About Heroes

Author: Javier Grillo-Marxauch
Artist: Gregory Titus
Colors: Chris Sotomayor
Cover: Gabrielle Dell'Otto

After reading the prologue and Silver Surfer #1, I wasn't that excited about picking up any more Annihilation minis, but I'm really glad I decided to give this one a shot. First off that cover is probably the best picture I have seen of the Super Skrull, of course thanks to the dark gritty paints of Dell'Otto. In the past my encounters with the SS have been reading issues of Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer, but I never pictured him as anything other than a cosmic villian with no personalitly who was always getting owned by the good guys. Marxauch is actually able to portray the SS as a protagonist of this story with plenty of personality.

The SS sets out to attack those behind the wave, pretty much he fights some Annihilation goons. He even attacks his own people and a Skrull Baroness. He gets arrested and is freed by a young Skrull fan! Richards sends him to the Negative Zone to launch a counter attack. During the battle, he has inner dialogue which makes him such an interesting character, rather than just another FF foe. Now, some of the dialogue is a bit off, didn't seem like a Skrull talking at all, but most of it worked.

Of course there’s a weakness here, and that weakness comes from the artist. Titus has a cartoonish style, very much like Humberto Ramos, which is at its best in the action sequences, but often not as strong in the character interaction moments. I don't think that the art suits the book, it gets the job done, but I would have preffered someone with a darker more realistic tone. The colors by Sotomayor do boost up the art though, so its not a total loss. Not at all what I would expect from a Super Skrull comic and I actually want to read more. B