The Cosmos Is Saved With A Thud

If I told you that the more I think about Thanos Imperative #6, the more I hope there was editorial interference, would that give you a suitable sense of my disappointment?

The Cosmic Cube bit still irritates me a little. The idea that there was only enough left in it for one shot (used to stun Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy #25) was presented as fairly critical through the last six months or so of Guardians of the Galaxy, and even earned mention in Thanos Imperative: Ignition, that Star-Lord abruptly telling Nova there might actually be enough for one or even two more uses felt like cheating. It only irritates me a little because, in terms of Thanos Imperative, its impact is small. It just happens to be the tool Star-Lord's going to use to help Nova try and keep Thanos in the Cancerverse until it self-destructs, as opposed to say, stealing one of Rocket Raccoon's unfeasibly large guns. It strikes me that Abnett and Lanning present abruptly present the Cube as not being exhausted, because its powers provide a potential out for Nova, Star-Lord, and Thanos' apparent deaths (or their being trapped in a sealed off, dead universe).

The more I think on it, the more Richard's taking all the Nova Force is what bothers me, because it served so little purpose in story, but seems to take a toy away from future writers. Rich tells the Worldmind to give him all of the Nova Force, uses it to throw off the attacking Revengers, and that's pretty much it. Thanos' plan to destroy Lord Mar-Vell kicks in before Rich can reach him, so we never see if the extra power would have given Nova a better shot against Mar-Vell. Presumably it helped some against Thanos, but we didn't see that fight, so there's no evidence the extra Nova Force made any significant difference there. All it did was take the Nova Corps off the board*. In theory, that'll be a set-up for future stories ("Who protects the spaceways with the Nova Corps gone?"), but personally, I'd like to see the remainder of the Corps carry on as best they could, without Richard Rider, or most of the Nova Force. Those kinds of stories, where the supporting characters try to carry on without their big gun, can be a lot of fun.

I also didn't understand why destroying the Many-Angled Ones - by killing their Avatar - caused the Fault to close. I follow the armies of the Cancerverse dying. They were connected to the Many-Angled Ones, so one dies, both die. The Fault was a tear in the Marvel Universe caused by the Inhumans Terrigen bomb, which lead to space between universes. At the other end, was the Cancerverse, presumably with a tear of its own, perhaps caused by the shockwave of the T-Bomb. I guess maybe the destruction of all those beings caused a disruption that made the Fault close.

The last issue reads like Abnett and Lanning had a checklist of stuff that needed to be done, or in place by the end, and things were twisted as necessary for them to happen. Maybe they were edicts from on high, maybe the story got away from DnA, and they had to jerk things back on course a tad abruptly, I don't know. I like their work, I want to give them benefit of the doubt.

That's part of my problem. The other part is, and maybe I haven't thought enough about it, I don't feel this conclusion provided the basis for more interesting stories. The thing about Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest, or War of Kings was after they were done, things were different in a way I wanted to see how the writers would take advantage**. Now frequently, I didn't feel they did take advantage, because Marvel's endless event cycle seemed to bring us around to the next Big Thing before the writers had a chance to explore the repercussions of the last Big Thing, but the potential was there.

I'm sure part of my issue is I'm used to seeing the changes presented through Nova and Star-Lord's eyes, and they're dead (absent, at least). But the Fault's been closed, the Nova Corps are gone, there were no upheavals in the ruling powers amongst the major space groups. The Guardians are minus Star-Lord (and Drax and Phyla), but the team's soldiered on through greater apparent losses. There wouldn't appear to be an Avatar of Life or of Death active in the Marvel U. It feels like things were taken away, without anything being added, which is disappointing. I'm hopeful the Thanos Imperative: Devastation one-shot will fire me up again, but right now, I'm not seeing it.

* It's kind of callous for Rich to order the Nova Force drawn away from the other members, considering they were fighting in space at the time. It's fortunate Quasar was with them, so he could use his Quantum Bands to save all of them, because otherwise that would have made them slightly dead. Unless they were relying on a life-support system in their uniforms, but I'm not clear on whether that's a property of their uniform or the Nova Force, and either way, they'd be floating, depowered, in the middle of a huge battle.

** That's the same silver lining I tried to find with Civil War. I wanted to see how writers would use the post-CW status quo.