Monday, February 21, 2011

Speculations on Annihilators: The Silver Surfer, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, Galactus, the Kree and their place in the ROM anthology

Well we're down to a little over a week before Annihilators hits the shelves. Rather I post again or not between now and then you can bet you'll be hearing from me as soon as I get my copy at my local comic shop the day it's out. Which is a Wednesday, a day I typically have off from work. And I find myself wondering if any members of the Annihilators will make any references to past dealings with the Dire Wraiths, Spaceknights or even perhaps ROM himself. For that we have to go back and look at which members of the team have actually dealt with any of the before mentioned. So many of us out there would have loved to have seen a ROM & Silver Surfer cross over way back when. Unfortunately the closest we ever got was Galactus mentioning both of them in the same dialogue bubble. What a shame, the characters really do have a lot in common beyond both being silver and having been heralds of the big G. Although in ROM's case it was more like he was temping as a herald as opposed to it being a long term gig like the Surfer but you get the idea. Some of those obvious commonalities is that unwavering sense of justice, sacrifice and respect for most living things.
Then there's Gladiator who may not know anything about the Dire Wraiths but he sure knows about Spaceknights and ROM himself from ROM annual #4. By the way what the fuck was up with Gladiator in this issue he looks like a regular white guy with a mohawk. I mean shit, every time I go to San Francisco or Berkeley I see "Gladiator". He's supposed to be purple with like pointed ears like Mr. Spock. And even though he looked correct on the cover he looked like this panel through out all of the interior art. How the Hell does that happen!? Well this was during the Steve Dikto era of ROM in which there was so much about the art that sucked so I guess this was just one more retarded aspect to it.
Beta Ray Bill fought in the finale of the Wraith War although he never had any direct contact with ROM so we know he at least knows about ROM, and has fought the Dire Wraiths first hand.
We know that the Kree and Galadorian Spaceknights have had some dealings during the ANNIHILATION Conquest (left click to magnify). But this certainly doesn't mean that Ronan himself knows of ROM. This all has prompted me to wonder if at any point ROM will be called out by name like he was in the HULK at Rick Jone's wedding although he was in human form. And then of course we saw Hybrid do the same for his brief return in X-Man during his battle with Nate Grey. And what about if Galactus himself appears in Annhilators? Is it possible after they realize who and what Ikon is that any of the Annihilators or the G man himself will be like "oh yeah I heard of you Spaceknights, who was that dude way back in the day that was like the greatest one? Rom right? Yeah there's this cool blog site about him for his fans who aren't dicks." That would be a really nice added bonus if Marvel just manned up and dropped ROM's name at least once somewhere in the mini-series. I mean really it's not like someone from Parker Bros./Hasbro is gonna see it and want to drag Marvel to the Supreme Court, or even to the Supreme Intelligence. You owe it to the fans Marvel, man the fuck up!
On a side note here it's too bad Nova is apparently dead. Having him as one of the Annihilators would have all but guaranteed a direct ROM reference given their brief alliance in repelling a Skrull invasion of Xandar in ROM #23. Man I still can't believe Richard Rider (Nova), Peter Quill (Star Lord) and Wendall Vaughn (Quasar) are all deceased noW! Those were really some great characters, what a loss I'll miss em.

7 comments:

  1. Nice! I will have a bit more of a wait for my copy - so might have to avoid any spoilers! As for Gladiator - I'm always suprised when I come across an artist that makes that Mohawk and cape look bad ass.

    Nice run down!

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  2. yeah i just felt like a good thorough run down might be nice for the fans out there who are anticipating next week's arrival.

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  3. Small correction. Nova & Rom teamed up in ROM #24, not #23. And Wendell is back again, sort of. He's one of the Annihilators. Wikipedia explains it, very, very briefly.

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  4. well i guess Lee it was your turn to be "that guy" instead of ~P~ for a change huh? i'll have all you know that was just a type o, i knew that was ROM #24 with Nova in it. really i did! now let's go see what the Hell Wikipedia is talking about.

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  5. Actually, Wendell Vaughn Quasar is alive and well in Marvel's Cosmic pantheon. He has the quantum bands and is kicking ass. I very much hope this new miniseries is awesome. I love all these characters so much, it would suck ass if Marvel misused them. But, I've got hope the writers will do them justice. Especially Bill and Quasar.

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  6. I would really like to see Marvel do that too Dave...the man up thing. I understand why they don't..they're probably a little law-suit shy. But seriously. Do Hasbro execs have teams going through every Marvel book scouring for any tiny mention of the name ROM? Do they have a computer compiling data that would send out a red alert and order a swat team of lawyers to Marvel's offices in the event of an infraction? Neat idea, but I don't think so.

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  7. never have more eloquent words been written on this blog Tony. i hope your students are following this and taking notes.

    my point exactly Randomnerd. i just got an email from my local comic shop letting me know ANNIHILATORS should be in next Wed. we'll see if the first issue gets off to a good start with some of the stuff i've been blogging about.

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