A thread for the current cosmic corner of Marvel (Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, Inhumans, etc)

I thought it would be nice to have a thread on the stuff that's been going on over Marvel's cosmic corner ever since Annihilation. What are your thoughts on this stuff? I think Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have managed to establish a nice sort of sub-universe within the larger Marvel Universe with GotG, Nova, etc. Their plots aren't mind-blowing or anything, but they're doing thoroughly enjoyable, old-chool epic/cosmic kind of superhero stuff, I haven't been able to find in other current Marvel titles. I guess the only problem with the new cosmic titles is that there's been a bit too many Epic Crossovers ever since Annihilation, even thought they've tried to justify this by making them all interconnected... Anyway, at least the crossovers have been limited to the two ongoing series plus a handful of minis, so it's been easier to follow them than the huge crossovers over at main Marvel universe. Also, the fact that Abnett and Lanning have written most of the crossover titles has certainly made them feel more coherent than other, multi-writer crossovers. Still, I hope the upcoming Thanos Imperative will be the last big crossover for a while, so we can go back to everyday adventures of Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy.

And speaking of the Thanos Imperative, any speculations on that? Based on the latest issued of Nova and GotG it looks like the monsters from the Fault represent the Force of Life gone amuck, and since Thanos is reborn as the Avatar of Death, I guess the cosmic heroes are gonna use him against the Fault monsters. So we're gonna see Marvel's cosmic heroes fight against Lovecraftian Elder Gods (the Lovecraft allusions have been far from subtle), which sounds pretty cool.

I was pretty confused about this Oblivion character, who Maelstrom serves, since I haven't read any comics with him before. Apparently he had something to do with brining Thanos back, but according to Wikipedia he's kind of a different aspect of Death, so what's the deal with Thanos's resurrection? Death seemed pretty happy when Thanos finally died in Annihilation and she could reunite with her "boyfriend"... Are Oblivion and Death working together, or do they have different agendas?

I was happy to see that Abnett & Lanning didn't actually slaughter half of the Guardians of the Galaxy, as it looked like before Realm of Kings, especially since Gamora, Cosmo, and Mantis are my favourite characters in the series. (It wasn't hard to guess that they would come back, but you never now...) But if felt weird that Phyla-Vell was killed "again" so soon after her "resurrection". Though the fact that her body is never seen on page, and Mantis just vaguely mentions of seeing her remains probably means there's something fishy going on with that.

Oh yeah, I wanna thank EZ Snappin for recommending this cosmic stuff to me, it's right up my alley as far as superhero comics go. I've always preferred cosmic adventures over urban crimefighting.

I'm glad you're enjoying this stuff Tuomas - this, X-Factor and the Hercules/Cho series (which had the only decent part of secret invasion with the cosmic war of the gods arc) have been my tether to the greater Marvel U for a while now. I've decided most of it has to do with Abnett & Lanning; between this long run and the Legion Lost stories at DC they've written the only space opera comics I've liked since Thanos Quest/Infinity Gauntlet.

I'm guessing with Phyla that she had to "die" for another avatar of death to exist. I'm sure she'll be back, probably as Captain Marvel reborn or some such. As far as Oblivion & Death I have no clue - huge chunks of cosmic marvel make no sense because they were created by Jim Starlin.

Annhilation is pretty much the only big superhero macro-series that I have read that actually worked. It might have worked as it about characters that don't have their back history so filled in, so there was play to actually work on having and executing a good plot. It is some of Keith Giffen's best writing. You could make a really cool pulp scifi movie just out of the first part with Drax the Destroyer and the part in Alaska, that thing kicked ass. The part with Nova was also fantastic, especially the story setup. The conclusion worked and the couple of characters that bit the dust actually worked in the plot, not just feeling tagged on as cannon fodder.

The only thing in hindsight is, why can't people make something this big and kick ass and use the JLA, X-men, Fantastic Four or the Avengers anymore?

I thought the individual minis that lead to the main Annihilation mini were mostly great, but the mini itself was kinda uneven. I was expecting it to have some massive space opera action, but it seemed more focused of interpersonal drama. And to me the conclusion felt a bit weak; Annihilus had planned this massive intergalactic invasion, and so far it was working fine, so why was he stupid enough to try to do what he did to Galactus? It wouldn't take a genius to see a plan like that would backfire. It's Galactus who we're talking about!

With Annihilation: Conquest, I thought it was the other way around: not all of the individual arcs that lead to the main series were that great, but I think that mini worked better as a whole than the Annnihilation mini. Though I have to say that revelation of the ultimate bad guy behind the invasion was kinda pointless. The Phalanx were scary enough as it was, there was no need for this kind of "the man behind the man" twist in the story.

SPOILERS!

I think one reason Giffen, Abnett and Lanning have been able to do these massive kick-ass cosmic stories is that, even though they're mostly using previously established characters, they aren't "big" and important enough that they'd need to revert back to status quo once the story is over. Ever since Annihilation, where have actually been some major changes within cosmic Marvel! And since none of the characters are big enough, and no other writers are using them at the moment, it genuinely feels like anyone can die if the story requires it. For example, in The War of Kings it was pretty obvious that Vulcan would die by the end of it, but I wasn't expecting that Lilandra and Black Bolt would kick the bucket too. (Though Black Bolt's death was ambiguous enough that no doubt someone will bring him back in the future.)

That said, both of the major deaths in Annihilation have now been reversed. With Thanos, I can sorta see why, as he's too good a character to waste... But I thought bringing back Quasar was pointless, as the story didn't really require it, and his death was well handled in Annihilation.

bump to fix bookmarks.

And this Thanos storyline is starting off quite well.

To me, Thanos is an OK character to bump off as he has a built in reset button. Thanos has had to have died what three times now?

You know Black Bolt will be back, he is too big and old school to be gone forever.

I'd love to see someone get really into the background stuff on the Kree and maybe Hickman is going to get there in this current FF storyline eventually.

Is there anything interesting happening on this side of Marvel anymore? I pretty much quit reading this stuff when Abnett & Lanning's run folded... I read the first TPB of Bendis's Guardians of the Galaxy, and it was adequate but dull, as per usual with him; the fun and sense of wonder in the Abnett & Lanning run was sorely missing. Does his GotG get any better later on?

Looks like the new Captain Marvel is heading for cosmic shenanigans, I enjoyed the latest TPB of that... Has anyone else besides Kelly DeConnick done any good Cosmic Marvel comics lately?