11 of the Best: Cosmic Sagas

Since we're talking about cosmic comics, here's what I regard as the most unmissably unmissable space tales. Long-term readers of comics may find little to surprise them here...


The Coming Of Galactus, Fantastic Four, 1966 (Lee & Kirby)
Jack and Stan had already introduced us to the world beyond, with the introduction of the Skrull Empire in the early issues of FF, but this was the biggie. A god-like being turns up, heralded by a cosmic-powered sentinel, the Silver Surfer, and the Fantastic Four know this is bad news, because the sworn-never-to-interfere Watcher shows up to warn them. Marvel's first truly epic storyline.


The Kree-Skrull War, Avengers, 1971-72 (Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, and Neil Adams)
Also introduced in the pages of the FF, the Kree were the great space power of the galaxy, with the Earth considered too remote to interest them. That changed when the Kree's centuries-old conflict with the Skrull Empire spread to the Earth's solar system. The Avengers were drawn, via their ally, Captain Mar-Vell, into the war, and fought to prevent the Earth itself being an innocent bystander of the battle.


The Thanos War, Strange Tales, Avengers and Marvel Two-In-One, 1977 (Jim Starlin)
The mad god, Thanos, had been lurking on the fringes of the Marvel Universe for a few years, and had even gotten hold of a Cosmic Cube once, but this was his big play for universal domination. Obsessed with death, Thanos had obtained the Infinity Gems, which he intended to use to destroy the universe. The Avengers, Captain Marvel, and Adam Warlock would stand against him, and one of them would not be walking away from this battle.


The Phoenix Saga, X-Men, 1977 (Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne)
This was the X-Men's first big space adventure, in which Professor X's latest floozy, Princess Lilandra, was kidnapped by her insane brother, the Shi'ar Emperor, D'ken, and the team went to rescue her. Notable for the first appearance of the Starjammers, and the first time Jean Grey was allowed to unleash the power of the Phoenix, this also saw the introduction of the Shi'ar as the other great star empire, one powerful enough to give even the Kree pause in their expansionism.


The Trial Of Galactus, Fantastic Four, 1983-84 (John Byrne)
After being saved from certain death by Mr Fantastic, Galactus finds the Skrull homeworld, and eats it. As well as incurring Reed Richards the displeasure of pretty much every sentient being in the universe, this throws out the balance of power in the galaxy, crippling the Skrull Empire, and setting the stage for...


Operation: Galactic Storm, various Avengers books, 1992 (Bob Harras, Steve Epting, Roy and Dann Thomas, Dave Ross, Mark Gruenwald, Rik Levins, Greg Capullo, Gerard Jones and Jeff Johnson)
In which the Kree and Shi'ar Empires go to war, with the Avengers stuck in the middle. Condemned at the time as a cheap attempt to cash in on Operation: Desert Storm (why, and how, anyone would "cash in" on a war is a bit of a puzzler, I have to say), O:GS is notable for the uncompromising attitude of some of the Avengers, an attitude for which the editorial staff have to be commended: no bottling the tough issues here. Of course, this uncompromising attitude is probably where the current "dickish" Iron Man comes from, so it's not all good...


The Troyjan War, Incredible Hulk, 1994 (Peter David and Gary Frank)
Maybe Peter David was hoping to create the next big alien race, or maybe he was just looking for a villain who could give the Hulk a run for his money. Either way, this wasn't the most successful launch, since the Troyjans haven't (to the best of my knowledge) showed up anywhere since the Hulk led his then-allies, the Pantheon, against the Troyjans and their warlord, Arm’chedon (Armageddon, get it?). However, there's a lot going on in this serial, with appearances by both the Silver Surfer and the Starjammers, not to mention a battle royal between the Hulk and the Troyjan's champion, Trauma. Great stuff.


Maximum Security, various titles, 2001 (Kurt Busiek and Jerry Ordway)
One of the wackier storylines of recent years, Maximum Security saw various alien governments, led by the Shi'ar, turn Earth into an impromtuo penal colony and exile their worst criminals there. The prisoners, regretably, include Ego, the Living Planet, who proceeds to try to take over the world. Bizarre, but great fun, which is all you can ask for in a comic, particularly a 21st century comic...


Fall And Rise Of The Shi'ar Empire, Uncanny X-Men, 2006-07 (Ed Brubaker, Billy Tan, and Clayton Henry)
In which Havok pursues his long-lost brother, Vulcan, into deep space, to try to stop him from taking his revenge on the Shi'ar for killing their mother. Another run which disrupts the balance of power in the galaxy, with Vulcan declaring himself Shi'ar emperor and threatening to cause chaos. Mind you, perhaps the Shi'ar can count themselves lucky; after all, they at least managed to avoid...


Annihilation, 2006-07 (Keith Giffen and Andrea Divito)
A dark power strikes in the galaxy, sparking an interstellar war, which sees the Skrull Empire crushed, the Kree severely weakened, and the Silver Surfer once again swearing loyalty to Galactus. Just about every one of Marvel's cosmic powers showed up in this maxi-series, a title which has done more to open up the expanded Marvel Universe than pretty much anything else in the past forty years.


War of Kings, 2009 (Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Paul Pelletier)
Abnett and Lanning have been building on Annihilation for some time now. They used that title as an opportunity to bring Nova back in his own title. They wrote the sequel, Conquest, in which the Phalanx, a long-forgotten X-Men foe, conquer the Kree, and they used that story to launch their own version of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a book which has made a star of a talking raccoon. Finally, they had the Kree, now led by Black Bolt and the Inhumans, go to war with the Vulcan-led Shi'ar, bringing together pretty much all the cosmic events of the past few years. Since Marvel seem to have worked out that there's money to be made out of these cosmic events, expect Abnett and Lanning, and others, to continue mining this seam for some time to come.

(This post mostly recycled from an earlier post on my other blog.)

"Slay Your Enemies, And All You Desire Shall Be Yours!"

As mentioned yesterday, in 1985 (and indeed 1984) comic fans were getting all excited over Secret Wars. It was, while by no means the first mini-series published by Marvel, certainly the first one to have line-wide consequences. These days Marvel would call it an "event", publish a line of related titles, and you'd be sick of the thing before it was halfway finished. In the mid-80s though, Marvel just had many of their top heroes whisked away via a mysterious portal to another world, where they were forced to battle villains, with the promise of the ultimate prize for the winners. Jim Shooter took a year to tell the story of what had happened, but whilst these days, we'd face 12 months of comics featuring stand-in heroes in the missing characters' books, in those days, they simply showed the heroes returning the next month, and the radical changes which the as yet untold Secret Wars had wrought.

Spider-Man appeared with a new, black and white costume, which changed between civilian and super-duds depending on what was needed, and which never ran out of webbing. Later he'd discover that the costume was actually an alien symbiote, trying to take him over. Later still, the symbiote would be reborn as the villainous Venom, and later still, we'd all be sick of the sight of the black costume. But at the time, for all that it was just a change of look, we were quite excited by it.

The Incredible Hulk came back from Battleworld with a broken leg and a bad attitude. The broken leg was courtesy of a fight against Ultron, whilst the bad attitude came, at least in part, from the manipulations of old Dr Strange foe, Nightmare, out to get at the Sorcerer Supreme via one of his fellow former Defenders. Of course, a week of fighting the Absorbing Man and having mountains dropped on him probably didn't help the Hulk's disposition either.


The Vision, newly recovered from a near-death experience, took advantage of the disappearance of most of the Avengers to launch a bloodless coup. Naming himself chairman, he cosied up to the government and got them to approve setting up a new West Coast branch of the team. Had anyone realised that he was suffering from the android equivalent of brain damage after his time spent in a coma, he'd probably have encountered slightly more resistance.


Ben Grimm, in contrast to most of the heroes, quite enjoyed his time away from Earth. He discovered that he was able to turn back into his human form at will, and decided that, on the whole, he'd sooner spend his future riding around on pteradons than go home and be a monster again. So he chose to stay on Battleworld, leaving the Fantastic Four a man short.


The FF didn't waste time replacing the Thing, offering his place in the team to the first superstrong person they saw. In this case, the She-Hulk, who, although a member of the Avengers, was happy to cross the street to the Baxter Building. Later, the Human Torch would take advantage of the Thing's absence to shag his girlfriend. Classy. Secret Wars would also tease the readers of the FF with the mystery of how Doctor Doom, killed the previous year, could be alive on Battleworld. A somewhat convoluted explanation would eventually be given, accompanied by a somewhat gratuitous appearance by the Beyonder.


And the X-Men? Well, they stood around a hill in Japan talking a lot. Well, it was the 80s, and it was Chris Claremont, so perhaps we shouldn't have expected anything too revolutionary. In Claremont's defence, he did use Secret Wars to promote his agenda of Magneto as an extreme activist, rather than as an out-and-out supervillain, to break up Kitty Pryde and Colossus as a couple, and to justify Professor X deciding to take a more active role in leading the X-Men, but what we really remember is the constant talking...

70 Years of Marvel - 1984

Introduced in the pages of X-Men as former allies of Wolverine who were keen to bring him back to Canada, Alpha Flight got their own book despite the reservations of their creator, John Byrne. Byrne claims he never really knew what to do with the book when he had it, but despite that, Alpha Flight's first 28 issues are remembered with some fondness, particularly compared to the numerous failed attempts at relaunching the team and the title ever since. The issue above featured Alpha's leader, Guardian, taking on the evil Omega Flight, with unfortunate consequences.

1984 also saw the New Mutants gain four new members: Magik, Magma, Cypher and Warlock. Pre-school super group, Power Pack, also turned up, as did sometime X-Man, Forge. Transformers became the latest, and some might argue, greatest, toy tie-in comic, and Hawkeye formed his own West Coast Avengers team, as the Avengers became Marvel's third franchise.

in the real world, 1984 saw Ronald Reagan announce "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes". Despite, or possibly because of this epic mispronounciation, he was later re-elected President. Go figure.