Armageddon 2001

[ExoKnight]

I was thinking about tracking down the ten issue crossover Armageddon 2001, Inferno, and Alien Agenda. Anyone give me a rundown of what the story is about and is worth tracking down?

[Kid Kyoto]

In the distant future year 20XX the world is ruled by Monarch, an evil dictator who wears fully concealing armor (but for his/her blue eyes). Matt Ryder is a disentor who spends his days studying the superheroes of the 1990s and their war with Monarch in 2001. Monarch is believe to be a former hero/heroine who snapped and killed all the others.

Stuff happens, Ryder gets strapped to a time machine and becomes Waverider master of time. He travels back to the present year 1991 and uses his powers to expore the future of different heroes.

We get some mixed what if type futures for different heroes in each of the annuals that year. I remember 2 of the Superman stories (President Superman and Destroy all Nukes Superman) were good reads.

It ends with an anticlimactic reveal of who monarch is (word on the street is they switched it at the last minute after someone leaked the original plan) and a battle that makes no sense.

The two miniseries were abymally bad consisting of Captian Atom and Monarch fighting in different ages. Later the whole thing was reconned in Justice League Task Force.

I would get some of the alternate future annuals but that's about it.

[Doug Strange]

Agreed. Avoid the main story (and the two follow-up minis are basically unrelated, but you can skip those, too...not so good), but look out for the annuals that interest you. The Giffen/Dematteis League was winding down around then, and those are decent.

I remember a lot of them being fun, especially if you know what was going on in the series at the time.

[Apathy Boy]

Yeah, the ending of the original ARMAGEDDON 2001 mini-series was wretched but the crossover annuals were pretty nifty. "Final" stories of a character's life are rarely without any entertainment value.

[dancj]

The story was readable at best, but if you're going to track down a load of the annuals I think it's worth reading the bookends as well - just for completeness.

A lot of the annuals were very good. I particularly likes a couple of the Superman ones, one of the Batman ones and most of all, the L.E.G.I.O.N one which was excellent.

Dan

[marshal99]

Some of the armageddon annuals were pretty good.

The alien agenda sucks , it was Monarch and Capt. Atom trapped in the past fighting one another .
A lot of people dislike Inferno and while it could have been handled much better and the battles should have been more fleshed out but it brought back the JSA from limbo and had the first glimpse of a Ostrander/Mandrake Spectre prior to the Ostrander/Mandrake spectre run. It had some rather interesting teamups and some fine art by Mandrake/Simonson/Art Adams followed by dreadful horrible art by Luke McDonnell.

You can read about Armageddon 2001 here and a brief discription of the different annual stories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_2001