantis manages to block Ultron's probes but he eventually detects her and sends his Select to capture her and Bug. Adam is revealed to have encased the High Evolutionary and Quasar in a force bubble with him, saving them from the explosion of the star, and they head to Hala, where the High Evolutionary reveals the Supreme Intelligence had constructed the "Nu-Kree" manufacturing plant.
On Hala, the High Evolutionary strikes a deal with the Phalanx and renders Adam unconscious. He then begins downloading Ultron's consciousness into Adam, revealing how Ultron first connected to the Phalanx and how he learned about the High Evolutionary's work with the "Nu-Kree." Once the transfer is completed, Ultron directs the High Evolutionary to do the same for the entire Phalanx (transferring its consciousness into the genetically perfect "Nu-Kree"). Meanwhile, Rocket Raccoon leads Bug and Mantis to free Peter Quill, while Groot grows himself throughout the Babel Spire, allowing Mantis to ignite him with her pyrotechnic powers and destroy the Spire. At the same time, Ronan sends the Sentries to destroy Hala and free the Kree from Phalanx domination. Meanwhile, Nova arrives with Drax, Gamora, and Warlock (the technorganic New Mutant) and takes advantage of the destruction of the Spire to exploit the sudden weakness of the barrier and enter the Kree Empire. Ultron -- now in Adam's body -- engages Quill and his team, while Quasar learns Adam stored his soul in her Quantum Bands. Warlock engages Ultron, forcing him to flee Adam's body to avoid being corrupted by Warlock's mutant transmode virus strain. Quasar returns Adam's soul while Ultron corrupts Praxagora, who's traveling to Hala with Ronan and the Sentry fleet. Ultron-Praxagora knocks out the Wraith, re-takes control over the Sentries, and then detonates Praxagora in a (failed) attempt to kill Ronan and his crew. Ultron creates a new (enormous) body from the Sentry fleet and attacks the heroes. Adam funnels the souls of the Kree departing the leaking Spire into Quasar's bands, and she channels them through her sword. The revived Wraith traps Ultron's essence in his new body, which Quasar then destroys with the soul-fueled sword.
On Hala, a resurrected Peter Quill is leading a Resistance cell containing Mantis and Rocket Raccoon, who reveals that Blastaar is merely in hibernation but spreading Mantis' micro-spores through the Babel Spire so they can get more information about it. In Terma's sun, Quasar begins to suspect the High Evolutionary is actually the one the Supreme Intelligence sent her to find, but they are attacked by Ultron, who had been revealed to be the leader of the Phalanx. Moondragon is killed in the battle, and Quasar, in a rage, attacks Ultron and his forces while Adam suffers a seizure (which he has been experiencing as a result of being awoken from his regenerative state too early). The High Evolutionary detonates the star in an attempt to kill Ultron, who simply uses the Phalanx network to download his consciousness into a new body.
On Kree-La, Ronan has the Wraith incapacitate Ravenous and his soldiers with his fear power, revealing he was there not to seek an alliance with Ravenous but to enter the room under his throne, where Ronan had stashed 15,000 Sentries for the day he took back the Ceded Territories from Ravenous. On Hala, Quill and company set explosive devices throughout the Babel Spire. The Phalanx realize that Blastaar is alive and turn him into a Select; they attack, killing one of Quill's team. Quill resists, but Ultron arrives and captures him, later probing his mind to find out the Resistance's plans. Mantis manages to block Ultron's probes but he eventually detects her and sends his Select to capture her and Bug. Adam is revealed to have encased the High Evolutionary and Quasar in a force bubble with him, saving them from the explosion of the star, and they head to Hala, where the High Evolutionary reveals the Supreme Intelligence had constructed the "Nu-Kree" manufacturing plant.
On Hala, the High Evolutionary strikes a deal with the Phalanx and renders Adam unconscious. He then begins downloading Ultron's consciousness into Adam, revealing how Ultron first connected to the Phalanx and how he learned about the High Evolutionary's work with the "Nu-Kree." Once the transfer is completed, Ultron directs the High Evolutionary to do the same for the entire Phalanx (transferring its consciousness into the genetically perfect "Nu-Kree"). Meanwhile, Rocket Raccoon leads Bug and Mantis to free Peter Quill, while Groot grows himself throughout the Babel Spire, allowing Mantis to ignite him with her pyrotechnic powers and destroy the Spire. At the same time, Ronan sends the Sentries to destroy Hala and free the Kree from Phalanx domination. Meanwhile, Nova arrives with Drax, Gamora, and Warlock (the technorganic New Mutant) and takes advantage of the destruction of the Spire to exploit the sudden weakness of the barrier and enter the Kree Empire. Ultron -- now in Adam's body -- engages Quill and his team, while Quasar learns Adam stored his soul in her Quantum Bands. Warlock engages Ultron, forcing him to flee Adam's body to avoid being corrupted by Warlock's mutant transmode virus strain. Quasar returns Adam's soul while Ultron corrupts Praxagora, who's traveling to Hala with Ronan and the Sentry fleet. Ultron-Praxagora knocks out the Wraith, re-takes control over the Sentries, and then detonates Praxagora in a (failed) attempt to kill Ronan and his crew. Ultron creates a new (enormous) body from the Sentry fleet and attacks the heroes. Adam funnels the souls of the Kree departing the leaking Spire into Quasar's bands, and she channels them through her sword. The revived Wraith traps Ultron's essence in his new body, which Quasar then destroys with the soul-fueled sword.
The Review
I was torn in assigning a three or a four to this series. I decided on a three because, although I enjoyed it, I have to admit it was a bit of a chore, at times, to read. It involved a lot of complicated plots (as the super-long summary attests), some of which I thought were really innovative and interesting and others of which I found either confusing or unbelievable. (I know we're taking about a series with a talking raccoon and ambulatory tree, but you know what I mean.) Ultimately, it came down to a comparison to "Annihilation," which I found just to be a more enjoyable and solid story. That said, a three isn't bad. DnA really reboot the cosmic Marvel characters and I am sorely tempted to buy all the "Guardians of the Galaxy" back issues.
The Really Good
At the end of the day, the decision to fuse Ultron with the Phalanx was nothing short of genius. You can tell DnA are comic fans, because you need to have a deep knowledge of the Marvel Universe to have the idea to take those two discrete entities and put them together. Moreover, the reveal that Ultron is behind the Phalanx was made slowly. It's not until issue #5 -- after the "Prologue" issue, the various mini-series, and four issues of "Annihilation: Conquest" -- that we learn Ultron's motivation. Suddenly, instead of the story being about the Phalanx taking control of the Kree Empire (as it had been for most of the storyline), we learn that the entire affair is driven by Ultron's desire to fuse machine intelligence with genetically perfect organic lifeforms. I felt like DnA really hit a home run in terms of moving Ultron past his usual schtick with this idea. It's a really interesting twist, and one that feels -- pardon the pun -- organic, since DnA took the time to slowly reveal it. The story could've been just about Ultron taking over the Phalanx and it would've been interesting. By adding the High Evolutionary and Adam angles (yet another example of their familiarity with the Marvel catalog), DnA give us a really nuanced story that shakes up the status quo of several characters in the Marvel Universe.
The Good
1) The first few issues had to cover a lot of ground, summing up the action that happened over the course of the introductory mini-series. Unlike "Annihilation," I only read the prelude cross-over issues in "Nova," so I'm still not really sure what happened to some of the characters between "Prologue" and this series. For example, how (and why) did Moondragon become a dragon? How did Ronan and the Super-Skrull avoid being Phalanx-ized? Who is the Wraith? How did the Kree "spymasters" resurrect Peter Quill? Despite these remaining question, DnA actually do a good job of giving us the overview (particularly of the Quasar-related events) while keeping the action moving.
2) Ultron! Holy crap, I didn't see that coming.
3) I'm hesitant to call this "good," but Raney doesn't skimp from showing the brutality of the Phalanx: the Holocaust-esque "processing" centers that turn Kree into fuel for the Phalanx, the torture room after Blastaar "died," Ultron ripping out Moondragon's heart, Blastaar blowing away Gabe, etc. We're talking about a pretty grim comic, folks. Raney's art was great throughout the series, but he really excelled showing us how awful Ultron's domination truly was.
4) "Take me to your leader." Nice, Ronan. Also, the two-page spread preceding this comment -- of Ravenous' forces fighting the Phalanx horde -- in issue #2 was spectacular. Very nice, Raney.
The Bad
1) Um, didn't Ultron rip out Moondragon's heart? How exactly is she still alive in issue #3? I mean, yes, she does actually die, but I'm pretty sure even a dragon would've died instantly having its heart ripped from its chest.
2) The Sentries under the throne room in Kree-La, the "Nu-Kree" manufacturing plant on Hala, the "coating" of the Sentries by Praxagora and the Wraith, Ultron's presence on Khan-Lar in time to infect Korath: these examples are just a few of the moments where DnA went a little too close to the deus ex machina sun and left the story feeling a little scorched for it. In the first two cases, DnA give us explanations that make sense: Ronan hid the Sentries under the throne room for the day that he decided to retake the Ceded Territories from Ravenous and the High Evolutionary's lab wasn't where the Supreme Intelligence necessarily was going to actually manufacture the Nu-Kree. However, other parts didn't really get that sort of logical (if still somewhat convenient) explanation. Praxagora and the Wraith "coating" the Sentries with their combined powers to make them immune to the Phalanx didn't ring true to me, nor did Ultron seemingly just happening upon Korath, who just happened to receive the distress signal from Khan-Lar on his way to find the High Evolutionary. I'm willing to look past Nova's last-minute arrival since it's still comics, after all, and you need some sort of dramatic entrance at some point. But, the examples in this paragraph were ultimately the reason why I didn't rank this series higher, because I just felt like it all got to be a somewhat unbelievable string of coincidences.
3) Did we ever get the background story on how Nova finds Warlock and de-infects Drax and Gamora? (I'm not even sure he did the latter, since Gamora still calls him "Richard-Human.") I didn't read the Quasar, Star-Lord, or Wraith prelude mini-series, but I'm pretty sure they didn't cover that ground.
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