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This is an idea I would like to see more from Marvel. It takes a current storyline and sets up a trade collecting the origins of the prominent characters that many of the readers may not be familiar with. This is one such trade, collecting early appearances of characters featured in Annihilation. Some of these I have read already, and some of them are just simply copy and pastes.
Spoiler Warning
-Bug #1- This is from March 1997, and features a story and art by Todd Dezago and Derec Aucoin. It’s a funny one-shot with Bug battling Annihilus across the timestream (and inadvertently creating all the heroes of the Marvel Universe). This was just a really fun issue with some great Fred Hembeck stuff.
-Tales to Astonish #13- This is the oldest issue presented here, coming from November of 1960. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby worked this Silver Age classic of Groot, a tree alien, who wants to rule the world but falls victim to termites.
-Nova #1- This was reprinted recently in an issue of Nova. Marv Wolfman and John Buscema worked on this story from September of 1976 of a guy getting powers from a dying alien who is part of a space corps. Does that origin sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so, it’s the same as Green Lantern. It’s a standard origin tale, really not that spectacular but enjoyable nonetheless.
-Quasar #1- Mark Gruenwald and Paul Ryan worked on this issue from October 1989 of a guy getting powers from an old alien’s power device. Does that origin sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so, it’s the same as Green Lantern. It’s a standard origin tale, really not that spectacular but enjoyable nonetheless.
-Rocket Racoon #’s 1-4- This is the full mini-series that originally ran from May to August of 1995. Bill Mantlo wrote the story and Mike Mignola drew it. This is a really crazy story of a Racoon who is on a world of crazy people and two competing toy companies battling Racoon after they kidnap the love of his life. This is a really unique story, though one that I didn’t really dig. It’s definitely different than anything else you could read and I appreciate how out of the box it really is. It’s not my cup of tea, but was a lot of fun anyway.
-Marvel Spotlight #6- Doug Moench and Tom Sutton worked on this story from May of 1980 and it features a guy getting powers from a an alien. This time, the alien appears to be God and Star-Lord uses this power to defeat an alien race that killed his mother. Star-Lord is the bastard child of a woman and a space cadet. I find it interesting that a lot of these origin stories borrow really heavily from Green Lantern.
-Logan’s Run #6- This was a back-up story from Logan’s Run which first hit the stands in June of 1977 and features Scott Edeleman and Mike Zeck handling writing and art. Basically Drax fights Thanos but stops his mission to kill him to save two women.
-Marvel Premiere #1- This issue debuted in April of 1972 and features the tandem of Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. This really just sets everything up. High Evolutionary finds Warlock’s cocoon (still called him at the time) and the two chat through a monitor. HE tells Him about the new world he is going to create devoid of any hate and war on the opposite side of the sun so the real Earth can’t see it. This Counter-Earth will be perfect and he will be lord over it. So HE creates this world, fast-forwards through billions of years right up to the time man shows up. Now, (and wrap your minds around this one), HE gets hit with a wave of exhaustion and falls asleep, just in time for Man-Beast (a creation of HE) to wreak havoc on the world, causing war and death. HE awakens and fights back but he isn’t enough for Man-Beast and his hordes. Him awakens and defeats the evil ani-men. HE says he will be destroy the Earth now that it isn’t perfect anymore before Him chimes in and says he will fix it. So HE sends Him down to Earth to stop war and Man-Beast and his new name will be Warlock. You can basically throw a dart anywhere in this issue to find religious overtones, HE unleashing evil on the world, and sending his “son” to stop it. After reading this you knew you were in for something vastly different than any other Marvel book on the stands.
-The Bottom Line- This was a really fun collection to read, and it is quite cheap for a hardcover Marvel book, coming in at $29.99, though you can get that for a lot cheaper from Amazon or most comic stores. What makes this a really quick collection to read is that it contains many stand-alone issues and you just breeze from one to the other, not needing to remember a whole lot of story or plot. Sure, a lot of this borrows from Green Lantern’s origin but it’s just a timeless origin you can’t blame the creators for that. There’s something for everyone here and any cosmic fan of Abnett and Lanning’s current work on these books should definitely pick this up.
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Questions? Comments? Shoot me an email.
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