Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day offering gives us a glimpse into the big cosmic event for the year, and we like what we see so far.
Of all the books coming out for Free Comic Book Day, Marvel’s Infinity had to be one of the most anticipated. Kicking off as a mini-series in August, undoubtedly with tie-in comics across the entire Marvel line, this free sampler offers us a first look at what just might be the biggest Marvel cosmic event since Annihilation through Realm of Kings. Of course, given that Guardians of the Galaxy is only now coming back on board, we’ve not had a lot of contenders to the crown in that time. This free comic is just a tease, but it promises to touch on everywhere that Marvel has touched over the last few decades, and they’ve done a fair bit of touching.
Very much an “issue #0” set-up, we are introduced to Corvus Glaive and the Outrider, two minions of a darker master. If you’ve looked at the cover, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who that might be. The Outrider is a particularly nasty looking creature, a spider-like attack dog bred for assassinations. On a wasteland of a planet, Glaive demands a tribute and reveals what happened to the world’s protector when resisting. Glaive returns the tribute to Thanos, who sends him off to demand tribute from a little planet called Earth and to find “that which is hidden”. We can only imagine this has something to do with Infinity Gems. Before this teaser is out, we witness the Outrider infiltrate the Avengers, the X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D. The game is afoot!
Hickman demonstrates that he already has a firm grasp on the cosmic, and these creepy opening pages really do give us the same tingle we felt all the way back in 2006 at the start of Annihilation. As the cover implies, we will probably see The Inhumans, the New Avengers, Dr Strange and a whole lot more before the saga is out. Cheung’s art, accompanied by Mark Morales’s inks, is nothing short of epic, from the dark landscapes of the intro to the promise of a galaxy spanning saga at the end of this 10-page teaser. After the very disappointing issues of Thanos Rising to date, this has finally got us excited about his reappearance in the Marvel cosmic universe.
As a bonus feature, we also get a reprint of an early appearance of Thanos in Logan’s Run #6 (1977) in a story called “The Final Flower” that also features Drax the Destroyer. There’s also the first few pages from Avengers: Endless Wartime, a relaunch of the re-launch its original Marvel graphic novel line in October by Warren Ellis and Mike McKone. This looks like it will be one to look out for.
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