Annihilation Conquest

[Blader5489]

I'll acknowledge that compared to ANNIHILATION, it isn't fast paced. I'll even admit that a lot of the successful stars of the aforementioned event haven taken a back-seat to Phyla and Warlock. But I kind of admire the courage of it. It would have been a no-brainer for DnA to go, "Yeah, just have Ronan, Nova, and Drax tear the threat to the universe a new a-hole again" like last time. But I think they wanted to do their own thing, boost some other characters. Adam Warlock was a big figure in 90's space stories, the apex of the genre at Marvel, so to me it felt like a natural progression to try to dust him off. He's a bit emotastic, but he's had his moments.

The problem with trying to "boost some other characters" though is that they've given center stage to a largely unlikeable bunch. The only exceptions are Starlord and his crew, who are featured all too briefly in the main Conquest story.

But I think the threat that Great Ultron's Phalanx is still a massive one. The Kree empire was the last "superpower" in the region (least unless you count the Shi'ar, who are always too busy with the X-Men) and they were infected and taken over in one issue. Now we see that Ultron wants to lead his armada back to Earth to finish off his Avengers enemies once and for all. It has been a slower ride but I see it as a great evolution of Ultron's character. I'm all for trying to boost other characters rather than overdoing the same stars over and over again, even if it isn't always a gamble that pays off. I mean, that is how most of the X-Men who weren't Wolverine, Gambit, or Rogue got smothered during the 90's.

It all sounds good conceptually, but AC never really gives you a reason to care about the Kree and their having been taken over; compare that to the first Annihilation, where literally the entire universe was at risk. Additionally, the threat that Ultron poses to Earth feels entirely artificial, partly because we know his army will never reach Earth. That's not entirely DnA's fault, but all in all, I think it would have been better if they had kept Earth out of it to avoid falling flat on the "big scheme" for the story.

I don't know; seeing Gabe die or Groot do his thing were pretty cool moments. The Ultron reveal was solid. The issue that tied everything that Ultron did in the past to what he is doing now was effective. Like I said, there may seem like less immediacy and less of a threat because the Phalanx are basically taking over the scraps left after the Annihilation Wave wrecked everything.

Gabe's death was just a waste of a good character, while Groot's death holds no weight because we know he'll just come back again. The Ultron reveal was a cool twist, but by saving him until the end of the first (main) issue, he doesn't have as big a presence as Annihilus did in the first event. And, like I said earlier, none of these "twists" are as jaw dropping as something like Drax pulling out Thanos' heart.

I can understand that DnA wanted to create a different kind of story with Conquest, but the event has been mostly build up so far. Obviously there will be a payoff with the last issue (hopefully), but the pacing is still way off for a comic event.

 

[Docker2.0]

Speaking of Wraith, dude's intro was a COMPLETE waste of time. I thought he'd be the key to defeat the phalanx but he just disappeared in the background. No key moments really at all since his mini. Though I am curious as to who killed his parents.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

I liked him, then I forgot about him

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I liked the concept of a cosmic character built on Western archetypes, but he has been pretty bland since then. Super-Skrull was the most interesting part of his mini-series.

As for Annihilation: Conquest itself: As a whole, I think it's been pretty good. Not great like Annihilation, but Giffen set the bar pretty damn high. Ultron's a great villain, even though I had hoped it would be Kang, but I'm not into Adam Warlock at all, everything involving the High Evolutionary has felt like a distraction despite the fact that it's actually the A plot of the whole event, Quasar has been established as a whiny, ineffective moron who alternates between making lovey-dovey comments at Moondragon and pining for Moondragon when she's gone, etc. The negatives are stacked fairly high.

But they also have Ultron at arguably his most badass since the fairly classic Ultron Unleashed arc, Ronan in the midst of a really interesting character arc where he has to deal with being a total failure to his people, Super-Skrull and Praxagora continuing their love/hate relationship, and Star-Lord finding himself back in the thick of things in ways he never imagined he would be again. These are all, frankly, more interesting than the "main" characters of AC's arcs and plots.

Really, I think the problem is that DnA just misjudged where the focus should go in the event itself. They pushed Quasar, Moondragon, the High Evolutionary, and Adam Warlock into the fore instead of focusing on the much stronger characters of Star-Lord and his dirty (now less than a) half-dozen and Ronan.

 

[Docker2.0]

You like Ronan to Corp? Dude is straight bad ass!! I was hoping that he'd be in the GoG but for some reason they didn't put him on. He and SuperSkrull on the same team would have been great.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

He's probably not on the Guardians because he's stuck rebuilding the whole bloody Kree Empire again. The burdens of the crown and all that.

 

[RockSP]

I was hoping that he'd be in the GoG but for some reason they didn't put him on.

Ronan only cares about the Kree. Can't see him running around with the Guardians.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Whether he cared about anyone else or not, he's the leader of the Kree. He's pretty much locked in place on the Kree homeworld. I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared frequently, though. Maybe the new Guardians are another strike force sanctioned by the Kree, like Star-Lord's crew.

 

[RockSP]

Whether he cared about anyone else or not, he's the leader of the Kree.

That's what I'm saying. He's not going to be running around with them "guarding the galaxy", IMO. Only if it affects Kree interests.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah. Even if they are under Kree jurisdiction (which I doubt), he'd be more Charlie and less Angel.

 

[CBG]

Next thing we know is that we have Annihilation III: The Celestial Civil War.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

That would blow up the whole damn universe.

 

[BrianWilly]

I'm thinking an Annihilation: Chapter 3 is pretty much all but inevitable at this point. Which is awesome.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I hope Giffen does an under-the-table brainstorming session with the team that does it. Why'd he have to go DC-exclusive?

 

[BrianWilly]

They need him so much more at the moment? vv

Though I think it is kinda funny that, so far as we know right now, Giffen's being shoved off to the side corners instead of the main events. Reign in Hell looks great, but let's be honest: it's a side corner.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Not side cornery enough, to be honest. I'm not digging the main part of DC's line right now, for the most part. Even the things I like I have a lot of issues with.

 

[Silicon Surfer]

How about the Marvel gods (all of them) vs the Celestials?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

The Marvel gods would all get their asses kicked. The Skyfathers would be the last to fall, but they'd probably only take one or two Celestials with them, if even that many.

 

[Silicon Surfer]

I was thinking of the Vishanti and the Octessence as well as the gods of other worlds as well. Not just the earth pantheons.

 

[Anubis]

I don't know, a lot of those pantheons from other worlds got wacked by Dassak.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I was thinking of the Vishanti and the Octessence as well as the gods of other worlds as well. Not just the earth pantheons.

I wasn't counting the magical superpowers as gods. I thought you just meant traditional pantheons of polytheistic deities like the Asgardians and the Olympians and such.

Anubis raises a good point, too; the number of gods throughout the universe has shrunk somewhat due to Desak's bloody swath through the deities of a number of worlds.

 

[Silicon Surfer]

Desak shouldn't have been able to get to more than a tiny fraction of the worlds and pantheons of the universe. A thought just hit me. If the Watchers are as powerful as they are, how powerful are the gods of their world?

 

[Anubis]

Well, are you sure that every sentient world has Gods?

 

[Docker2.0]

Where do the Celestials hang out at anyway? Are they equal or greater in power than Galactus? And I honestly don't think we'll get a part 3 to Annihilation. I think GoG is all we are going to get.




Corp made mod?!

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Yeah, he had more than enough posts for it lol.