Not Entirely Annihilated Legacies

I just noticed this a week ago, but the three characters that face Annihilus at the end of Annihilation have something in common besides all dying in Thanos Imperative (or the run up to it). Nova, Phyla, and Peter Quill were all saddled with legacies they were struggling to live up to.

Richard Rider's the last of the Nova Corps. Everything they stood for, everything they tried to protect, it's left to him to represent. he has access to all the power that used to be split amongst the entire Corps, but it's worth noting there's a risk all that power will drive him mad. Could represent the enormity of the responsibility placed in front of him. Plus, he has the Xandarian Worldmind along for the ride. While that helps him to use the Nova Force more effectively, and staves off insanity, it's also an extra burden. The Worldmind is all that's left of Xandarian culture, and the history of the Nova Corps. Rich can't bring himself to find a better repository for the Worldmind, because then he wouldn't be able to utilize the entire Nova Force, and there's no time to find new recruits and train them up. The downside is, if he falls, the remnants of an entire interstellar culture die with him. No pressure.

When all is said and done, though, he faces Annihilus down, and kills him, saving the universe from his continued threat*.

Phyla-Vell's the daughter of Captain Mar-Vell, the man who only saved the universe from a Cosmic Cube-wielding Thanos once, along with many other heroics. her brother wasn't too shabby either, though he had some serious sanity issues, if his Wikpedia page is anything to go by. Phyla isn't even involved in Annihilation until it's well underway. She doesn't feel she's ready to be a hero, an opinion Thanos shares since in the span of 2 pages he describes her as a 'nuisance', and a 'pretender to Mar-Vell's legacy'. Ouch.

Interestingly, Phyla's most effective moment is when she attacks Annihilus and draws the Quantum Bands away from him. She becomes a hero when she accepts another legacy (Quasar's) on top her family's. Though it does tie back into her father somewhat, since Wikipedia tells me he was designated Protector of the Universe by the same being who tapped Wendell Vaughn.

Then there's Peter Quill. He's a slightly different case. Phyla's dealing with trying to live up to her father and brother. Nova's trying to deal with a being an intergalactic police that's decades? centuries? old all by himself. Quill's just trying to escape himself. As Star-Lord, he sacrificed a mining colony to save numerous worlds from a rampaging former Herald of Galactus. He turned himself in, was sent to a life-sentence only prison, and does everything possible to distance himself from his former identity.

Quill doesn't engage in many heroics over the course of Annihilation. He's primarily an adviser to Nova, probably gets involved in the fighting as necessary, but nothing too notable. Of the three present for the final struggle with Annihilus, he's the only one who takes no active role (it was actually Nova's plan that Peter and Phyla would be spectators, but Phyla didn't cotton to that idea). It isn't until Annihilation: Conquest we see Quill taking a more active role, and then only after he's confronted with his Star-Lord identity once more. He doesn't want anything to do with it, but comes to realize that, however he might feel about his actions, there are many who regard him as a hero and respect him as a result. It's embracing the title of Star-Lord that gets at least some people to listen to him, so he can more effectively protect the universe.

Those three end up saving the universe (multiple times) after they accept the weight of the past. If they hadn't, there may not have been a future. Annihilus would have destroyed everything, including all the remains of the past, in his attempt to make the universe safe for himself. With no one else alive, there's no one left to carry history forward, or to shape the future. Annihilus isn't one to concern himself with such things.

* Galactus did a lot of the work when he wiped out over 3 star systems worth of Annihilation Wave forces, but then he wandered off with Annihilus still alive, leaving Rich to finish the job.