ANNIHILATION: NOVA CORPS FILES - Review and Spoilers

[Elegance Liberty]

Well, not sure if there's anything that could be constituted as spoilers... but anyhow.

For those curious, yes, the biographies are pretty much the same things we saw at the back of the mini series. I only got 'Silver Surfer' and 'Super Skrull', so several of these were new to me.

Nice having reference and biographies... it really adds a nice touch to everything, especially for a Marvel Cosmic*n00b like m'self. Also nice to see little mini bios of the various races... kudos for adding in the Korbinites and Shi'Ar, even if they don't feature in this event at all. =]

All in all, if you've got all 4 of the mini series, you can skip this. Otherwise, I think it's worth the $4. =]

[Soundrave]

Is there a list on the back cover showing who gets profiled? I'm trying to figure out how many are entirely new entries.

Which alien races (other than the Shi'ar and Korbinites) get covered?

[Elegance Liberty]

Is there a list on the back cover showing who gets profiled? I'm trying to figure out how many are entirely new entries.

Which alien races (other than the Shi'ar and Korbinites) get covered?

Yeah, there is a list on the back.

Theres:

Aegis and Tenebrous
Annihilus
Baroness S'bak
Blastaar
Cammi
Death
Devos the Devestator
Drax the Destroyer
Eradica, Extermina and Extirpia
Fallen One
Firelord
Gabriel the Air-Walker
Galactus
Gamora
Glorian
Korath the Pursuer
Moondragon
Morg
Nebula
Tana Nile
Nova (Richard Rider)
Paibok
Phyla-Vell
Praxagora
Preak
Omega Core
Quasar
Ravenous
Red Shift
R'kin
Ronan the Accuser
Salo
Silver Surfer
Skreet
Spirit
Stardust
Star-Lord (Peter Quill)
Stellaris
Super Skrull (Kl'rt)
Talos the Tamed
Terrax the Tamer
Thanos
Zarek

For the alien races profiled, there are:
Badoon, Baluurians, Brood, Centaurians, Korbinites, Kree, Luphomoids, Rigellians, Shi'Ar, Skrull, Spartoi, Terrans (Humans), Titans, Xandarians, Zenn-Lavians, Zen-Whoberis

Oh and yeah, all the biographies that were previously in the mini-series have been updated with information post-A:Nova, Super Skrull, Silver Surfer and Ronan.

[Expletive Deleted]

Spirit (http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/spiritdm.htm).

So that's who that was. Marvel UK, eh? Excellent.

Anyway . . . like every handbook, it's the little touches that make it work. Lots of art, original and re-used, clever little logos to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys (although I think I would've liked one for the dead or unaligned), and some nice little hints and teases.

Paibok's faction? Blastaar's faction? Interesting.

[Soundrave]

Thanks. So it sounds like these are the new profiles that have never been seen before:

Baroness S'bak
Blastaar
Cammi
Death
Devos the Devestator
Eradica, Extermina and Extirpia
Morg
Paibok
Omega Core
Red Shift
Salo
Skreet
Spirit
Star-Lord (Peter Quill)
Talos the Tamed
Terrax the Tamer
Zarek
Badoon
Baluurians
Brood
Centaurians
Korbinites
Luphomoids
Rigellians
Shi'Ar
Spartoi
Terrans (Humans)
Titans
Xandarians
Zenn-Lavians
Zen-Whoberis

[Sean Walsh]

I picked it up, despite having said I wouldn't if there were reprint profiles.

But then I realized there were a bunch of new ones too. And since ANNIHILATION does not suck, I gladly paid the $3.99 to help support it in my own little way. :)

[gma2darescue]

Cool, I'll probably buy it

[Expletive Deleted]

Did anyone else notice the small spoiler in the Phyla entry?

The reason Phyla joins up with the United Front is that Thanos has kidnapped Moondragon.

Nifty, eh?

[Soundrave]

And did you notice the Annihilus affiliation icon by Paibok's picture? And here I thought we'd seen the last of him in the Xandar Cluster . . .

[Mjolnir]

yeah trippy spoilers. i was WONDERING where Moondragon was.

Now the Drax/Thanos smackdown HAS to happen. Andy wouldn't tease me so!
...
...right? RIGHT?
...
...Oh god it's never happening!!!

[Will.S]

Did anyone else notice the small spoiler in the Phyla entry?

The reason Phyla joins up with the United Front is that Thanos has kidnapped Moondragon.

Nifty, eh? I liked those little tidbits myself.

They do well in that they're up to date after all the mini's have ended but hint at what's coming up from Annihilation #1 onwards. Oh and I liked the profile on Spirit too, they used a very obscure character and still found time to put her in which was a cool move. It's a shame that she died though, her backround is pretty interesting already.

BTW gotta hand it to the contributors of the book, it's a great handbook and it was very informative. It also bridges the gap nicely between where the characters were before Annihilation and after. It's actually one of the few times I've read all the way through the book for all their profiles.

[TJ Shoun]

Yeah, there is a list on the back.

Theres:

Aegis and Tenebrous


So what's the deal on these two?

Are they - like Galactus - from the universe that preceded this one?

(Which is what I assumed from the Silver Surfer mini.)

Or does it not reveal any of that?

[Jack]

Only Galactus is a survivor of the previous universe. But Aegis and Tenebrous are the same "species" as Galactus, so to speak. Only instead of being entropy they represent different things.. like... umm.. sorrow and darkness, I guess. How they go about spreading these things, we don't know.

[Expletive Deleted]

Has the Galactus/Entropy thing been confirmed?

I thought that was still fanspec.

[Jack]

Oh, yeah, I guess it probably hasn't been confirmed. Still, Galactus exists in order to destroy planets. Presumably T&A exist for similar purposes, though Galactus says they were driven mad, so who knows.

Since Tenebrous is darkness, I suspect he might destroy stars rather than planets.

[TJ Shoun]

Only Galactus is a survivor of the previous universe. But Aegis and Tenebrous are the same "species" as Galactus, so to speak. Only instead of being entropy they represent different things.. like... umm.. sorrow and darkness, I guess. How they go about spreading these things, we don't know.

Good.

I was hoping this wasn't some half-assed retcon, implying that more than Galan survived into this universe.

What other juicy tidbits does it give about them? I'd imagine their entries couldn't have been very long.

I guess I should've just bought the damn thing. :rolleyes:

[twilight]

I'll have to pick this up.
I loved the little profiles at the end of the books.

I was upset when I finished Super Skrull #4 and Nova #4 and they didn't have a little bio for me to read.

[Bruce Wayne Jr.]

Sorry to nitpick, but there's no mention of Quasar's absorption of Ego from Maximum Security. This plot thread has never been resolved, and it looks like it's now been forgotten.

[Sean McQuaid]

Sorry to nitpick, but there's no mention of Quasar's absorption of Ego from Maximum Security. This plot thread has never been resolved, and it looks like it's now been forgotten.

It's not forgotten (not by us anyway), but the Annihilation files serve more or less as highlight reels for most of the longer-running characters with big histories. There's only so much you can fit on a single page, and the Ego plot thread just didn't make the cut --partly because nothing much was ever done with this element after it was established, partly because this situation seems to have come undone off-panel at some point (Ego has turned up sans Quasar elsewhere since their merger), and partly because Quasar's apparent demise makes the whole business something of a moot point.

That being said, Ego was mentioned in Quasar's last standard Handbook entry (in the Avengers 2004 handbook) and will presumably be mentioned again the next time Quasar gets a standard Handbook entry, so it's not like the Ego angle's completely devoid of coverage regardless.

-Sean

[Andy Schmidt]

I'll have to pick this up.
I loved the little profiles at the end of the books.

I was upset when I finished Super Skrull #4 and Nova #4 and they didn't have a little bio for me to read.

You're right, there were no bios in those two issues. There were, however, three extra pages of story at no extra cost!

Seriously, I had 25 pages to fill with the stories and Javi, Dan, and Andy delivered great scripts and it was my call to use all 25 pages on story.

You'll be happe to know that there are two new bios in ANNIHILATION #2.

Andy

[Bruce Wayne Jr.]

That being said, Ego was mentioned in Quasar's last standard Handbook entry (in the Avengers 2004 handbook) and will presumably be mentioned again the next time Quasar gets a standard Handbook entry, so it's not like the Ego angle's completely devoid of coverage regardless.

-Sean

I certainly hope so. Thanks for the information.

[Expletive Deleted]

I was just flipping through this today, and I found some interesting stuff.

Stardust: "Stardust appears to be comprised of cosmic energy. Though able to be struck, pained, and even torn to pieces, Stardust can reform at will. It is unknown whether Stardust can truly be destroyed."

Annihilus: "Annihilus has demonstrated the ability to spawn immature clonal scions possessing his memories upon physical death. Therefore, long-term termination is extremely difficult."

Heh.

[Nova3333]

I was just flipping through this today, and I found some interesting stuff.

Stardust: "Stardust appears to be comprised of cosmic energy. Though able to be struck, pained, and even torn to pieces, Stardust can reform at will. It is unknown whether Stardust can truly be destroyed."

Annihilus: "Annihilus has demonstrated the ability to spawn immature clonal scions possessing his memories upon physical death. Therefore, long-term termination is extremely difficult."

Heh.

Hmmm! I'll have a read of the Corps Files and see if there are any other sublte hints of things to come, or were to come. Good call Expletive!