20 Years Ago, Marvel Began a Landmark Cosmic Revival That Would Define a New Era

It has been 20 years since Marvel Comics launched the comic book that helped cosmic Marvel explode in popularity. On August 9, 2006, Marvel released Annihilation #1 by Keith Giffen and Andrea Di Vito. This cosmic crossover series saw the United Front gather to battle the oncoming Annihilation Wave, led by the Negative Zone villain Annihilus. This event was so huge that it sent almost all of the space-based heroes against a common villain, at around the same time that the heroes of Earth were more concerned with fighting each other. For readers tired of heroes fighting heroes, this series offered one of the best wars in Marvel Comics history.

With Annihilation celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, here is a look at the issue that started it all and why this series was so important for cosmic Marvel.

Annihilation Revitalized Cosmic Marvel Comics

In 2006, Marvel Comics was rolling with its extremely successful, yet polarizing “Civil War” storyline. For readers who were tired of Captain America and Iron Man fighting each other and heroes spending all their time locking each other up rather than fighting bad guys, Marvel had a bigger storyline that saw heroes trying to save the universe. Annihilation is one of the best war comics in Marvel history, and it brought the cosmic races to the forefront and made this corner of the Marvel Universe more popular than it had been in years.

Where most of the Marvel cosmic stories in the past involved teams like the Avengers and Fantastic Four battling alien races, this one left all those heroes on Earth, where their arrogance and self-serving motives left them out of the action as Annihilus came within a step of conquering the entire universe. Instead of Earth’s heroes saving the day, it was up to the heroes, antiheroes, and even former villains to work together to stop Annihilus and his Annihilation Wave.

The story played out in a one-shot (Annihilation: Prologue), four different four-issue miniseries, a core six-issue story, and two issues of Annihilation: Heralds of Galactus. What it did was revitalize the entire cosmic universe with the most important stories since Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, and Infinity Crusade in the 1990s. Since those stories, Marvel’s cosmic corner of the universe had been dormant and underutilized. The cosmic characters showed up here and there, but nothing of significance happened. This series made the cosmic characters important again.

Richard Rider’s Nova led the way, and with him came everyone from Drax the Destroyer, Star-Lord, and Ronan the Accuser to Silver Surfer, Super-Skrull, Quasar, Galactus, and many more. This series decimated the Nova Corps and destroyed nearly every single thing on Xandar. By the time it was over, the Marvel cosmic side of the universe was revitalized, and every character had a fresh coat of paint and a reason for existing. Annihilation was a massive success. It all started 20 years ago with Annihilation #1, a book that changed everything.

Annihilation Helped Lead to the Guardians of the Galaxy in the MCU

Annihilation was such a great success that Marvel went with a sequel called Annihilation Conquest. Instead of Annihilus, the villain this time was Ultron with a hive-mind army, but this sequel was more important than the cosmic heroes fighting Ultron. This series was important because it introduced the world to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, the Guardians have been around for years, and they were even part of one of the early Marvel cosmic storylines with “The Korvac Saga” in the 1970s. However, this was a different lineup for the team.

Instead of the heroes from the future, this Guardians of the Galaxy team included Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Mantis, Drax the Destroyer, Phyla-Vell, and Adam Warlock. If that team looks familiar, that is because this is the team that James Gunn based his Guardians of the Galaxy on in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This team debuted in Annihilation Conquest in 2008, and it was just a few years later that Gunn brought most of them into his first Guardians of the Galaxy movie and even introduced the others later in his sequels.

It all started 20 years ago when Marvel created Annihilation, which saw Star-Lord, Drax, and Gamora working together alongside names like Nova, Ronan, Firelord, Red Shift, Stardust, and many more to defend the universe from Annihilus. It even ended with a massive moment when Nova tore Annihilus inside out to end the war. Every cosmic event since 2006 owes its existence to this series, which ranks alongside the “Infinity” stories as the best cosmic tales in Marvel Comics history.

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