Annihilation Book 2

This was another very good comic - but not without its issues. In particular, there was some odd plagiarism in Silver Surfer #2 which somehow slipped past Marvel Editorial. In particular, several backgrounds from Annihilius' throne room were lifted directly from Emperor Palpatine's Observation Room on the Death Star II in Return of the Jedi. I don't know how that got by, but it did, and I can't not see it.

Otherwise, this is some great writing, and a great cosmic superhero comic. I'm in for Book Three.

So this has to be one of the largest graphic novels I've read from Marvel. 12 issues, Silver Surfer, Super Skrull and Ronan. That's 3 characters I haven't read much about and definitely never read with them as the main "hero". This "Marvel Cosmic" thing is kind of a whole new world, or at least one populated with what feel like distant cousins I met at a wedding or cookout when I was 9.

It's not bad and total change of pace. I guess the only problem I have is that all the characters are REALLY powerful and the main villain (the bugs) are just evil for evil's sake. Fortunately all the main characters have other stories, rather than just squishing as many bugs a possible.

One star might be a little brutal, but this book was definitely not "okay". It's muddled, bombastic, and almost unreadable, featuring some of the more uninteresting SF characters from the Marvel pantheon. There are one or two mildly interesting moments, but the art is mediocre at best, the dialog limps and is at times painfully juvenile...all in all, not worth the time or effort to read.

The second book of Marvel's Annihilation event is the weakest of the three; it comprises three stories that, mostly, are neither essential to the saga nor terribly good. Whereas Book One focused on the opening of the Annihilation War and it reaches its climax in Book Three, the stories in book two are about characters during the war rather than the war itself.

The first is Annihilation: Silver Surfer, written by Keith Giffen with art by Renato Arlem, originally serialized between April and July 2006. This is the story of the Silver Surfer and the other ex-Heralds of Galactus vs. minions of Annihilus who are after the Power Cosmic. The art is decent, the writing is solid, and this is the strongest story in this book. (***½)

Next is show more Annihilation: Super-Skrull, written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach with art by Gregory Titus, originally published between April and July 2006. This is the story of Super-Skrull and his quest to destroy an Annihilation Wave superweapon before it destroys the planet where his son lives. It's a story of loyalty and betrayal, redemption and revenge, love and death -- really quite a decent story, but brought down unfortunately by art that is much too cartoonish for the subject matter (or at least for my taste). Also it ends with a clichéd and stupid coda that really, really should not have been there. Still, enjoyable enough once you get past the art. (***½)

Finally we have Annihilation: Ronan, written by Simon Furman with art by Jorge Lucas, also originally published between April and July 2006. This story is the weak link in this collection. Ronan's always a difficult character: a hero with no sense of humor and no irony is hard to make interesting. Even getting past that, though, the art is ugly and boring, and the pacing is all off: there is a story here, but there's no feel of competent storytelling: events just seem to happen, characters just do what they do, and I never managed to get into it enough to care. (**)

So we have two pretty good stories and one pretty bad. Recommended for fans of these characters or if you're reading Annihilation, but you can get more bang for your buck elsewhere if you're simply looking for good comics. show less

The whole idea behind the positive and negative universes eating each other was fun. I don't read this for the science, after all. All these big players on a big scale story is so delicious.

Not as catchy as the first volume, but I think that's mainly because the featured characters were less interesting. The art was more consistent -- nothing really impressive but nothing distractingly bad. The similarities between the Annihilation wave and the Stygian Passover were noteworthy, what with them being from the same plotter and at the same general time. I'm a fan of using c-list characters in big events, even if none of these were familiar.

Interesting takes on some legacy characters, although not quite as good as the first volume.