Annihilation: Nova #1-4

Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! I'm already a great Abnett and Lanning fan; they've produced some great runs recently but most notably The Hypernaturals, one of my favourite series from the last year. Annihilation: Nova just blew me away. It's dramatic, action-packed, humorous and tells a fantastically engaging story.

It picks up after the destruction of the Nova homeworld of Xandar where the only survivors are a badly injured Richard Rider plus Drax and Cammi. Rider is the sole Nova in the universe and has to download the World Mind, the central intelligence repository and power of the Xandar civilisation, into his body. It's an impossible task and much of this mini-series is about how Rider manages to deal with the burden physically and psychologically. He crosses path with Drax and Cammi and all three escape the ruins of Xandar and the Annihilation Wave there. They end up almost crashing into Nycos Aristedes and join with Quasar, a former Avenger. Annihilus turns up and Nova and Quasar join forces in a desperate attempt to destroy him.

The real strength of this mini-series is the great characterisation of Nova, Drax and Cammi. The banter between them is pure Peter Parker at his best written by Stan Lee. There are on-going jokes that remain funny - particularly where everyone recognises Drax and he simply keeps repeating "I'm not that Drax" (you have to read it to see the humour - and you will, I promise). Cammi often plays the role of the reader, often saying things you're thinking at the time - for instance when Cammi sees Quasar, a costumed superhero from Earth, she says: "Wow. I didn't think it was possible... but he's even cornier-looking than you." It doesn't in any way detract from the story-telling or the dark nature of what's actually happening (essentially, Annihilus is intending to kill all life in the universe!) but throws the unfolding tragedy into starker relief.

Apart from the utterly brilliant scripting, Annihilation: Nova is drawn by the fantastic Kev Walker. It's a tour de force of action-packed art. Even down to the panelling. In the second issue there's a scene where Nova goes underground and finds Annihilation bugs eating spaceships. As he goes deeper, the panelling gradually changes from tight, neat regular panels to crude, roughly drawn shapes. It's brilliant and absolutely adds to the impact of the scene. There's so much to enjoy about this comic that whatever I write just doesn't do it justice.

I have to say that Annihilation: Nova is a rare comic that I struggle to find any faults in. From start to finish it's a great adventure. I'd even go so far as to say that it's one of those comics that deserves wider recognition... perhaps even the status "classic comic" (I guess that what prevents this is that it's part of a bigger story and, really, doesn't make a lot of sense in isolation). You can see that I really enjoyed it. On to... The Silver Surfer!