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Annihilation, Book 2 (Marvel Comics) (Bk. 2)
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List Price: $24.99
Our Price: $16.49
Your Save: $ 8.50 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741
EAN: 9780785129028
ISBN: 0785129022
Label: Marvel Comics
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2007-11-28
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Studio: Marvel Comics
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Editorial Reviews:
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A gathering of forces! The Annihilation Wave has scoured the galaxy for the one-time heralds of Galactus - forcing the Silver Surfer to seek out his former master and prepare for a cataclysmic battle with primordial foes! As the Annihilation Wave spreads into Kree and Skrull space, witness the Super-Skrull's personal quest to combat Annihilus from the Negative Zone for the life of his son! And the recently ousted Ronan the Accuser sets to clear his name, only to come face-to-face with an army of powerful women led by Gamora! Meanwhile, Thanos and Annihilus have forged an alliance - but what do they seek? Collecting Annihilation: Silver Surfer #1-4, Annihilation: Super-Skrull #1-4 and Annihilation: Ronan #1-4.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Annihilus is of power! Annihilus is of death!
Comment: Annihilus is forever!
Continuing Marvel's epic in the stars, Book 2 tells the stories of three individuals within the larger context of the Annihilation Event. Beautifull, they're self-contained, but also have necessary plot points to know for Book 3.
The first story belongs to the Silver Surfer, which is centered on how the Annihilation Wave can be any different from when the Surfer served as a herald to Galactus. It's a well-told story with internal and external conflict, and pays respect to the various characters. Renato Arlem on art duties is absolutely stunning and captures the Surfer's melancholy and angry expressions beautifully; there's an amazing two-page spread of the Surfer and a fleet of Annihilation ships. Solid story, and solid art for the Surfer.
The second story was written well also. Writer Grillo-Marxuach gives us several perspectives on the Super-Skrull and his amoral nature. The Super-Skrull is incredibly narrow-minded and blunt in his approach, but it was so difficult for me to NOT root for this guy. The story was excellently paced for four issues, and there was a great sense of movement within the miniseries: the Super-Skrull does all sorts of traveling and seeks all sorts of people to help him in his crusade against the Annihilation Wave's planet-siphoning machine, the Harvester of Sorrow. Its ending is all you could want for the antihero.
The last story. . . hooboy. You really need to set your mind on it in order to understand this story. Heard of a guy named Glorian? Shifter of Reality guy? If you haven't, you'll be completely lost. Some several side characters are introduced and thrown away quickly, and I think writer Simon Furman just tried to cram in too much, too early for 4 issues.
That said, if you DO know the background and are willing to invest the effort to understand, this story's comprehensible and works. . . but is nothing special. It also doesn't offer any plot points necessary for the following Book, so you're getting two quality stories, and one subpar one.
If I could, I'd give the trade 3.5 stars out of 5. It didn't really do anything wrong, it just could've done things more right. I'm specifically talking about the last story. I really have no complaints about the first two. This book as a whole was generally solid. If you've gotten Book 1 already, and enjoyed it, then this book is definitely worth your 17 bucks, despite the last story.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Book 2 is more a sidebar than a continuation of Book 1
Comment: Marvel's second "Annihilation" volume collects three 2006 mini-series: Annihilation: Silver Surfer #1-4, Annihilation: Super-Skrull #1-4 and Annihilation: Ronan #1-4. The first story arc features the Silver Surfer and other former Heralds of Galactus as they are pursued by and prepare to battle the impending Annihilation Wave. The second and third segments feature Silver Age cosmic villains (Super Skrull and Ronan the Accuser, respectively) who each seek public redemption from their mounting irrelevance. Like the first volume, this intersperses about a dozen "Xandar Worldmind Database" capsules of key characters and plot elements and closes with some bonus sketches.
I enjoyed the Super Skrull story the most but was not a fan of its distorted, cartoonish artwork. Conversely, the Silver Surfer story was the slowest but I enjoyed its art the most. This book offers great trade paperback value with 320 pages for the same price as the first volume's 256 pages. However, the `Book 2' title seems a misnomer as these mini-series are more sidebars than extensions of the plot from Book 1. Though I was slightly disappointed with this, I still plan to read Book 3.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Must Have
Comment: This series is classic space opera in its most enjoyable form. If you are recently returning to comics, this story will remind you why you loved them to begin with.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Uneven middle chapter
Comment: Since Annihilation is told in a series of connected miniseries by different artists and writers the results are naturally uneven and in this book it really hurts.
This volume has 3 seperate stories, the Silver Surver miniseries, Superskrull and Ronan the Accuser. Each has very different art and stories that seem padded out. The forces of Annihilation Wave look drastically different in each series and if they didn't have the same name you'd never know it was the same foe.
Worse yet each book is packed, PACKED with obscure Marvel characters. I've been reading comics more than 20 years and could not name many of them. Text peices after each chapter try to keep you up to speed but the writers assume readers will have a lot of familitarity, a lot of patience or be stilling at a PC checking wikipedia every few pages.
Each series ends inconclusively, we'll have to wait for the 3rd book to see if the various writers can tie it all together.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment.
Comment: I read a lot of positive reviews on Amazon about how cool this series was and how it blew Marvel's "Civil War" series out of the water. Maybe that comparison alone should have been enough to scare me off. Anyway, as a kid, I read pretty much every single comic Marvel put out between 1963-79, and I was well versed in their many attempts at ultra-cosmic, super-duper, mind-blowing meta-fiction from the 1970s. I dutifully consumed all the books with third-rate characters such as Drax the Destroyer, Moondragon, Star Lord, Nova, Darkseid (uh, I mean, Thanos), the Eternals, etc., and more sympathetic (but no less dreary) headliners such as Warlock and Captain Marvel... A youth well wasted.
Anyway, I was willing to give this series a shot and even got all tingly as I lined the big, thick books up on my shelf and got ready for a week or so of super-cosmic zip-zapping. The introductory book, showing the beginning of the "annihilation wave" invasion coming from the alternate-universe Negative Zone, had as an upside the wiping out of the cheesy Green Lantern-ripoff "Nova Corps," and set the stage for the rest of the series. Book Two had one relatively strong plotline, with the quest of the amoral, battle-hardened Super Skrull, as well as a Silver Surfer story that, while it was a chore to get through, was still relatively interesting. Book Three was just awful, though. The uber-cosmic war ground slowly to a plodding end. The invasion's leader, the buglike Annihillus, has never been that interesting, and he proved utterly boring and unimpressive here, although the entire series was supposed to hinge on his creepy, unhuman badness. And yet: yawn. It was a readable plotline, but just barely. The coda, a miniseries featuring the various surviving heralds of Galactus -- Firelord, Silver Surfer and a couple of other utterly forgettable losers -- was so, so, so, so, so very bad, as lame and paper-thin as anything ever published in the '70s. Books One and Two were okay, but it's really hard to say whether it's even worth it to pick up Volume 3, even to see how it all turns out. This was one of the most leaden, sluggish comics I've read in a long, long time. Oh, well. Live and learn. (Axton)
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