We also have Quasar to look forward too!

It spins me out that Jack Flagg, Cap's young-sidekick-with-a-boombox from the 90s, is a cosmic hero now.

But I always kinda liked him, so there you go.

I have been on the Cosmic Marvel bandwagon for the past 20 years, and I couldn't be happier with what Abnett and Lanning are doing with that corner of the Marvel Universe. It's as if they showed up at the Marvel Offices one day and just said "We want to have free reign over any and all cosmic Marvel characters. We also want to be able to deem any other character that was ever cast aside as a cosmic character and make them new and interesting again."

Jack Flagg? Monark Starstalker? These aren't new characters. Simply forgotten ones.

Annihilation: Conquest #1-6

Finally found my Conquest stuff, so here goes.

The mini series opens with Adam Warlock having just been woken up from his cocoon. Only it seems he was woken up to early. he lacks full control over his own powers, and even begins to display ones he never had. Incomplete he mentions a 'father' who can help him with his problem and whisks himself, Moondragon, and Phyla-vel off to see none other then the High Evolutionary.

Meanwhile, Blaastaar has been leading Kree insurgents against the Phalanx on Hala. He defeats a giant sized warform but is captured and tortured by the Phalanx. It is here that they reveal the entire Kree populace has been sub-sumed by the Phalanx transmode virus. The Phalanx have now constructed a shield over most of the Kree territories that blocks everything from outside the shell from entering, including Phya-vel's Quantum Energy, meaning she's almost out of power.

The High Evolutionary then reveals he is building a veritable army of 'Adam Warlocks' for the Kree, only to have Ultron show up and attack the facility with a horde of Phalanx. Adam attempts to battle him, but in his still weakened form he is easily defeated by Ultron. Moondragon attempts to intervene but is mortally wounded by Ultron as he punches through her dragon's hide and tears parts of her out.

Back on Hala Starlord's 'Dirty Dozen' are entering the Phalanx Spire on a mission to blow it up. They are accosted by a now select Space Knight and none other then a select Blaastaar (who had previously been shown to be 'dead' after his torture at the hands of the Phalanx). Blaastaar kills Gabe (Captain Universe) and breaks up the 'Dirty Dozen'. Things start to go sour for them...

Meanwhile, on the High Evolutionary's base he informs Phyla-vel to cut and run. He's pulled a fast one and causes the star his base is orbiting to go super-nova just as he, Phyla, Adam, and the dying Moondragon jump out. The Super-nova appears to have disintegrated Ultron and allowed the heros to escape.

Unfortunately, as Stalord finds out next issue, Ultron has merely had that body destroyed, and conciousness hop'ed to a new one that is now strangling the life out of him. The rest of the 'Dirty Dozen' are scattered in the spire, without enough explosives to finish the job. However, they've come up with a new plan, one that involves their sapient plant friend, Groot.

Ultron relishes torturing Starlord only to have Adam, Moondragon, High Evolutionary, and Phyla-vel dump into his lap above Hala. Ultron captures Warlock, Phyla and High Evolutionary revealing his plan all along was to put his own mind into Adam's body and the Phalanx into the 'Warlock Clone Army' that the High Evolutionary had unwittingly been growing for him.

Elsewhere, Ronan, Super-skrull, Praxagora, and Wraith have landed on Lord Ravenous' capital planet and are seeking something from him. Wraith plays a key momemnt when in the middle of parlay he cloaks the room in hellish darkness and they capture Ravenous. It turns out, this was a main production facility for Kree Sentries, and there are 15,000 of them in the planet's core.

Ronan and co descend to the Sentry storage area. Ravenous berates him saying the Sentries will just get over-written by the Phalanx, being machines themselves. Ronan reveals his trump card, thanks to Wraith and Praxagora he can make the Sentries immune to Phalanx infection. Ravenous congratulates him on his plan to save Hala, where upon Ronan reveals he isn't going to save Hala, but completely obliterate it and alll living things on it. The Sentries are to be used to purge Hala.

Back on Hala Ultron has transfered his conciousness into Adam Warlock creating a new super-powerful Adam Warlock, physically and mentally perfect. He heads out to fight the comming Kree, and a newly resurged Phyla-vel (Moondragon gives up her life to recharge the Quantum Bands). Ultron is just about to win when Nova shows up with Drax, Gamora, Warlock (from the new Mutants, with the transmode virus that is the parent virus of the Phalanx), and Tyro (more when I get there for Nova's series).

Nova tackles Ultron/Adam allowing Warlock to do battle with him. Unfortunately Warlock cannot beat Ultron physically, as in this form Ultron is to powerful. However, he holds the ultimate ace up his sleeve. He can purge the Phalanx from a host the way he purged it from Nova, Gamora, Drax. He grabs Warlock and infects him with his own Trans-mode virus which will destroy the Phalanx virus. Ultron is defeated, and jumps out of Adam's body. Just then the 'Drity Dozen's plan comes into play as Groot is shown to have massively grown to interlace himself with the entire base of the spire. He explodes, taking the spire with him (Mantis is a pyrokinetic remember, and Groot has changed his blood to explode when ignited).

It looks like victory, until the spire begins to reform. Yet it's not the spire, but a 100 foot tall version of Ultron. He has caused the entire spire to reform into a giant body for him to inhabit. At this size he can now resist Warlock's transmode virus. Phyla-vel, sensing something expels her energy to wake Adam back up and heal him. Adam Warlock then proceeds to face Ultron solo, until Phyla'vel comes up to help. The two work in tandom to finally destroy Ultron which deletes the Phalanx throughout Kree Space (their warforms exist, but the program running them is effectively c:\format'ed).

Starlord decides he needs to bring the Guardians of the Galaxy together to stop similar incidents from happening again. Rocket Raccon is shown regrowing Groot from a twig Groot gave him that contains's Groots conciousness, Ronan takes over running the Kree, and Phyla-vel decides to finally accept she is the new Quasar.

War of Kings: Ascension #1-4

This picks up after the prelude to War of Kings in which Darkhawk and Talon have jetted into space to 'teach' Chris how to use the Darkhawk suit.

Talon continually tries to get Chris to change into other forms, as 'Darkhawk' is just one of many combat forms the 'suit' can take on. Chris grapples with anger management issues until Talon is able to get Chris to change. Once he changes Chris' mind opens up and he learns the whole truth about what he is. He is a member of the Fraternity of Raptors, a Shi'ar assassin cult dedicated to running the universe through assassination, war, murder, etc.

For thousands of years the group killed key leaders across the galaxy to ensure it functioned as they saw fit. One by one they were intered into Null Space and now only Raptor and Darkhawk are left.

Dazed by what he's learned, Raptor purges Chris from the suit, swapping his mind out for Talon, another member of the Raptors who actually owns the cyborg body Chris is using.

While in Null Space Chris learns everything he thought he knew about the amulet was a lie. There are thousands upon thousands of the amulets in Null Space. Each one a cocoon that holds the body and mind of the wearer of the amulet. Chris escapes, and finds one other amulet active, Raptor's amulet, and meets with the Skrull who is trapped with in. Chris learns that due to his human nature he can be immune to the influence of the suit, and regain control of his body.

Meanwhile, Talon and Raptor have gone into the Negative Zone and brought with them the Cosmic Control Rod. They give it to Blaastaar who is now King of the Negative Zone, and offered him an alliance (seeking to use Blaastaar to cull the undesirables from our reality). Blaastaar agrees and invades the galaxy with a fresh wave of Negative Zone soldiers.

Returning to Shi'ar space, Raptor has arrived to kill none other then the Empress Lilandra of the Shi'ar. He disguises himself, and slips through all her protections only to blast her in the face right as Chris Powell reasserts himself and destroys the Raptor persona, reclaiming his suit.

Chris arrives with Lilandra dead, and a very pissed off group of Star Jammers and Imperial Guard out to get him. He teleports off planet, locking onto Talon's signal (who is with a Shi'ar fleet, attempting to use them to further the Brotherhood's ends). He fights a running battle with Talon, but now proves Talon's superior as he can control the suit, and his anger to 'amp up' the suit. He banishes Talon into Null Space, freeing the Skrull inside. Je'ku however lacks Chris' immunity to the amulet, and says it's only a matter of time before Talon reasserts himself, and that Talon is reallly pissed off. Grinning, and seeking a warrior's death Je'ku jumps into the anti mater beam of the Shi'ar cruiser's engines destroying both himself and the amulet.

Darkhawk/Chris vows to find the waking amulets and destroy them one by one, preventing the Brotherhood from returning to destabilize things even further.

I get what you're saying (and I'd rep you again if I could for raising another good issue), but I think with Phyla at least, Abnett and Lanning have left themselves with a HUGE out (or even a number of them), and I'm 95% confident we'll see her back in the next 12 months. And I'm not even considering time looping, the power of the Cube, or the possibility that important events occurred between the shot of Warlock's dead body and when the Guardians were shown teleporting back to Knowhere. Consider:

1) Phyla is an avatar of Oblivion - essentially, she's a servant of death. Getting sent to the Oblivion's realm shouldn't really pose a problem for her.

2) She got stabbed with her own sword. Do the standard rules apply if an avatar of Oblivion gets killed with an instrument of Oblivion?

3) We're still not entirely clear what her deal with Oblivion to rescue/resurrect Moondragon entailed.

Number 3 is the big one. Abnett and Lanning are pretty good storytellers - it would seem like a big waste for them to set up a situation where Phyla seemingly makes a deal with the devil and then kill her without resolving it. My prediction is that, now 'dead,' she'll be free to fulfil the remainder of her pact with Oblivion and become his true avatar. Within a year, we'll end up seeing her fight the Guardians and Moondragon.

And last but not least, Abnett and Lanning have already demonstrated the lengths they'll go to in order to bring folks back if it helps tell a good story. Recall that in about three years, we've already had:

Moondragon (Heather) -> Moondragon (dragon) -> Moondragon (dead) -> Moondragon (Heather, again)


Yeah, we definitely need a dedicated thread for cosmic stuff.

Wow! Thanks Maniac for making this thread. Now I can finally talk cosmic business and get some insight on things not yet understood.

I think from the releases thread I said I saw Talon was alive when he should have died. In realm of kings it shows that he is indeed alive and that he is leading Gladiator into some kind of trap. I also have a feeling that if Nova helps out Darkhawk then evil Nova and Talon will get together (since evil Nova is a plotpoint). "Raptor" must just be the generic name of a fraternity of the Darkhawks character.

Also have you guys seen Quasar's new outfit? A definite homage to Nova: http://marvel.com/news/comicstories....The_New_Quasar

Man do I love that outfit!!

Interesting, as Talon was supposed to have been vaporized in the Shi'ar reactor.

A new Raptor was awakened on the Crystaline planet on the edge of the 'Fault'. It could be that one who is off with Gladiator.

I wonder if the homage is there as Quasar looks like he's going to be working closely with the Nova Corps and Guardians.

Guardians of the Galaxy #1-6; Post-Conquest through Secret Invasion

As established in flashbacks, with the galaxy having faced two crises in a row, Star Lord sees the need for a team to be ready for the next one, both in response to Nova deciding to play it carefully with reforming the Nova Corps, and as an alternative way of dealing with things - a proactive @$$kicking force. While Richard is unable to join them, he does set them up with a base - Knowhere, the Celestial Head at the end of space-time, with Cosmo the telepathic cosmonaut dog working as its head of security.

For his initial team, Star Lord recruits, with the help of Nova and Phyla-Vell (AKA Quasar), Rocket Raccoon, Drax, and Gamora, while Phyla joins as well and Adam Warlock joins the team for help in dealing with the weakened fabric of space time and keeping it from falling apart. Mantis and Groot are present as well, though Groot is still just pot-sized and Mantis serves in a support role.

Their first mission sees the team board a ship of the Universal Church of Truth, where they succeed in stopping it from flying into a fissure in space-time (by blowing it up and flying the remains away), which with all its faith energy, would be a very bad thing. Also, Rocket attempts to come up with a name for the team.

While successful, this naturally catches the attention of the UCoT itself, who determine to find out who was responsible.

Not long after returning from their first mission, the team is sent out again to respond to another fissure situation. Upon arrival, they discover that out of the fissure has appeared a floating section of Avengers Mansion frozen in Limbo Ice. Soon, unnatural monsters begin to emerge as well and attack the team, but disaster is averted thanks to the appearance of Vance Astro, AKA Major Victory (of the original Guardians of the Galaxy). After Adam set the chunk of ice to blow, the team teleports out.

Mantis attempts to learn more about Major Victory (Who gives the team their official name), while another problem soon pops up, requiring that the Guardians teleport to a Dyson Sphere. There, they encounter some of the UCoT's Cardinals, sent by the Matriarch to test them and learn their identities. While the Guardians battle the Cardinals, the true problem at the sphere reveals itself, a biomass creature made up of the former sphere inhabitants. After it eats two of the Cardinals, Adam becomes unable to reverse the process, and gets stabbed in the back. While it causes the Cardinals to leave having gotten what they came for, it also leaves the Guardians in a tight spot.

Back at Knowhere, Starhawk teleports in and after defeating Mantis, proceeds to attack Victory, which results in the destruction of Knowhere's teleportation sections.

Back at the sphere, Star Lord plans to fry the biomass by opening the shield keeping the sun out while the team teleports away. However, with Knowhere damaged, the team is unable to teleport out. Quasar provides them with initial protection, keeping them from frying, but since she's unable to hold it for long, Gamora runs back to the controls to close the dome again, with some of Quasars shielding and her healing factor keeping her alive, though she's also left with serious full-body burns.

With the UCoT possessing some of Adams tissue samples, they confirm his true identity, but it also leaves them questioning what the Cocoon they have is from.

Back at Knowhere, Star Lord reviews the appearance of Starhawk, which creates additional questions about Victories appearance. SL and Cosmo decide to investigate the stations teleport records to see if they can use them to learn more about the attacker, but before they arrive, the place is blown up. Not only is the teleporter destroyed (again) keeping everyone in the station for a while, three Skrulls are discovered amongst the bodies.

This quickly causes the team to become uneasy and distrustful, and gains the attention of the leaders of Knowhere, who question the presence of the Guardians themselves. In an effort to smooth things over, Star Lord agrees to cooperate with an investigation, though Cynosure, who leads the stations Luminal officers, doesn't make things easy. Also, Drax overhears Star Lord and Mantis talk about how he had her influence the minds of the rest of the team to get them to be willing to join. On the flipside, Star Lord learns that Drax had been making several "secret" trips off of Knowhere for an unknown purpose.

Drax can't be found, and so three Luminals are sent to apprehend him. He defeats them without too much difficulty (but leaves them alive), then continues on. The rest of the Guardians who are able try to deal with the situation as best they can, either trying to find Drax, the Skrulls, or whatnot. While this is going on, Starhawk appears again (as a woman this time), and prepares to destroy Knowhere and everyone in it.

Adam successfully locates the Skrulls, only to find that Cosmo is talking with them, and suspecting that he's not as friendly as they previously believed, attacks. Phyla also finds Drax, but learns that since the only sure way to find a Skrull is to kill it, he's set up Synapse minds through the station to kill everyone there, then activates them.

The mines kill everyone, but due to the nature of the mines, they all 'get better' within minutes. This allows him to find the Skrulls, allows Cosmo to get the upper hand on Warlock, and allows the rest of the Guardians to capture Starhawk.

Everyone rushes to where the Skrulls are, and Drax reveals to Phyla that he was busy making the trips because he was hoping to find Cammi, the kid he was with before Annihilus attacked. They all arrive at the location where the Skrulls are hiding, and after initially trying to kill them, Cosmo manages to inform them that the hiding Skrulls are refugees who wanted no part of the Skrull Empires war on Earth, and he was helping them escape from the hardliners in the empire who wanted to kill them.

While the situation with the Skrulls is resolved, the rest of the team learn from Drax about what Mantis did to them. They are naturally not happy about this, causing everyone save Mantis to walk out of Star Lords team.

This is what I thought as well. Also you are correct in saying a new Raptor had taken over the one worker in the fault, but this guy is not the guy with Gladiator. Talon (the one with Gladiator) had a set plan in motion before the fault broke out and was angered by vulcan who was ruining his plans. With Vulcan gone he is obviously seeing his plan to fruition with Kallark at the helm.

Still, I saw Talon die in the shi'ar reactor so how did he survive? Did he sacrifice that skrull instaed and save himself? Maybe a transfer of hosts? Is this even that Talon that tricked Darkhawk? The answer: I really don't know and look for any help from fellow cosmic readers.

Perhaps every fraternity Raptor knows the plan and all seek to do Talon's plan when they come on-line........IDK I feel Talon is really who he says he is since he looked like a Leader for the fraternity, not a follower like the guy that replaced Darkhawk for awhile.

Well, the plan that Talon was trying to enact was apparently the Brotherhood's plan/objective as a whole. They can apparently communicate with each other in Null Space.

this is so great. I promise I will begin to read Guardians of the Galaxy now that I can catch up with all this here

Guardians of the Galaxy #7-12; Between Secret Invasion and War of Kings

After what they learned about what Star Lord had Mantis do to help assemble the team, the Guardians fall apart, with even Star Lord leaving due to, according to Rocket, feeling angry with himself. However, when Mantis get some kind of mental message about trouble happening, Rocket assembles a new squad to go fix things. The new team consists of Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Major Victory, Mantis, and Bug.

At the location, they battle primitive Zom slave troops, which Major Victory recognizes, which in turn reminds of the Badoon, realizing they must be behind the attack. While no one else believes him when he tells them about the problem the Badoon will become, the team does successfully defeat the Badoon and drive them off the planet.

Meanwhile, Gamora goes with Adam Warlock as he decides to try to find out what the Universal Church of Truth is up to by leading it, while also having the intent of keeping it in reserve to help him with future fissure problems.

Star Lord, meanwhile, goes to the Kree homeworld of Hala after not hearing any reply to his warnings about the Skrulls. When he arrives, he learns that the Kree did get his warning, but choose not to reply. However, he also learns that the Kree have rebuilt the Babel Spire as a means of protection, and are using the dead skrull they found to power it. Star Lord tries to get Ronan to shut it down, but refuses, defeats him, and banishes him to the Negative Zone.

There, he learns that Blastaar has been made king of the Negative Zone by Ronan to keep the place in line for the Kree. However, he's also begun attacking the Initiatives Negative Zone 42 prison, which he plans on using to invade Earth.

At 42, where the assault has been happening for about a week, the guards have all fled, locked up the gateway, but were were at least thoughtful enough to let the prisoners out of the cages and shut down the system keeping their powers offline when they did so. Since then, Jack Flag has pretty well taken command of the prisoners as they fight for their lives to keep out Blastaar and his army.

Star Lord is sent in by Blastarr (without his uniform, or any other clothes for that matter) to talk the prisoners into surrendering. However, he instead asks for help contacting the Guardians for help. Regardless, Bison, Gorilla Man, and Condor decide it would be better to get back at Earth by letting Blastarrs army through. Jack and Star Lord stop them, but overlook Skeleton Ki, who goes to the front gate and opens it, telling the army they surrender.

Star Lord uses Carrion to send a message to Mantis (by hitting him a lot), which gets the Guardians there in time to find Quill and teleport out with him and Jack before Blastaar can get his hands on them. They then travel to Camp Hammond, Earth, to tell the Initiative what's on the other side of the Negative Zone gate and why they absolutely, positively can not open it, while Jack Flag, unable to return to Earth, decides to stick around after his inability to walk is cured.

While this is going on, Drax and Quasar go searching for Cammi, only to learn that they may be able to save Moondragon. Traveling to see Mentor on Titan, the guy kills them both and sends them to Oblivion. While Quasar looses her Quantum Bands, they meet up again and soon run into Maelstrom. After they beat him, they learn that Moondragon is there too, and he takes them to her, where they find the Dragon of the Moon (which he says she's inside). The Quantum Bands then go to him, giving him the upper hand.

Maelstrom feeds Phyla to the Dragon, but before he can do anything to Drax, the original Quasar shows up and helps him get free. However, with the Quantum Bands, he's unable to do much more until Drax cuts off Maelstroms arms, which in turn gives the Quantum Bands back to the original Quasar.

The Dragon pops out of its pit, only to have Phyla, now as Martyr, fly out of it with Moondragon in hand. Malestrom gets away, while Quasar flies off to help Nova, while Drax, Martyr, and Moondragon come back to life.

However, Maelstrom, still in Oblivion, comments that Death has a new Avatar, and that an End Game has now begun.

Nova #32

Okay, well I'm going to start getting a little out of order here. What I'd like to do is start adding a weekly review of what happened in the cosmic comics. I will eventually catch Nova up to issue 32, but have been traveling.

So I'll kick it off with Nova #32

At the end of Nova #31 we saw Rich and Darkhawk apparently killed when Shard was destroyed by the Fault. It turns out that Nova and Darkhawk are saved from the Fault by the Sphinx (an old Nova foe). It seems he wants their help in dealing with some sort of war of the gods. Well, at least he wants Nova's help, Darkhawk is somehow outside Sphinx's control (he can't see him, and later Darkhawk can go places Nova can't). Turns out Sphinx is grabbing heros from across time, including a Blackbolt and Reed Richards. BB in particular shows up with a wounded Namorita. Likely from another time as well, but we don't know yet. Nova does pull a few cool moves though (such as a stargate which pulps a horde of demons that even scare Sphinx, and utterly destroys what looks like Sobek). They talk about how Sphinx is some sort of cross time traveler, and that he may be doing all of this to unravel his own personal time stream (which is apparently a giant ball of spaghetti).

Secret Invasion: War of Kings (1-Shot)

In the wake of Secret Invasion, Black Bolt decides the Inhumans can no longer afford to hide on the Moon. Their entire city of Attilan leaves the system with an engine that runs on Black Bolts voice, and plans to head for the space of their creators - the Kree. The Inhumans start their trip by picking off the Skrulls busy retreating from the failure of Secret Invasion, and in the process cross into Shi'ar space and destroy three of their ships.
When Ronan the Accuser hears that the Inhumans are headed his way, he prepares to fight them and raises the Phalanx energy shield. He also attempts to call Blasstar for assitance, but gets no response. Karnak, with his weakness-locating ability, finds a path through the shield, and Inhumans begin their assault using weapons "Echo-Weapons" also powered by Black Bolts voice. The Inhumans quickly defeat the Kree, but rather than eliminate Ronan, they instead tell him they have come to fulfill their original purpose of being living Kree weapons and protectors in addition to ruling them, as well as help the Kree to advance itself as a race. Ronan steps aside for Black Bolt, making him the new ruler of the Kree.
However, Vulcan, hearing upon the trespassing into Shi'ar space and the destruction of his ships, decides to use the incident as an opportunity to his advantage.