Annihilation Modern Era Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Desperate Measures

Annihilation Modern Era Epic Collection

by Simon Furman, Keith Giffen

The event that revitalized Marvel's cosmic storytelling for a modern audience! Exiled and on the run, Ronan the Accuser faces the deadliest women in the galaxy - including Gamora! And as war rages across the universe, Richard Rider - the new Nova Prime - must marshal a united front against Annihilus and his lethal Annihilation Wave! Drax the Destroyer, Peter "Star-Lord" Quill, Moondragon and Phyla-Vell join the fight to guard the galaxy - but what chilling plan does Annihilus have for Galactus? Whose side is Thanos on, and what will happen when he faces down Drax? Can Ronan save the Kree Empire from Annihilus' forces? And how can Nova's ragtag team possibly defeat the Annihilation Wave, stop the war and save the galaxy? Collecting RONAN #1-4, ANNIHILATION #1-6, HERALDS OF GALACTUS #1-2 and NOVA CORPS FILES.

Genres: Marvel

408 pages, Paperback

Published October 7, 2025

About the author

Simon Christopher Francis Furman is a British comic book writer who is best known for his work on Hasbro/Tomy's Transformers franchise, starting with writing Marvel's initial comic book to promote the toyline worldwide, as well as foundations for both Dreamwave Production's and IDW Publishing's takes on the Generation 1 minifranchise.

Reviews

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seeing as how this Epic Collection includes the actual Annihilation event (with a real narrative arc and everything!), it's already miles better than its predecessor. That said, we kick off with a Ronan the Accuser tale that sees him attempting to clear his name with Kree leadership while battling random foes on a nowhere planet. Admittedly the bug forces do invade the planet a the conclusion, making this a somewhat reasonable tie-in, but it's mostly a roll call for B-tier cosmic heroes and villains.

The Annihilation event itself is pretty cool, a battlefield-level view of the ongoing war against Annihilus's forces. Nova, Starlord, Drax, and others are barely holding up. Meanwhile, Annihilus has teamed up with Thanos to overpower Galactus and use the giant's power cosmic as a galactic superweapon. (This is an objectively cool turn of events)

All the goofy background stuff from previous mini-series sort of turns up (Galactus's heralds have been turned into foes, Ronan arrives on scene to provide backup, etc.). You don't really need all that to enjoy the gritty battles playing out on a big-screen scale, though. Especially as the event wraps up in an absolutely sweet scene (Galactus, freed from his chains, obliterates Annihilus's fleet in a two-page spread of pure rage). It's perhaps not Marvel's finest event, but it's very much cool, and truly does turn the cosmic arena on its head.

There are a couple wrap-up issues afterwards that lean into the truly cosmic, stuff that Al Ewing is probably salivating at bringing back into play in like, his Thor series. I dug it. Finally, there are proto-Hickman databank pages, biographies of key players and species. I read a few, but they mostly recap what's come in the pages before.

[Doug Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a really good follow up to the first collection of mini series, and the main event did a great job of tying everything together. the last setup story with Ronan didn't really do it for me, but the main event made up for it and was really great.