THIS is brilliant. For those who haven't paid attention, Marvel has slowly been building up their interstellar/cosmic characters over the last few years. It begain with Annihilation which found Marvel's cosmic heroes at war with Annihilus (god don't even know if I am spelling that right). This lead into another slough of minis centered around Annihilation Conquest, which had the intrepid cosmic heroes return to fend the universe from the techno-organic mother fuckers The Phalanx who got all up in the Space Knights' (ROM) asses and started to conquer the universe. This ultimately lead to the current cosmic titles Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy, both written by the same writing team of... some guys from the UK. Danny somehing and something Abnet. Anyway, they manage to be funny, tell interesting stories, and give great characterization. For instances, I says, I didn't know half these cosmic people when I plunged into the first Annihilation, but now I can't live without me some Gamora, Drax or Starlord. These guys just bring them to life!
On the other side of the universe, a Species conspicuously missing from the pages of Annihilation was the Shi'ar, but that was because the old X-Men related aliens were embroiled in some tough cosmic comeuppance of their own. Turns out that Scott and Alex Summers had a secret third bro named Gabriel. This is a guy that was kept secret from them by Prof X. Well Gabriel was born a slave on the Shi'ar homeworld, and eventually found his way to earf to be part of the first wave of mutants to visit Krakoa to save the original X-Men. Yeah you know the second team a little better (Wolverine, Storm, Banshee, etc... look up Uncanny 94 for more information). Gabriel's plight was brought to light in X-Men: Deadly Genesis, which is a damn good read, but the comic ended with Gabriel, who can manipulate energy, giving the X-Men a big fuck you and then flying off-world to punk some Shi'ass.
This lead to the kind of boring year long X-Men storyline The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire, which produced two interesting outcomes: Gabriel claimed the throne of the Shi'ar Empire, and after Corsair (Summers' Dad) is killed, Alex Summer (AKA Havoc) takes of the mantle of leader of the Starjammers (think interstellar pirates/do-gooders). Havoc, with one of Marvel's Green-Hair's, Polarus, have dedicated their lives to murdering Gabriel Summers, otherwise known as Vulcan, because... well Vulcan is a dickhead. Nuff said.
Oh-kay taking a breath.
MEANWHILE, we have a little something called a Skrull Invasion, and one of the first casualties was Black Bolt. We still don't know wtf happened to Black Bolt, but
apparently he's coming back. Secret Invasion is leading directly into a new Cosmic dogpile called
War of Kings, which will finally find the ALL the cosmic character converging in one event. Click on the link for more info, but I couldn't be more excited about this. Dan Abnet and Andy Lanning (the writers of all these cosmic goodies) have really done a masterful job in creating an exciting out world atmosphere to these books that I would compare to Green Lantern Corps, but a thousand times more accessible and less incestuous. One of the cool things about these cosmic titles, is that they have been building on top of each other since the start of Annihilation. I don't think reading every mini is necessary to pick up and enjoy Nova or Guardians of the Galaxy, but your should check them out anyway. They are terrific stories, with terrific art.
Anyhoo, I am excited. Click on the link above to read the CBR interview.