So I just want to start off by saying that if you decide to go buy this issue prepare to drop your pants and grab your ankles. I say that because your going to pay 5 fucken dollars for 20 pages worth of reading. That is of course unless your a Rocket Raccoon fan in which you might think the rest of the book made the 5 bucks all worth while. It's because of shit like that why I don't buy that many new books these days.
And so, onward to what this posting is really about. Annihilators #1 opens up with Dr. Dredd (yeah I thought he was dead too!)
http://marvel.com/universe/Doctor_Dredd commandeering a Rigellian survey ship that was studying interdenominational rifts. After Ikon "drops in" on the Annihilators she decides to throw down with them one by one. Later we find out that her fight with them was to prove a point. That being that each of the Annihilators are so powerful to the point where they are actually too self conscious about their actions and ultimately dysfunctional as a team. Eventually things settle down and as expected they have the inevitable "get to know you" group gathering. Another thing apparently Wendall Vaughn is back. Not sure about his return trip from the dead but I'm glad he's back.
We discover here that although Wraith World is destroyed the Black Sun of the Dark Nebula still very much exists and is being watched over by Galador's Spaceknights since it is the source of the Dire Wraith's sorcery. Cosmo senses a great disturbance in the Force . . . just kidding, he see's a squirrel in the Dark Nebula and off he goes along with The Annihilators and Ikon. They all show up at a Galadorian stronghold on the edge of the Dark Nebula. It's been majorly fucked over by Dr. Dredd who is using the data collected from the Rigellian survey ship to bring the Black Sun of the Dark Nebula into Galador's solar system. The last panel shows a bunch of Death Wings raising all kind of holy Hell on Galador.
So what do I think so far? It's not bad. Apparently we're back to Spaceknights who wear armor as opposed to being cyborgs. I'm not so sure how I feel about that but I'm gonna just go with it for now. Ikon is pretty cool so far. This new artist has her looking more like Jacosta then like a Micronaut action figure or one of those droids from I Robot. Clearly the armor she wears and her title are paying homage to the ROM legacy. And by making Ikon a woman she can at the same time stand apart from ROM more easily as a character. Plus it doesn't hurt to add some estrogen and plandenium clad boobs to the Annihilators. Personality wise it looks like the writers are trying to establish her quickly as a real G.I. Jane type. She reminds me a lot of the character Erin Sunne (Claudia Black) from Farscape. The Wraith warlock Dr. Dredd who we thought had been strangled to death by ROM back in the day has made a come back somehow that will hopefully be explained later. But I must say he so far has established himself as one formidable s.o.b. His plan is pretty ingenious and he's displayed impressive power and ruthlessness on par with Hybrid. I'm also happy to say that a direct reference to ROM (but not by name unfortunately) has indeed been made already as I had hoped and it looks like Ikon won't be the only Spaceknight we'll be seeing. Overall the plot looks pretty good so far. Looking forward to #2.
I'm glad we also get to see Galador it's self. You might say I like what they did with the place it's come along way from the nuclear holocaust like appearance it had at the end of the original ROM series. They may or may not explain how Galador came back from the brink as it did especially since ROM and Brandy were supposedly the last people there. I speculated a while back that there were probably other Galadorian survivors in hiding and that others on off world colonies came back to pitch in on getting the planet fixed up again and repopulated. Here are some links to reviews done on Youtube.
Here's another good find I made on the internet. This is pretty sweet for a few reasons. First, this is some damn fine drawing. The figure composition and shading are especially good it has an almost streamline quality to it. In all my years of ROM fandom I've never seen and illustration of him brandishing both his analyzer and neutralizer at the same time so that right their makes these illustrations unique.
power/psyche absorbing mutant abilities on. Do you notice a certain brain sucking alien in that first panel? That's because during the Wraith War on Earth the Dire Wraiths at one point attempted to assassinate Forge because he was developing a "neo-neutralizer" for Earth's use. He was saved by the timely intervention of the X-Men. During the battle Rogue had to get a little too close for comfort with the Wraiths. See the recap of the X-Men Dire Wraiths show down here: http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2009/07/so-whats-this-about-forges-dire-wraith.html
