There’s been a corner of the comic book universe I’ve been ignoring of late, and so now I’ve directed my telescope away from my neighbours bathroom window, and refocused it into the corner of the galaxy where the Marvel Universe is gearing up for its latest epic showdown!
For the past 4 years or so, The Marvel Universe has had a little corner dedicated to the adventures of a number of its intergalactic and space-based heros. Starting with the Annihilation series in 2006, there has been a number of intergalactic wars and invasions which, while never impacting on the Marvel earth-bound comics, have been absolutely shattering the events of everything beyond the horizon. And so the latest addition to this intergalactic saga is ‘THE THANOS IMPERATIVE!’ (again, it’s a title that needs to be exclaimed by a big rich booming voice.)
In the last 4 years of publishing history the cosmos has been ravaged by wars. Civilisations lay in tatters. The intergalactic peace-keeping force known as the Nova Corps have been wiped out, with only one survivor from the vast number left alive, who has taken the name of Nova. Nova now shares his brain with the nova corps databank artificial intelligence, which is driving him up the wall. There is also a new team of heroes formed to keep an eye on space, to take up a bit of the slack for Nova, and these are The Guardians of the Galaxy. There headquarters are inside the dead head of a huge god-robot thing, which is run by Cosmo, one of the first russian dogs into space, which was converted by radiation into a telepath. But anyway, I digress.
In the last epic war-story, a huge bomb was detonated, tearing a huge rift in space into a separate dimension. This dimension (called the cancer-verse) is a realm where death has ceased to exist, and endless life is now the order of the day, so it’s all chock full to the brim with matter, and so its forcing its way through into our dimension. Naturally, it’s all terribly bad news for our dimension, where the natural order of things would go completely out the window if the balance of life and death is changed. So, as if by magic, our galaxy’s ‘avatar of death’ Thanos has been summoned (bought back to life, but that’s another 8-issue series I can’t discuss here) to go on an invasion into this cancer-verse to stop it spreading into ours. But all that unchecked life-force has brought Thanos to a standstill and he has slipped into a coma, leaving the Guardians of the Galaxy to face the dimensional opposites of themselves in a fight for their lives, or deaths!
Christ, I’ve been reading these damned books for the last 4 years and I’m still a bit confused after all that. But that’s not a reason to ignore this new series! Firstly, its written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, the two (BRITISH, Zing!) writers who have been directing the entirety of the Marvel Cosmic world since the first Annihilation series, and they have an absolutely cracking sence of humour, and adventure and of characterisation. The cosmic universe is a huge epic playground for these authors to explore, and they always manage to wring the humour and excitement from every page. For example, the Guardians of the Galaxy have as part of the team, a huge tree-man, called Groot, who turns up in every fight shouting ‘I! AM! GROOOOT!’ while stamping on the bad aliens. The team also has a talking raccoon weapons specialist, called happily Rocket Raccoon, who carries enormous machine guns and laser pistols, and who is usually carried around by the tree. There is also an alien called Bug, who is a massive pervert.
So! Usually, with these space adventures they get very complicated and confusing. Happily, with Abnett and Lanning, it’s always a very nice easy story to understand, and depending on how many of the different series you follow, you can get as deep or as straightforward a story as you like! The Thanos Imperative is a 6 issue mini-series, which can be read in and of itself as an exciting little adventure into the cosmos, but for readers of the past war stories, you get a nice big epic story, full of nice plot points picking up on previous events, and the welcome return of some previously lost characters! Ace!
And the artwork is a fantastic window into this bright, warm, buzzing electric universe! Artist Miguel Sepulveda’s frames crackle with energy and power, the characters burst off the page as they plunge into endless vistas or star-filled horizons, and there are murky shadows sneaking round the bright costumes just so we know it’s not all brightness and light! The final splash page with the guardians facing off against their opposite numbers is a fantastic example of the artist and colourist coming together to produce a big, bright but foreboding image, as if a gladiatorial fight was lit only by lightning and huge bonfires it glows out from the page and you can feel the heat of the battle about to break loose!
It’s full on escapist, silly, space-age, nutty fun. The sort of book you wished you could have read when you were 8 years old and still had weekends free to play with your lego and build spaceships.
And if that doesn’t win you over, it has a Raccoon in a robotic battle suit.
I Read Comics, and You Should Too. 