Continuing on my reading of the Starlinverse, the crossover Annihilation:Quest books, as I'm such a sucker for space opera. I'm still not sure how I feel about the last Quasar issue, with Moondragon becoming a true dragon, so I've not put my snark filter on and ripped the issue to shreds. I'm withholding judgement on that one.This one, Nova 7, I have to say that I'm going after. First off, Granov's covers get a thumbs up, they've been decent promotional posters. I think that I'm a little put out that Chen needs two inkers to get everything to come together each issue. Are they that far behind the deadline? Is Scott Hanna simply too slow? I will say that I'm surprised at the story arc here. What is a little odd is the separation of the series that we're following: Nova, Star Lord, Quasar and the interminable Wraith. I was really hoping for some overlap on the stories to keep our interest as we jumped from book to book in the publishing schedule.
I liked the idea of a kree Nova, but Abnett and lanning had it in for her after only two issues. So we're stuck again with Richard Ryder, who has been a sap since Sal Buscema was delineating him in the 1970's. And worse, we've had to deal with three issues of Gamora, deadliest waxer in the galaxy, to judge by her costume.
I mean, must we? I thought that we'd moved beyond this. Its inspired an entire server full of internet snark over costumes like this, and, besides, Gamora used to have the kick-ass fur on her collar. If you were her, would you possibly ditch the fur? Space is very cold, and we wouldn't want to excite the fanboys now, would we?Drax the Destroyer makes another appearance, and this time shows up infected with the technovirus, which makes no sense whatsoever. We're going to get into another of those, "did you actually do your homework?" scenarios by the end of the issue. After all, Drax is a Golem, pure and simple. Soul of Heather's father, trapped in dirt and formed by the god Chronos. The prior issue had him getting a beat down by Nova, which is already somewhat questionable, but they've decided to make Nova a major cosmic badass so OK. But there is no way that Drax should get infected with a technovirus. If anything, he shjould be more immune than Super Skrull, who is clearly fighting the virus over in the Wraith book. Finally, at the end of the issue, Drax puts on a space suit to go chase Nova, which is clear idiocy. Drax has never needed a space suit in his life.
And yes, these are fanboy points, but if you're going to play with the toys, you've got to respect some of the continuity as well. The Starlinverse wasn't built in a day, you know.
Final points: Nova has taken a couple twists that you wouldn't have seen at the first issue, which is good. Star Lord is great fun and far, far, far too short a run. It should be running for 7 or 8 issues to really give us the epic that team deserves. Wraith is boring and stupid. Ronin tortures the Wraith for two days to get him to talk, the Wraith finally laughs at him and says, "I live for pain." and then proceeds to conveniently tell the Accuser everything he needs to know. Quasar is a good quest book, also one that should be about 8 issues long, as 4 simply doesn't give you that good ol' "Marvel-epic from the 70's when the writers would smoke a spliff and go off on yet another tangent for an issue" feel.
And this could use it that feel. In fact, it would totally set if apart if it actually had that. Lets not overlook the value of being different.
Coming up next: an entire generation of children have been born in between Cho's Avengers #3 and #4. We talk to many of those children as they graduate college and see what they think of the Ultron epic that wouldn't end.
