By Colin Andersen
April 7, 2011 - 21:48
Now this is a fun comic book, even if it's not perfect. Ever since I was little and used to read all of my older brother’s comics, I have loved the cosmic side of Marvel Comics. There was so much variety and so many characters that there just had to be someone in there for everyone to love. Because of this, I grew up a fan on series such as Infinity Gauntlet, Warlock and the Infinity Watch, and more. Unfortunately, Marvel went through an extended period where it produced little cosmic material, but they looked to remedy this with their Annihilation miniseries from 2006. Ever since Annihilation, there has been some sort of Cosmic Marvel book on the stands, usually helmed by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. As much as I’ve enjoyed these series, none of them quite captured the same magic the cosmic stories of old that I loved. Luckily for me, Annihilators seems to be remedying that.
Based on these first two issues, I absolutely hope that the Annihilators are eventually given more than four issues to work in. There is just so much promise to this premise; too often comic books are afraid to really gather their heavy hitters together onto a team for fear that they would be too unstoppable but DnA show that this concept can work and they nail each of the members of the team. I love the way these characters interact with one another because it is just how I imagine they would talk to each other. These are big personalities and it shows, but when it comes down to business they get things done. I’m particularly enjoying DnA’s take on Ronan who is finally getting to become the character he always had the capacity to be. If I had one problem with the team, it would the unsuredness of its pseudo-leader Quasar. This is very powerful character who has been around the block (of life) more than once and there is no reason for him to be belittling himself the way he is. Hopefully the addition of the new character Ikon will help lift his confidence some. Of equal quality is the backup feature starring Rocket Raccoon and Groot. It is very obvious that Abnett and Lanning had insane amounts of fun in writing this frenetic story; it’s just too bad it didn’t get to have the life as its own book that it was originally supposed to have.
If
you have never read a cosmic Marvel series then, well, this might not be the
best place for you to start. There are a lot of characters here and many of
them likely won’t be familiar to more casual readers. However, if you’ve been
reading any of Marvel’s old cosmic stories, Annihilators
is a must read and new readers could do worse in terms of introductions to
these characters. At $4.99, even with a full size backup, this is a pricey book so, unless you're a diehard fan, maybe wait for the trade on this one.
Rating: 7 /10