Annihilation #1
Basically Starship Troopers without the ironic propaganda. Not necessarily a bad thing, but i hope it goes somewhere bigger. It's interesting to see that Nova has done some serious growing up; we will see if it sticks beyond this series. I also think it's an odd choice, after the build-up minis about Nova, Ronan, Silver Surfer, and Super-Skrull to focus so much on the really obscure Starlord character. Much of this issue is set-up, which is a disappontment. After having already read a prologue and 16 issues of lead-ins, one would think we could get right to business, but i guess it's valid to spend a little time establishing where we are, and in any event it's a fun story with good, detailed art.

Beyond #2
I read that Tom Brevoort read an old interview with Jim Shooter about the original Secret Wars and realized there were a whole lot of directions that Shooter wanted to go in but didn't for whatever reason(I'd love to see that interview). So Brevoort commissioned this story to Dwayne McDuffie, a good writer (He writes the JLU and Static Shock cartoons, and he's written good comics as well). So (you may have heard) i'm a little bit of a fan of the original Secret Wars, so i'm very happy about this. So far it's been good - definitely some oddities and potential retcons of the original story coming up, and it's being written (deliberately) like an episode of Lost, but i'm liking it. Total fanboy material. When Dragon Man showed up, i was like "Woooooooooooo!". Questions, like "Why are good and bad guys being taken to the battle planet in the same ship?", and "Why is the Beyonder back to his old schtick after SWII and the mangled cosmic cube nonsense?" nag at me a little but i need to take a 'wait and see' approach.