Marvel Cosmic Events

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Sat Nov 12, 2011 12:48 pm

I usually avoid all the Marvel Cosmic Events because I just don't know much about those characters. Years ago I tried to read Annihilation but never finished it. Finally seeing that all these stories are starting to spread out and influence current books, I figured it's time I started to read them.

I'm starting with Annihilation again, then Annihilation: Conquest.

Then War of Kings, starting with The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire 12-issue arc in Uncanny (I originally found to be boring cause the cosmic stuff didn't excite me) for the buildup of Vulcan and then Silent War/Secret War: Inhumans for the buildup of the Inhumans.

After that the sequel being Realm of Kings, which I know nothing of. Finally Thanos Imperative.

After reading that, I'm sure the recent arc of X-Men: Legacy and bits of FF will make more sense, as will the upcoming Uncanny arc on the Phoenix force.

Tragic Angelus · Post by **Tragic Angelus** » Sat Nov 12, 2011 1:33 pm

I've read War of Kings, along with Silent War and Secret Invasion: Inhumans. You'll also want to look at X-Men: Kingbreaker as it deals with Vulcan ruling the Shi'ar Empire.

I've not read the Annihilation books, and I left after the two Realm of Kings minis involving the Imperial Guard and Inhumans as I lost interest after those.

I think I'm going to drop FF at issue 600/12. The last 5 issues have been pretty worthless to me, which is sad considering the start was just amazing.

The last Legacy story really doesn't tie in with all of those, with the exception of readers needing to know that Rachel, Havok, & Polaris have been stuck in space for a few years. It didn't really tie into any of the space stories outside of that.

CHEMICALX · Post by **CHEMICALX** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:13 am

jedispyder wrote:I usually avoid all the Marvel Cosmic Events because I just don't know much about those characters. Years ago I tried to read Annihilation but never finished it. Finally seeing that all these stories are starting to spread out and influence current books, I figured it's time I started to read them.

I'm starting with Annihilation again, then Annihilation: Conquest.

Then War of Kings, starting with The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire 12-issue arc in Uncanny (I originally found to be boring cause the cosmic stuff didn't excite me) for the buildup of Vulcan and then Silent War/Secret War: Inhumans for the buildup of the Inhumans.

After that the sequel being Realm of Kings, which I know nothing of. Finally Thanos Imperative.

After reading that, I'm sure the recent arc of X-Men: Legacy and bits of FF will make more sense, as will the upcoming Uncanny arc on the Phoenix force.

in my opinion Annihilation was great
Conquest not so much
loved everything related to Nova at that time because he was written amazingly well and the story connected Same for Guardians of the Galaxy

It all started to fall apart for me with Realm of Kings i the story just did nothing for me and quickly lost interest. I picked up parts of the Thanos Imperative and it seemed pretty good but after Relm i just couldnt get it back...

I love cosmic marvel some of my favorite characters are under that umbrela like Adam Warlock, Galactus, and most of his Herolds but i think the story got too big and involved adn then fell in on itself.

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 11:11 am

I thought Annihilation was pretty great. I did have some problem with fully grasping certain aspects because I over thought it. Such as how exactly did Annihilus get this many people to follow him on a conquest of our universe. And I thought it was difficult to go from the Negative Zone to our universe, as shown by the Super Skrull mini with him having to go to Reed Richards to get across. How could Annihilus get so many of his supporters across? I know he said that our universe was stealing part of the Negative Zone, so possibly that had something to do with it.

Now, I really enjoyed most of Annihilation: Conquest. All the buildup minis were great, with the Starlord one being my favorite. Yet when we actually got to the core mini, it just didn't fully do much for me. I enjoyed what happened, thought the buildup to the finale was ok. It made perfect sense for Ultron to be the Big Bad and for him to easily be able to take over the Phalanx. What I definitely did not like was the final issue. Basically they did deux ex machina by having Nova and company come in to save the day, even though they were not featured anywhere else in the previous 5 issues of the core mini. I'm guess his own series describes how he came to get help from Warlock and save Gamorra and Drax, because I know his tie in issues to the prequel ended with them escaping the confined territory and still infected. Plus, how they got rid of Ultron took like 2 pages and that's it, nothing like it with the huge fight between Nova and Annihilus that was amazing.

I'm not reading Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire and it's pretty good so far. I remember when it first came out I wasn't exactly excited to read it and got bored after awhile. I think at one point I just stopped reading for a couple months and had to play catchup, I never fully comprehended what I read which is why I'm glad to reread it now.

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Sun Nov 20, 2011 12:23 am

Ok, figured out the whole Nova confusion in Conquest 6 was explained in Nova: Knowhere. Which wasn't listed as being integral for the story at all or in any of the checklists in the actual issues. Just read those and it makes much more sense, but it's still a deus ex machina...

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 10:19 pm

Read all the set up to War of Kings but stopped to play catchup with Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy.

I was very surprised to see how similar the Nova Corps is to the GL Corps. I didn't know much about Nova before starting so it's a surprise. I love the dig at GL with the whole "who would be crazy to draft a planet into the corps" while looking directly at the reader. And now Richard Rider, the Prime Nova, has forcibly had his powers removed and was then teleported back to Earth (where he has trouble driving a car since it's been so long). That's very similar to the main GL title this year, surprised I didn't read/hear any complaints that Geoff Johns was stealing from DnA's story.

Tragic Angelus · Post by **Tragic Angelus** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 8:48 pm

Probably because it's old news that Johns borrows stories from the past for his work today. The only difference is that's not from the 80s like most of his work.

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:59 am

I'm mostly finished with War of Kings and damn, this was fucking excellent! I guess it helps that 95% of all the issues are written by DnA so they can keep the continuity perfect.

It's interesting to see them give us a new origin for Darkhawk. He was a character that, besides his cool armor, I never really cared for. Now I really want to see what issues he shows up in next (which I'll go to ComicBookDB to find out). A very unique twist that I doubt anyone saw coming.

[Spoilers]

It's a shame they killed Lilandra. She was never one of my favorite characters (her sister was more of an interesting character, especially when she got with Bishop in his series).

Tragic Angelus · Post by **Tragic Angelus** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:40 am

I was a little surprised at her death. I figured she'd return at some point but it's yet to happen to my knowledge.

wolf_2099 · Post by **wolf_2099** » Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:29 pm

I really enjoyed Abnett and Lannings outer space adventures, and realm/war of kings were great.

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 5:49 pm

I finished War of Kings last night and didn't really care for the ending, a bit too ambiguous. I did love seeing Blackbolt unleash his voice on Vulcan and completely decimate him (yet seeing him return was a bit of a shock but makes sense considering his mutant power).

I finished it off by reading the arc of GotG and found a lot of important stuff happened in it that wasn't even mentioned in the main WoK books. Such as the whole "both Inhumans and Shi'ar meet on Knowhere and start to duke it out" thing, that was pretty big! But nope, not even a mention in the main book.

The arc of GotG right after WoK was very damn shocking! [SPOILERS] Killing off half the team is pretty crazy, especially when it includes my 2nd favorite of Cosmo! Mantis was also an interesting character and sad to see her go. Didn't really have an opinion on Gamorra, Adam Warlock, or Vance Astro, but it was sucky to see Martyr/Phyla-Vell get murdered after just getting back Heather. Yet the arc was very well written and they sure did make the emotional impact with Drax's statement of, "Hello, Daughter. We saved the universe again. It didn't come cheap." with Heather crying. That, to me, was on-par with the old Fantastic Four "your child didn't live" scene. Very touching and it leaves you going "what the fuck?!?"

Moving on to Realm of Kings and evidently this has no reading order at all. So I'm starting with GotG and will likely just finish the series to 25, then the last 8 issues of Nova, and finally the core RoK mini series...

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:08 pm

Holy. Shit. Just read GotG 22, and that was definitely a nice last page shocker. [SPOILERS] None of them ever died! Magus must have fucked with everyone's mind because suddenly he's living and all the "dead" are held in what looks like bacta bubbles. Not sure if they actually died and this bubble is healing them back to help, but it was insanely awesome.

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:23 pm

Almost all caught up to date.

I finished GotG and Nova, both great series that I wish I had "known" about when they were out so I could collect them. I found these stories to be much better than a lot of the other series out. I absolutely loved seeing Thanos come back but damn, it sure did suck when he killed Phylla-Vell!

Realm of Kings was overall ok. I absolutely hated the Son of Hulk story since it made absolutely no sense to me, having not followed Hulk in awhile. I always thought he just had Skaar, didn't know he had this one as well. So it was a story that the only character I had even heard of was the dead Jarella, lol.

The whole Cancerverse stuff in Thanos Imperative was very interesting, but I must have missed where they first decided to call it Cancerverse because out of nowhere they were calling it that. It does make sense, but I wish they could have gone into more detail about it's name's origin. It was awesome to see Mar-Vell as the Big Bad and how he became the Big Bad.

My main gripe with Thanos Imperative is how Drax was drawn/colored. I much prefer his new version, yet he was drawn and colored like his old version. No red (what I thought were) tattoos on him. Plus, Rocket Raccoon looked a little funky. The art was beautiful, I just think the versions/outfits used on some updated characters could have been more wisely chosen.

I just read the first arc of Annihilators, and while it was no Guardians, it was still fun. I had forgotten that Dire Wraiths were related to the Skrulls so that was a nice touch, especially with how endangered the Skrulls are now. The mini did leave me wondering what path Quasar has set after Immortus basically said he was destined for certain things. I partially think Immortus was fucking with the future by telling him that because his personality completely changed and he was finally "certain" of himself instead of his "why am I here when I'm not as good as these other guys?" thinking he had been doing.

Now the whole Rocket Raccoon/Groot backup? Fucking amazing! I now want to buy all the variants to Annihilators since they're of them only. I'm glad we finally got clarification on the whole "I AM GROOT!" speech pattern. It was touched on during War of Kings when Maximus stated that you had to listen to the nuances of speech, yet we weren't certain whether Maximus was mad or not at the time so it could have been a joke. I always wondered why we went from Groot's speech pattern at the beginning of Annihilation: Conquest to the simple "I AM GROOT!" during GotG. They never did respond but at least we know he was a retard that could only say his name, lol.

All I now have left is Annihilation: Earthfall, which will have the final issue sometime this month. I'm debating on waiting to read the mini until the last issue comes out so it's more of a smooth reading, not sure though.

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 7:06 pm

Going back to 1992 and reading Operation: Galactic Storm. Never read it when it first came out cause I hated Cosmic Events, but now I think it's time to give it a try...

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:35 pm

So far I'm finding Operation: Galactic Storm to be a bit boring. The story telling is soooo slow compared to the fast paced nature of today's comics. And going between titles seems like things are actually missing. I guess I was used to there being a recap page if needed, now the only recap is "check out this issue, now on sale" lol. The plot is interesting but it doesn't explain why the Shi'ar and Kree is going at it, so I'm a tad confused on that part. Nice to see Thunderstrike and Gladiator duke it out, that was fun...

jedispyder · Post by **jedispyder** » Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:11 pm

I now understand why so many people hated crossovers back in the day: horrible continuity between writers! In part 14 of O:GS (Thor 446), it ends with Lilandra saying she was going to recall the Negabomb. Then, 2 issues later in part 16 (Avengers West Coast 82), it continues with Lilandra saying the Kree deserve death and the Negabomb is going to go off. WTF?!? And nothing happened in part 15 to influence this, nothing at all. This is very very poor writing and communication.

Overall this has been an ok story. Pales in comparison to modern crossovers which are faster paced and better written.