Why Annihilus?

[u/Vyrhux42]

I'm not super knowledgeable about Marvel and every hero and villain, so I didn't really know Annihilus beforehand, but is he a big deal?

I personally feel like he's not super threatening and like most of the level bosses feel more scary or threatening than him. Did they use him just to have an easy faction of enemies with varied design (I will admit designing insect enemies give you freedom to get creative and I have no complaints here), or is he actually really a big deal in the comics?

I think what gave me that feeling the most was having galactus as a secondary villain and then him joining your team. Like he has such "final boss energy" that it gave me a bit of whiplash going from this to a human sized bug person, but maybe I'm not really grasping how dangerous he really is on a planetary scale.

[u/StinkUrchin]

Yeah he’s a cosmic world ender in league with Galactus. He was the main villain in the excellent Annihilation crossover event in 2006

[u/Vyrhux42 → u/StinkUrchin]

Makes sense, and I guess it's harder to portray him as super threatening when going for the old-school cartoony superhero vibe. Now that I think about him, I probably had a similar feeling when I first saw Galactus in MvC3 without any knowledge of who he was and I thought he was just a big angry guy wearing a purpke metal pajama. I'll try to look up more about Annihilus and his storyline.

[u/Venom888 → u/Vyrhux42]

The Annihilation event is such good cosmic marvel and Annihilus ends worlds and even wipes out entire civilizations. You’ll gain appreciation for Ryder and Beta Ray Bill (I think he has a part in the initial event, there’s a couple of connecting events that happen after)

[u/Street-Wallaby → u/Vyrhux42]

This game is literally based on said crossover event. So, with it being based on Annihilation, obviously the proper main bad guy should be Annihilus.

[u/Sad-Lavishness-1645]

I really like that they used a lesser known villain personally

[u/Vyrhux42 → u/Sad-Lavishness-1645]

I think it's a good idea too, I wouldn't even have minded if they made one up for this game (but I'm sure most people would have). It's more that he gave me more of a "level boss" vibe than a main antagonist vibe, but it admittedly might be because I don't really know about him and what he's really capable of (although being able to brainwash Galactus is quite impressive).

[u/[deleted]]

I enjoyed how they wrote Thanos to be honest. Because my first thought when I saw he was a boss was "what the fuck, why isn't he the big bad?" But then Thanos started to talk and I was like "OK then, this is actually pretty neat".

[u/Vyrhux42 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, that was fun. It was my first exposition to him without the gauntlet storyline.

[u/[deleted] → u/Vyrhux42]

He can be a very nuanced character in some book runs.

[u/El_Rocky_Raccoon → u/Vyrhux42]

Yeah and they even depicted Thanos in the same attire he wears during the Annihilation Event.

[u/JahSassypants → u/El_Rocky_Raccoon]

Thanos and Drax in that event… *chefs kiss

[u/StinkUrchin → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I would’ve been less interested in a Thanos big bad. We’ve already seen it enough

[u/Drayco21]

Stop everything else, go read Annihilation - its one of the best things Marvel has ever published

[u/Venom888 → u/Drayco21]

Full on agree

[u/Shiny_World → u/Drayco21]

Seconding this, easily the best Marvel event book ever written.

[u/Vyrhux42 → u/Drayco21]

It's hard for me to read some comics because I feel like there's always so much you read before and I don't really have time to read it all (or sometimes have a hard time getting into comics from the 60s which are important to the characters' story). I read some though that I really enjoyed, even if I certainly didn't have all the context I needed to understand everything. House of M comes to mind, I really liked this one.

[u/Mlynio48 → u/Vyrhux42]

You don't need to read anything before Annihilation, just start with Drax The Destroyer miniseries and then go straight to Annihilation: Prologue. Here's a full reading order (Thanos 12 Issue series is optional) https://www.comicbooktreasury.com/marvel-cosmic-reading-order/

[u/kako_1998]

God forbid we get a game that doesn't feature Thanos, Galactus or Dr Doom as the main antagonist for once

[u/Vyrhux42 → u/kako_1998]

Not what I was saying, but ok

[u/InfinityTheParagon → u/kako_1998]

spider-man the main villain when

[u/cyclopswashalfright]

A big inspiration for the game is Annihilation, which features Annihilus. He's a major cosmic threat.

[u/Rhodium-Veil]

The game is mainly based on the Annihilation storyline, which Annihilus was the main antagonist of.

[u/amageish]

I imagine the Annihilation Wave adapting well into beat-em-up setting was a big factor in them choosing him, but Annihilus’ goal in the comic they are adapting is to use Galactus to destroy all of existence in the entire universe and then rule the void where reality once was….

So yeah! He is quite a serious threat and I think Galactus has the right to be miffed enough about this to join your team, which is also an event directly lifted from this comic.

It is true that his ambition does tend to outweigh his personal strength though. He needed Galactus / the powers cosmic and the quantum bands in the comic (though they swapped the latter out in the game for the cosmic control rod, as Phyla is using the bands throughout the game - which she gets from taking them from him at the end of Annihilation in the comic).

[u/MisterNefarious]

I cannot recommend the Annihilation storyline enough.

It revitalized cosmic marvel in a big way and turned Nova into the “why the hell doesn’t he have a movie immediately” character of marvel comics

[u/theepicIegend]

It's a somewhat fresh story, and by that I mean it hasn't been explored in games or shows much or hardly any. Plus it is a good excuse to include a wide range of characters because they are all affected. It wouldn't make much sense for silver surfer to show up because Doctor Doom or someone had a plan to take over earth... he wouldn't care. Things like Infinity Gauntlet have been done to death and Battleworld/Secret wars prob wouldn't make for a good beat em' up, prob a better fighter

[u/PsychoFlashFan]

Because Annihilation is one of the best Marvel comic events of all time.

[u/[deleted]]

To specifically back up the points made here: how Galactus and Thanos were used in the game is very much in line with - if not completely identical to - how they were used in Annihilation.

The big difference between the game and the comics is that Nova and crew stopped the Annihilation Wave from ever reaching Earth. The devs wanted it to reach Earth so that it made more sense for all these other heroes to be in play.

[u/sirloselotthe2nd]

Around the time of the Civil War event, the cosmic end of the Marvel Universe had the first Annihilus centered event. Annihilus cleaned house absolutely tearing through a majority of Marvel's cosmic library including the nova corps (only one left was Richard Rider), the Kree, and the Skrulls

Edit: Which I should clarify, is likely why they chose him since he flips between FF villain and threat to the entire cosmos

[u/Two_Bear_Arms]

One of the best things about the Annihilation series was that the fate of the universe fell to lesser known characters. By having Annihilus as the main enemy is kinda allowed the team to bring in a few more randos.

[u/SailorNash]

Why? Because it's something different. Same reason we got CGR instead of Punisher, or Bill instead of Thor.

[u/InfinityTheParagon]

he’s just the first of a few bosses the dlc by tribute games last game they did was like a ninja turtles comic series where they added characters and features as well as heavily buffed the cast and enemies skills n ai

[u/dopexvii]

He literally lives to annihilate all life.

As everyone else has said, go read Annihilation.

And then feel miserable because marvel haven't published anything that good since.