Annihilation: Scourge was a mini-event Marvel released in December of 2019, consisting of six one-shot issues. I passed on it at the time due to a) each issue being $5, and b) half of them being written by Matthew Rosenberg, who put me off his work with that Multiple Man mini-series he wrote. But as a discounted, used tpb, eh, what the hell. Spoilers from here on.
The gist of the story is the Cancerverse from Thanos Imperative is back, but rather than try to force its way into the Marvel Universe proper, it invades the Negative Zone first. Worse (in many ways), the Cancerverse finds the Sentry (or the Void, whatever) hanging out in the Negative Zone, and they team up. So, C'thulu-enhanced power of a million exploding suns. Various heroes get roped into trying to help stop all this. The Fantastic Four, Nova, Beta Ray Bill, the Silver Surfer, each of which gets a one-shot.
Half of the one-shots seem to be about confronting trauma. Christos Gage and Diego Orlotegui's Fantastic Four story focuses on how Johnny Storm has pretty much tried to forget the time he spent dying over and over in the Negative Zone during Hickman's FF run. Which included forgetting the people who apparently relied on him as a leader. I don't know, I don't read Hickman's stuff. Also, Reed's the one who suggested to Bob Reynolds he might be able to separate from the Void in the Negative Zone, which is how the Void (who somehow got all the power, is that how it works with him now?) ends up with the Cancerverse. So yet another fine mess Richards creates which he (and the rest of his family) must now deal with.
I honestly just figured it was the Cancerverse's version of the Sentry to begin with. Maybe they didn't have a Sentry at all. What a wonderful universe, minus the extra-dimensional beings devouring your soul.
Nova (whose story is written by Rosenberg with Ibraim Robertson as artist) has a crapload of bad memories dredged up by all of this. He's spending his days drinking heavily in various cantinas on Knowhere, trying to forget. Now he can't keep running. Not only confronted with Annihilus, but forced to team up with him. And facing the Cancerverse again after he was part of it and escaped once already. He has to not only confront it, he ends up having to let it inside of him again as part of a plan to stop it.
Then there's the other two. The Silver Surfer (by Dan Abnett and Paul Davidson) one could fit in. The Surfer's undergone some changes as the result of some Donny Cates mini-series (I knew who wrote it without looking because the story mentions it involved Surfer fighting Knull, God of the Symbiotes. Who else but Donny Cates?) Surfer is for some reason concerned his changes may be the cause of a great disaster he senses approaching. As it turns out, he's not, because it's the friggin' Cancerverse. But he's forced to actually get off his butt and intervene. He's incorporeal now(?) but he can merge with people, including Bob Reynolds. Both of them are forced to reach out and connect, rather than hiding away somewhere.
The Beta Ray Bill one by Michael Moreci and Alberto Albequerque, I got nothing. He and Lockjaw are hanging out on some planet that loves them, another of Annihilus' ships makes it through a rift the Sentry somehow forced open, the Sentry follows, Bill can't beat him, but he can hit him with Stormbreaker and drive him back into the Negative Zone. Then Bill and Lockjaw have to go to the Negative Zone to get Stormbreaker back.
I mean, what's the point at all? The Sentry gets into the Marvel U. for about three seconds, then shoved back in. Just don't have him get out, and this story is pointless. Bill serves no major role in the conclusion either, other than being one more hero to try and help. So what's the story saying? That he wasn't really doing anything on that world? That's not totally his fault, since he didn't realize the locals were trying to stage things for him to fight because they liked having him around.
But I'm not really sure why this whole thing exists. The endgame is to destroy the part of the Cancerverse that broke back in. But that only happened in this story. Was it supposed to be some coda for Nova's experiences? He was supposed to die there, but survived once by giving in. So now he has to give in again, to make it vulnerable so it can be killed. Except Annihilus somehow brings him back to life on the last page. I'm not complaining that Rider didn't get killed off in this mess, but it makes it all seem especially pointless.
The Surfer book is definitely the most colorful. Davidson seems to lean a little more into Kirby Surfer in the length of the board and the width of the shoulders than a lot of other artists I've seen (who seem more towards the Buscema version.) Milla plays with the Surfer's body being black instead of silver now to reflect all kinds of light, and his Negative Zone is a much trippier-looking place. Bright and varied colors all over. Empty space isn't just a uniform black curtain broken up by stars. It's blues and blacks (and sometimes purples and reds) with worlds haphazardly strewn about like someone dumped a bunch of Tropical Skittles on the page. All the other artists draw the Negative Zone as basically looking like out outer space. Davidson and Milla remember it's supposed to a bizarre, alien dimension.
The rest fall into that general range of workmanlike and inoffensive. Not really doing anything that particularly catches the eye. The coloring in the Nova one-shot seems particularly muddy, and I don't if that's supposed to be some reflection of Nova's mindset, struggling with his experiences, or what. The Omega issue that closes the whole thing out is not helped by having Manuel Garcia inked by four different people (Rafael Fonteriz, Cam Smith, Wayne Faucher, and Garcia himself), and three colorists (predominantly Federico Blee, but also Rachelle Rosenberg and Arciniega.)
Sometimes it makes Garcia's art strongly resemble Paul Pelletier, and others times it looks nothing like him. Some of these folks really favor heavy blacks in their work, shadow everything, others ink it so everyone's lower half of their face looks like an old man's. Where the skin sags around the mouth and kind of wipes out the jawline? Even seems to happen to Ben Grimm in one panel. Half the time it's like they can't keep straight whether Johnny Storm is rocking a beard from one panel to the next.
With shipping, I may have ended up spending about $1.70 per issue on this, and that was probably too much.
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