"New X-Men: Planet X"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “New X-Men: Planet X” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            Following the attempted murder of Emma Frost/White Queen, Scott Summers/Cyclops left the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning and the X-Men. Cyclops sought comfort at the Hellfire Club as he dealt with the strains Emma put on his marriage with Jean Grey/Phoenix. Logan/Wolverine wished to learn about his past, and Wolverine’s meeting with European criminal Fantomex gave Wolverine a lead on a Weapon Plus facility called the World in England that might shed light on Wolverine’s history before Wolverine became Weapon X. Fantomex himself was the program’s Weapon XIII. Wolverine challenged Cyclops to a drinking game, the stakes being if Cyclops won, Wolverine would allow Cyclops to disappear, while if Wolverine won, Cyclops would accompany Wolverine on his fact-finding mission to the World. Wolverine won, and Wolverine, Cyclops, and Fantomex set out for the World. Upon breaching the World’s outer perimeter, the trio discovered a camera that recorded a group of Advanced Idea Mechanics agents’ encounter with the latest Weapon Plus project, Weapon XV, a part-man/part-machine hybrid being. The trio then encountered the remnants of the A.I.M. unit, after a fire fight, took the A.I.M. unit out. The trio then entered the World, a place where time could be slowed or accelerated or stopped altogether. At the moment they entered, time was on pause. As they explored, time restarted and the trio were attacked by a car-cop, part of the World’s security. After taking the car-cop out, the trio came face-to-face with Weapon XV. After the trio took a beating from Weapon XV, Weapon XV escaped the World and headed for the Weapon Plus orbital base. Cyclops, Wolverine and Fantomex followed Weapon XV into space in Fantomex’ parter/vehicle E.V.A. While exploring, the trio fought Weapon Plus agents and placed charges to blow up the Weapon Plus base. Following the planting of the charges, the trio found their way to a computer. Fantomex was able to access it, providing Wolverine with his history and ten minutes of access before the station blew. As Cyclops and Fantomex made their escape, E.V.A. was attacked, and E.V.A.’s psychic connection with Fantomex left Fantomex weakened. Cyclops was able to help Fantomex escape. When Weapon XV found Wolverine, Wolverine blew up the station.

            Charles Xavier/Professor X planned to step down as headmaster of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, leaving the school under the guidance of Jean Grey. Cerebra, the X-Men’s mutant detection device, located Cyclops and Wolverine in space. Jean left for space in the X-Plane Mark 3 to pick up Wolverine from space, while Emma Frost and Henry “Hank” McCoy/Beast went off to pick up Cyclops. Xorn had a lesson with the Special Class, Angel Salvadore, Barnell Bohusk/Beak, Sooraya Qadir/Dust, Basilisk, Earnst, and Martha Johansson. Dust fled the class to converse with Professor X. Dust suddenly attacked Professor X. Xorn came to Professor X’s rescue, but Dust destroyed Cerebra. Dust attacked the Special Class before Professor X and Xorn were able to subdue her. Jean found Wolverine, and the two realized they were on Asteroid M, former base of the X-Men’s greatest enemy Erik Lensherr/Magneto. The X-Plane was destroyed, and Asteroid M was knocked out of orbit, headed towards the Sun. Beast and Emma’s X-Plane was also blown up over the Pacific Ocean. Xorn attacked Professor X, revealing himself to actually be Magneto, and disabling the Professor’s ability to walk, a gift Magneto had granted using Nano-Sentinels. Magneto destroyed the Xavier Institute and then New York City, redubbing it New Genosha. Magneto deputized the Special Class, Esme Cuckoo, and Mortimer Toynbee/Toad as the heads of his new Brotherhood of Mutants and staged a mutant uprising. He kept Professor X incapacitated in a tank. Magneto planned to use his powers to reverse the Earth’s magnetic poles. He used the mutant performance enhancing drug Kick to boost his powers. As Wolverine and Jean headed for the Sun, Wolverine killed Jean to instantly spare her the pain of their inevitable deaths. Magneto placed Beak in charge of exterminating the remaining humans in New Genosha, a task Beak did not wish to do. Basilisk spoke out of turn, and an accidentally enhanced magnetic pulse from Magneto ended Basilisk’s life. Magneto attempted to end Beak, but Beak managed to escape Magneto’s wrath. Beak was discovered by the resistance, headed by Cyclops and Fantomex, and including Dust, and the Stepford Cuckoos, Phoebe, Mindee, and Celeste Cuckoo. As Esme revealed her romantic feelings for Magneto, Magneto rejected Esme’s advance. The Phoenix Force saved Jean and Wolverine from their deaths and Phoenix brought the two back to Earth. Phoenix found Beast and Emma floating on the wreckage of the X-Plane in the Pacific Ocean. The United States government planned to drop neutron warheads on New Genosha, coded only to destroy mutations and leave all surroundings intact. The resistance attacked Magneto’s base. Fantomex injured Toad and released Professor X. Magneto attempted to take down Fantomex, but Cyclops came to his rescue. Cyclops took out his anger at Magneto with an optic blast. Esma turned on Magneto, and Magneto released a Magnetic pulse on Esme. Beast tried to talk the President out of dropping the neutron warheads. Esme died in Emma’s arms. Beast attempted to neutralize the Kick in Magneto’s bloodstream to weaken him. Phoenix and Professor X confronted Magneto. As the X-Men prepared to take down Magneto once and for all, tragedy befell the team.

            Grieving from the fallout of the battle with Magneto, Cyclops lost heart for the X-Men and left the team. Without him, Beast tried to head the school. Under great stress, Beast tried Kick. Unknown to Beast was that the drug was the aerosol form of Sublime. Continued use of the drug supplanted the Beast’s persona, turning him into a mad scientist. 150 passed and humanity was nearly extinct. The Phoenix Egg was discovered on the moon. Tom Skylark and his Sentinel partner Rover were tasked with bringing the Phoenix Egg to the Institute. On his trek, he was attacked by Beast’s creations, the Crawlers. Rover took them out except for one that managed to teleport inside of Rover. Tom met with E.V.A. at the Institute. The Crawler that hid inside Rover had been spliced with genetic codes from Jamie Madrox/Multiple Man, and the Crawlers were able to multiply inside the Institute. Tito Bohusk/Beak tried to help Rover and E.V.A. destroy the Crawlers, but the Crawlers were able to teleport away with the Phoenix Egg. The X-Men (Wolverine, E.V.A., Beak, and Cassandra Nova), Tom and Rover prepared to fly to Beast’s laboratory in Transatlantis. Beast forced the Phoenix Egg to hatch, releasing a reborn Jean Grey. As the X-Men fought an army of Crawlers, Tom and E.V.A. had an intimate moment in front of Rover. This caused a distraction for Rover, and Rover was destroyed. Beast implanted himself with Phoenix traits, an act he had promised to perform on his loyal servant Apollyon, the U-Man. The X-Men faced the reborn Phoenix, and Wolverine was able to reach the Jean Grey inside of her. Beast faced the X-Men in a final battle, and the fate of the universe rested in the hands of Jean Grey.

            Okay, we have the plot synopsis out of the way, let’s move on to my individual segments of this review, shall we. We’re going to start, as I always do, with my own personal opinions on the book. I will say that I absolutely loved this book. I’ve been a reader of Marvel Comics since 2001, and New X-Men was actually one of the first two series I ever subscribed to. I looked forward to getting the new issues every month, and this series has been a favorite of mine for twenty-five years. Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men is one of my top three all-time favorite comic book runs to this day. This conclusion was just fantastic, and I was completely blown away. Reading this book again twenty-two years later was still just as good as it was the first time I read it. I remember being totally shocked when it turned out that Xorn was really Magneto. And I loved how Jean truly became Phoenix at the end of “Planet X.” The final showdown between the X-Men and Magneto in this book was totally epic. And I loved the dystopian future in “Here Comes Tomorrow.” Beast’s transformation into Sublime was a great twist. These stories were, in my opinion, peak. As far as the art goes, I have a love/hate for Chris Bachalo’s artwork. It’s unique, and I kind of like it, but it is a little wonky. Phil Jimenez and Marc Silvestri did bang up jobs on their penciling. In general, I liked the artwork, but Bachalo’s work was a little off-putting at certain points. Next up in things I critique about Epic Collections is the title. The editors had a few choices, including “Assault on Weapon Plus,” “Planet X,” or “Here Comes Tomorrow,” but the main arcs did tend to have subtitles, so the editors could have run with one of those as well, or else pulled a rando title from out of nowhere for this book that they thought would be good. That said, I thought “Planet X” was the best choice of titles for this book. It was the longest story arc in the Collection, and I feel like it fits the book as a whole as well. Finally, I’m going to talk about the cover. It’s actually very simple, just Cyclops shooting off an optic blast. Was it the best choice for a cover for this book? I’d say it wasn’t. I feel like there were other covers in this book that would have been more perfect. That said, it’s not a bad cover. Cyclops does play a major part in this book, so his gracing the cover seems appropriate enough. Unfortunately, I do have to question how he’s firing an optic blast if he’s not pressing the studs on either the sides of his visor or in his palms. Plus, I do feel Cyclops’ face does look a little odd. But I’m not going to fault the cover on technicalities such as these. Overall, I thought this book was fantastic, and I really loved it.

            Next up on the docket of things to discuss, we’re going to talk about accessibility. I know I’ve talked about this over seven dozen times at this point, and every time I do a review, I have to explain it, so to the people who have read reviews by me before, bear with me while I explain to my newbs just what exactly I mean when I talk about accessibility. So, I’m going to pose a question here: is this book accessible? What I mean by that is, can a person who knows absolutely nothing about the X-Men pick up this book, read it, and understand the story as it is presented with no outside knowledge of the stories before, around, or during the time of the issues contained in just this volume? I will say the answer to that question is no. This Collection is marketed as Vol. 3 and directly continues from stories started in the previous volumes. However, I feel that if you want this book to be accessible, you just need to read the first two volumes of New X-Men as presented in Modern Era Epic Collection format (“E is for Extinction” and “New Worlds”). I feel like Grant Morrison’s run on New X-Men was self-contained, and it was where I started reading comics knowing almost nothing about the Marvel Comic Universe of the X-Men. It doesn’t directly cross over into other series or tie into other storylines or events from the time. On its own, I will say that this particular volume is not a good book to choose as your first book if you’re trying to start reading Marvel Comic books, but this series is a good series to get into Marvel Comics with if you’ve never read a Marvel Comic book before and you’re looking for somewhere to start your journey into the Marvel Universe.

            Moving on, I’m going to give this book a numeric score. I know some of you might consider this the most important part of my reviews, but I feel like to some of my readers, every one of my segments might be what they consider my most important segment. Now, of course, it’s important to go over how I score a book. I score on a scale of whole numbers ranging from one through ten. If I score a book as a one, that means that this book is one of the worst things I have ever read in my entire life and reading it was actually an experience that was physically and emotionally painful. However, if I score a book as a ten, that means that this book is one of the best things I have ever read in my entire life and the hours I spent reading it were some of the best few hours of my life. To be honest, I don’t usually give out tens simply because a ten means this book was perfect and I could find no flaws or things to complain about. I primarily base a book’s score on the story, but since this book is a graphic novel, I’m judging this book on art as well. Also, I take the title and cover into consideration, if I feel they properly apply to this particular book. So, taking everything into account, the score I feel I am going to give this book is… a nine! I loved the story, I thought the title was perfect and that the cover is adequate to represent the contents inside this volume, but I did feel that Bachalo’s artwork was a little wonky here and there, but overall, this book was truly exceptional and I thoroughly loved reading it.

            Finally, I’m going to give my recommendation segment. This segment answers two separate questions. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my readers? The second question is, regardless of if I would actually tell you to read this book or not based on my personal feelings, whom do I feel is the target audience, beyond the obvious of fans of Marvel Comics, the X-Men, or the creators? The answer to my first question is a resounding yes. If you’re reading this review and are so intrigued based solely on the words I have just spent the past few hours tying that you now want to read this book, I will say go to your preferred online retailer, your nearest bookstore, your favorite comic shop, your local library, or your Marvel obsessed friend or family member and try to get your hands on a copy of this book and read it at your earliest convenience. As for who I feel the perfect audience for this book is, I’d say it’s best for people who love stories about infiltration of secret facilities, near-catastrophic disasters, and post-apocalyptic futures. If you read this book, please feel free to leave a comment on this blog site, or a comment or tweet on the social media site you found this blog post on about your feelings about this book. I’d love to hear your opinions. Everything I say on this blog is my own personal opinion and I am not trying to force my feelings on you. I leave it up to you to feel how you want to about anything I say whether you want to agree or disagree with me. That’s the beauty of being human is that we all have our own opinions about everything, and I totally encourage you to have yours. If you read this book and think it’s horrible, I’d love to hear from you about your thoughts about this book and why you thought it was so bad. And if you loved it, I’d love to know your favorite parts of this book. I’d love to have a community vibe going here, although no one seems to want to do that yet, but I’m always hoping it will happen, so please feel free to start things going if you want to say something, you’re welcome to it.

            Okay, we’re getting to the point where I’m just about ready to sign off. There are a few things I do have to say before I sign off. The first is that I’ve been doing this blog for almost six years now. I’ve done over 190 posts, so if you have some more free time, check out more content on timcubbin.blogspot.com and see what else there is to like. I’ve done several kinds of posts, such as shorts stories, poems, essays, articles, and editorials. My primary focus at the moment is reviews. I’ve done reviews of prose novels, manga, comic book events, and a lot of reviews of graphic novels. Right now, I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after it is released and if possible, put up a review. If you liked this review and have some more time, feel free to check out my reviews of “New X-Men: E is for Extinction” “New X-Men: New Worlds” “Astonishing X-Men: Gifted” and “Astonishing X-Men: Unstoppable” for more X-Men content. I post on a very frequent basis. My next post is going to be “Ultimate Fantastic Four: Frightful” which will be posted on this site within the next two months, but you can probably expect it to be a lot sooner than that, I’m just giving a rough estimate based on my availability to get the book, how long it takes to read it, and when I’m free to draft the review, but if you want to see more of my work, keep checking back until it’s posted. That’s all I have to say for now. Until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!

"Annihilation: Conquest Prologue"

 

            The following is a review of the graphic novel “Annihilation: Conquest Prologue” as presented in Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection format.

            On Lamentis Outworld, Phyla-Vell/Quasar and Heather Douglas/Moondragon were staying with the Priests of Pama following the Annihilation War. On Hala, Ronan the Accuser, now leader of the Kree, had given Peter Quill (formerly Star-Lord) the position of Special Military Advisor to the Kree Leadership following the Annihilation War. Quill had arranged the usage of the Galadorian Spaceknights’ A-Ware technology for the Kree War-Net. Quasar heard a voice from the Quantum Bands warning of disaster for the Kree and a conquest, instructing her to find a savior, a task only Quasar could accomplish. Quill met with a delegation of Spaceknights to test the A-Ware technology. The Kree War-Net turned on the Kree and attacked the Kree. Quasar and Moondragon were attacked by a Kree Sentry. The two women defeated the Sentry. Hala had been attacked by the Phalanx, a race of techno-organic beings who assimilated with the races they invaded and now wished to assimilate the Kree. The Phalanx released a pulse that shifted Kree space out of the rest of the galaxy. Quasar vowed to find the savior of the Kree people. Quill tried to fight the Phalanx, who had begun to assimilate the Kree, but was injured.

            Kree Admiral Galen-Kor had all of Quill’s technological implants removed. Quill was tasked to lead a no-tech strike force against the Phalanx to destroy the Phalanx’s infiltration system before it could be brought online. The task force was comprised of prisoners of the Kree, including the Bug, Deathcry, Mantis, Gabriel Vargas/Captain Universe, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot. The team went into their mission, and tensions rose between Captain Universe and Deathcry after Captain Universe committed a perceived slight against Deathcry by defending her from a Phalanx sentry, an act considered offensive to the Shi’ar. The Phalanx detected the team’s presence and sent more sentries after them. As the team fought off the sentries, Captain Universe once again saved Deathcry. Deathcry turned feral on Captain Universe, and Deathcry was unalived when Captain Universe accidentally used the Uni-force to protect himself from her oncoming attack. The team managed to escape from the sentries. Quill took the uniform of a Kree maintenance worker and accessed a Kree data hub. Quill discovered the Phalanx were releasing an airborne nanovirus to infect the Kree. Quill returned to the team to inform them of this horrifying news. The team was attacked by Phalanx drones. Captain Universe stayed behind to give the team time to escape from the drones. As the team reached a crowded area, they were apprehended by Phalanx sentries and detained. Mantis was able to evade capture. Mantis reunited with Captain Universe. The team realized that they were already infected with the nanovirus. Captain Universe had to use the Uni-force against the Phalanx. Mantis freed the rest of the team. The team fought to escape and complete their mission.

            Quasar and Moondragon were attacked by the Super-Adaptoid, who had been assimilated by the Phalanx. During the fight, Quasar went into an uncontrollable rage, and one of the jewels in Quasar’s Quantum Bands went dark. Moondragon was plagued with headaches. Quasar’s rage was caused by Annihilus, the previous wearer of the Quantum Bands before Phyla-Vell. Quasar learned that if all the jewels in the Quantum Bands went dark, the Bands would be useless. The Phalanx assaulted the Priests of Pama’s sanctuary and obliterated it. Only Quasar and Moondragon survived. Quasar and Moondragon went to the Kree world Dlaw-Neurg. On the Kree planet Ollupac, the Super-Adaptoid heard tell of a wizard. Super-Adaptoid attacked Quasar and Moondragon on Dlaw-Neurg and copied her Quantum Bands in order to be able to follow the savior’s energy trail, then flew off. Moondragon abandoned her humanity to become the Dragon of the Moon to aid Quasar. Quasar and the Dragon of the Moon went to the planet Morag IV, where they were ambushed by the Super-Adaptoid. Quasar and the Dragon of the Moon were defeated. The two were nursed back to health by a native named Dejann. Quasar and the Dragon of the Moon found the Super-Adaptoid attempting to assimilate the savior, who was in a cocoon. An army of Phalanx arrived on Morag IV to take out the natives. Quasar and the Dragon of the Moo turned their attention away from the Super-Adaptoid to save the natives. In the fight, Quasar used up all the energy in the Quantum Bands, leaving them powerless. Quasar led the fight with just her natural inborn powers. Quasar fought the Super-Adaptoid and drained some quantum energy from the Super-Adaptoid, then used logic in a final Quantum Band duel. In the aftermath, the previous Quasar, Wendell Vaughn, arrived to banish Annihilus from the Quantum Bands. The source of the voice was revealed, and the savior emerged.

            Richard Rider/Nova was the last surviving member of the Nova Corps and had the Worldmind downloaded in his head, containing all the data of the Xandarian culture. Nova had been flying from planet to planet, answering distress calls. Nova stopped the Planetfall weapon from causing mass destruction on Turakis and took out leftovers from the Annihilation Wave on Halexa. Nova responded to a distress call from the Research Habitat Sorona Dae, but the call was on autorepeat and all life in the habitat had long since expired. Nova traveled through a stargate and arrived on Earth’s moon. Nova decided to visit his home planet while he was in the vicinity. Nova went to his parents’ house. While partaking in a dinner with them, the conversation between Nova and his father got heated over the New Warriors and the Superhuman Registration Act. Suddenly, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Tony Stark/Iron Man and a group of agents arrived at Nova’s parents’ house, following the energy trail Nova left entering Earth’s atmosphere and mistakenly perceiving him as a threat. An angered Nova left with Stark aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. While Stark did not know about the Annihilation War, Nova was aware of the superhuman Civil War that had just concluded. Stark asked Nova to register. Nova said he needed twenty-four hours to think it over. Nova spoke to Vance Astrovik/Justice, a registered superhero and former fellow New Warrior. Justice tried to convince Nova to stay and become part of the Initiative. While sleeping, Worldmind took control of Nova’s motor functions and frightened Nova’s father. Nova was attacked by the supervillain Diamondhead. Nova defeated the villain and found himself wanted by Norman Osborn’s Thunderbolts for unregistered vigilantism. Nova fought the Thunderbolts until Iron Man arrived to intervene and end the fight. After returning home, Nova was confronted by Robbie Baldwin/Penance, a member of the Thunderbolts and another former New Warrior. Their conversation convinced Nova that he no longer wanted to be on the planet Earth if the Superhuman Registration Act was part of the status quo and returned to space. Nova received a mass amount of distress calls from Hala. While attempting to reach Hala, Nova was attacked by a swarm of Kree Sentries sent by the Phalanx. Nova defeated the Sentries. The Phalanx had converted Gamora, Nova’s former lover, into a Phalanx Select. The Phalanx wished to either kill or Select Nova and chose Gamora to do the job. Nova flew through an energy barrier surrounding the Kree System and was badly burned. He crashed on the Kree outworld Drez-Lar. Kree Stellar Captain Ko-Rel had been leading a group of Kree survivors on Drez-Lar since the start of the Annihilation War. The Kree detected Nova’s crash landing and went to investigate. As Ko-Rel approached Nova’s burnt body, the Nova Force and Worldmind entered into Ko-Rel. Gamora and a group of Phalanx soldiers teleported down to Drez-Lar and attacked Ko-Rel’s people. Ko-Rel was tasked by Worldmind with protecting Nova Prime’s body while it healed, leading her away from her people while Gamora and her soldiers took out the Kree. Gamora found Nova’s body and Selected him into the Phalanx. Nova’s conversion also meant that Worldmind would become part of the Phalanx. Before it could be converted, Worldmind told Ko-Rel to take out both Nova Prime and Worldmind to prevent Worldmind from becoming an instrument of the Phalanx. Selects Nova and Gamora went to the Kree planetoid Nil-Rast to find Drax the Destroyer and Select him into the Phalanx as well. Ko-Rel came after Nova and tried to end him, but was unsuccessful, and Gamora took out Ko-Rel. Before she expired, Ko-Rel tried to reach Nova’s humanity. The man inside Nova then battled the Phalanx Selection in order to regain control of Nova’s body. Gamora and the now Selected Drax followed Nova as he made his escape, on the mission to end his life since he would not be converted.

            Okay, that wraps up our summary, let’s move on to my personal segments of this review. As I usually do, I’ll start off by sharing my own personal opinions of the book. First off, let’s talk about the stories. I found these stories to be enjoyable. I loved how this laid the groundwork for the modern Guardians of the Galaxy. “The Phalanx Covenant” from the 1990s is an old favorite storyline of mine, so I do enjoy the Phalanx as adversaries, and I felt like the writers in this book wrote them on the same level as back in the ’90s, and took it so many steps further, turning them from a mutant threat to a cosmic-level threat. I loved the Star-Lord storyline, in particular. The team was great and I enjoyed their adventure together, and the Guardians of the Galaxy feel of the story was excellent. I also enjoyed seeing the Earth-based segment in the Nova storyline, it was nice to see some Terran action mixed in with all the cosmic goings-on. The Quasar storyline was also entertaining, the relationship between Quasar and Moondragon was beautiful, especially Moondragon giving up her humanity for the person she loved. I enjoyed reading this prologue, and I hope the next volume comes out sooner rather than later as I would love to see where the Conquest goes from here. As far as the art goes, I liked most of it except for the work of Timothy Green II in Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord. Otherwise, I thought the art was fantastic. Next up, we’re going to discuss the title. “Conquest Prologue” really wasn’t the most inspired title the editors could have given it, but it does fit the content of the book, so I honestly can’t complain too much about it. As for the cover, it shows Quasar standing with her Quantum Sword stabbed in a Phalanx sentry in the foreground, with the faces of Ronan, Star-Lord, Nova, Warlock, Moondragon and Super-Skrull in the background, with some ships flying around in a few spots. I felt like this was the perfect cover for this book as it features all the main characters from the book on it. Overall, I thought this book was pretty well done, with the exception of the artwork of Green II.

            Next up on our list of topics to discuss, we’re going to touch on accessibility. Now, I know I’ve gone over this over seven dozen times already, and I know that there are those of you who have been with me before and know what I’m about to explain, so if you do, please be patient with me while I explain to the newbs what I mean when I used the word “accessibility” when applied to this graphic novel. So, I’m posing the question of, is this book accessible? What I mean by that is, can a person who knows absolutely nothing about Marvel Comics somehow come in possession of this book, read it, and understand it as written, based solely on what is contained within the pages of this book alone with no outside context? While this book is marketed as Vol. 3, this series of Modern Era Epic Collections follows separate events, and this volume features the start of a new event after the one contained in Vols. 1 and 2, so I honestly don’t feel that you need to have read the first two volumes prior to this one. Plus, this book contains Annihilation Saga which recaps the entire first Annihilation event, so it’s already in this book anyway. While the Nova storyline does touch on Civil War and The Initiative, I don’t feel like knowing about them is essential to following this book. I think that the characters are established in the here-and-now well enough that knowing their backgrounds is not essential to understanding the characters. I feel like if you’re looking to get into reading Marvel Comics and don’t know where to start, this wouldn’t be my first pick for you, but it would not be a bad pick at all.

            Next up, we’re going to discuss my numeric score. My scoring system is extremely simple. I score on a scale of whole numbers ranging from one through ten. One is the lowest score I can give, and if I do give a book that score, you’d be better off lining a birdcage with its pages rather than reading them. If, however, I score a book at a ten, that means this book is perfection and is something that if you are my friend and you read comic books, I will not leave you alone until you read it and have a five hour discussion with me about it. So, when I score a graphic novel, what I’m looking at is how much I liked the story and the art and if I feel the title and cover are appropriate for the content inside the book. So, taking this book and laying it all out on the table, the score we’re looking at is… an eight! I thought this book was well done and I really enjoyed reading it, and I mostly enjoyed the art, and I thought the title and cover were adequate to represent the content of this collection.

            Moving on, the next segment is my recommendation segment. In this segment, I answer two questions, independent of each other. The first question is, do I, Tim Cubbin, personally recommend this book to you, my reader? The second question, regardless of if I would personally recommend the book, whom do I think would be the perfect audience for this book, aside from fans of Marvel Comics, the characters, and the creative team? To answer the first question, if you’re reading this review and are deciding if you want to read this book based solely on what you’ve spent the past few minutes reading on my blog, I would tell you go to your favorite online retailer, bookstore, comic shop, library, or person in your life who obsessively collects Marvel Comics and try to find this book there as soon as you can, as I found this to be an enjoyable read and I highly recommend it. To answer the second question, the best audience for this book are fans of space stories and aliens, and I would also suggest that this book would appeal to the LGBTQ+ community based on Quasar and Moondragon.

            Well, I’d say we’re just about ready to wrap things up. There are a few last-minute things I would like to say first. Starting with, I’ve been doing this blog for almost six years now, and I’ve done over 190 posts, so keep checking out timcubbin.blogspot.com for more content. I’ve done over seven dozen reviews of Epic Collections just like this one, including “Annihilation: Annihilation Day” and “Annihilation: Desperate Measures” which you should check out after reading this post if you have some free time to spare. I’ve also written reviews of prose novels, manga, and comic book events, as well as short stories, poetry, essays, articles, and editorials, so there is a huge variety of content on this blog if you’re into other kinds of written media. I collect every Marvel Modern Era Epic Collection and Ultimate Epic Collection as soon as I can after they are released and put reviews of them up as soon as I can after reading them, so you can imagine I post quite often. Those reviews are my main focus of content on this blog. My next review is going to be “New X-Men: Planet X” so keep an eye out for that, that review will be up within the next two months after this post, but it’s likely going to be a lot sooner than that. Keep checking back regularly for more content, I’m going to keep doing this blog for as long as I can, so you can expect that that is going to be for a good long while. So, I say to you all until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!