By: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Jay David Ramos (colorist)
The Story: Thanos and the Guardians of the Galaxy sneak deeper into the Cancerverse with a little help from artificial friends. In the meantime, Nova, Quasar and the heads of various power groups in our universe talk war now that the Galactus Engine is chewing through the allies. Oh, and Drax picks an inopportune moment to remember why he was created.
What’s Good: Things are definitely getting worse for our heroes, which is always a great place to be as a reader. At least one Marvel cosmic entity buys it, and the Galactus Engine seems unstoppable. There’s danger and drama in the story. The reveal of the Cancerverse artificial lifeforms was a great tip of the hat to a lot of the Marvel Universe and fun for continuity fans. There were other nods to deep Marvel history for those who have been reading about Thanos since Jim Starlin turned him from a Blastaar-type of villain into the bad-ass who tried to commit cosmic genocide. I also liked the moments of growth (Nova) and the fast and furious revelations. By the end of the issue, we get a lot more of a grip on what caused all this and what everybody has to do.
Artwise, Sepulveda teamed with Ramos is a good creative team for this book. They put the cosmic madness spewing through the rift on the page and showed the resulting high-powered action. The expressions and postures show a lot of the pain and anguish of the cancerverse, especially in such an iconic sensitivity-bot as the Vision. The action was always clear and the double-splash near the end of the book is worth posterizing.
What’s Not So Good: There were some minor points that bothered me. Conflict among heroes is an old Marvel trope, but the two big moments of such conflict (one among the heads the political factions (Shi’ar, Kree, etc) and one between Drax and Thanos) seemed not only criminally stupid and irresponsible, but also unjustified by any trigger in the present. I mean, the Kree and Shi’ar were already fighting side-by-side against something called the Galactus Engine. When they stop for a breather, this is the time to tear a strip off of one another? I don’t buy it. It seems more like a writerly short-cut so that they could give Nova a peacemaking opportunity, but one that isn’t authentic to the essential heroism of the other characters. On Drax, I’m willing to be a little more lenient, because he is a raving lunatic, but why didn’t he just grease Thanos when old granite-face was too weak to protect himself? Waiting three books into a series to pull the trigger on his target, precisely when it will endanger everyone else is a bit of false conflict.
On the art, I’d like to echo what Dean said in his review on Nancy in Hell #1. I signed up for this story because I love high cosmic drama. Some of the T&A (check out Medusa’s plunging neckline (or should I say waistline?)) that seems to be needed to sell comics to pubescent boys just diminishes from the story and prevents intelligent people from being proud to show it to friends.
Conclusion: The Thanos Imperative is a great series, and this book offered a lot of reveal, but I felt that somehow the temperature get turned down on this issue. I’m still going to buy issue #4, but I loved issues #1 and #2 more.
Grade: B-
-DS Arsenault
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Conclusion