[Comics] Annihilation: Conquest - Quasar

The events covered in the limited series Annihilation were pretty significant in their own right and the series certainly did a lot to help characters like Nova come back into the foreground of the Marvel Universe.

One the the characters given new life was Quasar, although instead of the continuing adventures of Wendell Vaughn, the mantle of Protector of the Universe has been passed on to Phyla-Vell, who is also the current Captain Marvel. It seems a slightly cheap shot to combine these two heroes into one character, and a female one at that but then for the most part she is rather interesting.

Oh, and she's a lesbian, too. Put your tongues back into your mouths boys, or you'll be playing right into Marvel's hands.

Image via WikipediaConquest: Annihilation - Quasar is one of three limited series that lead up to the Conquest: Annihilation mini-series. In the same treatment as how they prepared for the original Annihilation, Marvel opted to follow the same formula, except for having the fourth series to be issues from the on-going Nova comics instead.

In this segment, the story mostly deals with Phyla-Vell trying to come to grips with her powers as both Quasar and as Captain Marvel. The Quasar mantle has her needing to be responsible to the welfare of the universe at large while her being Captain Marvel has certain responsibilities towards her people, the Kree as well. She's accompanied by Moondragon, who is now her lover, and together the two find themselves on a quest of sorts given a mysterious voice that only Phyla-Vell can hear calling out to her.

The story development behind this particular piece was fairly well done although it still didn't quite hook me. I liked how they tried to limit her Quasar abilities given the situation with the Phalanx sealing off Kree Space from the rest of the galaxy, but somehow it also limited the potential for the story to go anywhere truly exciting or to have some pretty kick ass battles. Instead the whole run had that whole "Survivor" feel with supplies being very limited.

Moondragon certainly made for an interesting companion to Phyla-Vell given the whole lesbian spin, although their relationship doesn't really come out to me as being all that genuine / authentic. I don't quite know why, but the whole thing just seemed a tad flat / hollow to me.

Still, it's a fairly interesting piece and important enough in order to fully understand the later events in Annihilation: Conquest, so it's still worth the time pick up the book, or at least acquire a copy of it for some quality reading time.