Review Battle: Annihilation vs. God War

In our very first bout ever, we have two of Marvel Comic's most recent cosmic events going toe to toe with each other!

Mega Cross-Over Annihilation
vs.
Ultimate Fantastic Four's God War

For the sake of my own sanity, I'm not going to discuss the four Annihilation previews, except right here, where I say that I enjoyed them very much.

Thank you for letting me get that out of the way.

Now on to the main bout. Annihilation had 17 issues of build up, took 7 issues itself, with 2 epilogue books and at least 2 spin off titles. Crazy huge story.

God War was a 6 issue story arc that will be having residual effects in the UFF title, though, they haven't been felt as of yet.

One of these stories is clearly larger in scope. For the time being anyway. However, that means nothing when comparing the actual quality of the tales themselves.

I've always been a fan of space stories. Science Fiction is one of my favorite genres, and it's great to see it pulled off well. I liked both of these stories, but I think there is a clear winner in overall quality.

Annihilation was about a giant war in space. It touched on a great many characters, though it was really the story of Richard Rider, the last of the Nova Corps. It was, in many ways, a lot like the original Star Wars trilogy.

God War was about the Fantastic Four journeying to a strange new world and overcoming that world's despotic ruler while searching for a way to get back home.

The crux of the issue lies here. Annihilation is space opera. Or, as a friend of mine was calling it, space fantasy. It holds all the trappings of a good sci-fi epic, but doesn't have much in the way of new ideas. It's just a big story with a lot of big oh-gosh moments.

God War invents new ideas and concepts. God War gives the reader something new to understand, and a new way to look at ordinary ideas. The strength of God War is it's freshness. It's never been seen before. The book will also wow with great action scenes and riveting plot twists, but it also will amaze with it's creativity.

Annihilation is a good book. It's strong in it's characterization, and it has a lot of big wow moments, but it doesn't bring anything new to the table. God War resonates because it makes you think. It has more wonder because it truly cared about executing a concept, and not just merely telling an epic story.

Both books are very good. God War just takes things a step above.