Annihilators: Earthfall #4(of 4):
What Happened: With the Universal Church of Truth battling the Avengers and Annihilators, most of America possessed by the Magus and a small army of Kree Sentries standing high above North America prepared to destroy the US if the Magus was allowed to gain more power, the situation is rather dire, to say the least. Since the Magus possessed citizens of the US were feeding the UCT power through the UCT's belief font, Gladiator decides to enter the belief font since he felt he'd be able to redirect the faith energies inside since his own powers were fueled by belief... A belief in himself. The Magus senses what Gladiator was trying to do and manages to posses Gladiator(!), giving the Magus the perfect body to house his power in. Ikon, Quasar, Spider-Man and Ronan manage to knock Magus/Gladiator out for a moment, at which time Iron Man, who, with some help from Ronan, had been redesigning a Kree Sentry, tying it together with the Magus's regenerative cocoon, with the hope that the Magus would become trapped in the Sentry. Ronan uses his Universal Weapon to draw the Magus's energy out of Gladiator and into the Sentry, trapping it inside. With their leader defeated, the people of the US out from the Magus's spell and the Kree Sentries on hand to assist the Avengers and Annihilators in routing the UCT, the UCT members get back in their ships and are escorted away from the Earth by the Sentries. With that, the Avengers bid the Annihilators a very cautious good-bye(the Avengers weren't exactly sure what to make of a group that powerful), and the Annihilators toss the Magus Sentry out into Knowhere space, where they hoped it would remain until the end of time.
The Good: I guess the story overall was pretty good. I mean it definitely wasn't up to the quality of Nova or Guardians, but it wasn't awful. The art was pretty good. I liked that Quasar comes out of this looking like a big deal. I've always been a Quasar fan. Ronan grew on me quite a bit as this series went on.
The Bad: I've never been a fan of Adam Warlock, and as such am not very enthralled by the Magus. Outside of a few appearances in Captain Marvel and an okay storyline in Guardians, he's never done anything for me. The back-up story was a complete and utter waste of space. I don't know who in Marvel thinks so highly of Rocket Raccoon and Groot, but it's time to let them go away... Forever.
The Verdict: Meh. I really don't have any feelings about this one one way of the other. It was an okay mini-series that I'll probably forget about by the end of the night. If you're a fan of any of the characters on the team I guess it may be worth checking out, but even as a huge fan of Marvel's cosmic books, I wouldn't really give this story much of a recommendation...
Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.
It's nice to see Quasar come out of this looking like a big deal.
thanks for all the reviews on on this mini-series Nate they just reinforced my decision not to bother with it any more after #1. thanks for taking 1,2,3 and 4 for the team bro.
ReplyDeleteNo problem, Dave. I mean this series wasn't awful, but it definitely wasn't worth the $4 price tag attached to it...
ReplyDeleteI finally just read these (since I only recently read "Thanos Imperative"). I was OK with them...until you pointed out the fact that they were $4 a piece. Then, I was like, "OMG, they sucked." Kidding...ish. (I also didn't realize they had a previous mini-series.) I think, for me, the problem with this team is that they're really not all that fun. "Guardians" worked because they had comic relief in the form of Rocket and Groot and the other somewhat whacky characters. This team needed a whacky second feature just to make sure the series didn't devolve into a gloom-fest. It doesn't exactly make one feel warm and fuazzy.
ReplyDeleteYeah, for $3 I'd have been WAY happier with this mini, JW... It just didn't come off like a $4 mini to me.
ReplyDeleteExactly! I can stand Groot and Rocket when they are tempered by other characters. I mean even Starlord and Cosmo added some comedic aspects to Guardians. But for me, Rocket and Groot alone was just too much... Plus adding Mojo was a deal-breaker! I AM glad to see Quasar getting some serious page time, but I'm undecided on this team still... But there IS some real potential.