It’s a normal wake cycle on the Kyln, the series of ancient artificial moons that draw and distribute power from the Crunch – and that act as a maximum-security prison for some of the Local Group’s worst criminals and troublemakers.

Reed Richards, a human recognised throughout the universe as a genius, comes to the Kyln to consult with Omega Core and the alien Clerics about how to boost the station’s energy output. Meanwhile, three prisoners – failed hero Peter ‘Star-Lord’ Quill, genocidal madman Devos and Skrull spy Paibok – get back to work maintaining the station, kept in line by the nano-wardens in their bodies.

But suddenly the AIs controlling the Kyln power conduits disengage from the Crunch, and something comes through the energy cascade separating the positive-matter universe from the anti-matter Negative Zone – a starship. And then another. And another. And an entire armada, the greatest force of battleships the universe has ever seen, pouring out of the Crunch – and opening fire upon the Kyln!

As the moons of the Kyln rupture and explode from the armada’s assault, Devos and Paibok attempt to escape in the confusion, while Richards gathers data on the fleet and Star-Lord tries to rescue surviving prisoners and Omega Core guards. Devos attacks Richards and almost kills him, but ‘Mister Fantastic’ manages to reprogram and energise the Devastator’s nano-wardens to immobilise him. Star-Lord teams up with Richards and tries to fend off the armada, but fails and instead draws their attention. Only with the assistance of Paibok, who failed to escape on his own, are the three able to escort the survivors to Richards’ ship before the last Kyln moon is destroyed.

Injured and overwhelmed, Richards’ ship escapes through the local stargate – followed by Devos, who restarted his battlesuit’s systems and got out of the Kyln just in time. As they jump to another system, only Paibok sees the mysterious armada activate warp drives and spill out into the Andromeda Galaxy – and two armoured giants slowly emerge from the Kyln moon in which they were imprisoned…

Seven standard days after the destruction of the Kyln, the Nova Corps summon all active Corps members, including human Centurion Richard Rider, to the Corps headquarters – the interconnected remnants of the planet Xandar in the Andromeda Galaxy. The full force of the Corps are to deployed in response to the current crisis brought on by the incursion from the Negative Zone – two hundred planetary systems are without power and reports are flooding in about the massive invasion fleet destroying (annihilating) all in its path. Also present are Rigellian infiltrator Tana Nile, disguised as a Corpsman, investigating the Corps’ response to the crisis, and intergalactic adventurer Beta Ray Bill, who has brought news about the invasion’s progress. Corps techs retrieve data from the flight recorder Bill recovered and predict the fleet is still two star systems away, giving the Xandarian forces time to put their plans into action.

Unfortunately, the techs are wrong – the enemy is here! The massive incursion fleet bursts from hyperspace and attacks the Xandarian habitat network and the Nova Corps forces. Tana Nile attempts to rally ground forces to repel attacks on the Corps starport, which is under fire from both enemy ships and hordes of insect-like forces. Meanwhile, Richard Rider and Beta Ray Bill, along with many other Nova Centurions, fly out into space to take on the enemy ships. While all three fight valiantly, the fleet is too massive and powerful to stop; the habitat network is torn apart and the starport smashes into the huge Corps command centre.

Some time after the enemy fleet has departed, Rich Rider regains consciousness in the ruins of the command centre with the Xandarian Worldmind – the AI that commands the Nova Corps and controls the Nova Force – signalling for his help. All other Corps members are dead, and the Worldmind needs to be retrieved before the command centre falls into the Sun! Moving across the vast ruins, Rich encounters the injured Beta Ray Bill, who is searching for his intelligent ship Skuttlebutt – which Tana Nile has discovered in the wreckage of the starport.

Digging down to the core of the command centre, Rich and Bill find the Worldmind – a massive sphere of intelligent energy, too gigantic to transport. Instead, the Worldmind downloads itself into Rich, filling him with the immense power of the Nova Force – and in the process alerting the enemy fleet of the Worldmind’s presence! Reeling from the transformation, Rich – now the Nova Prime of the Nova Corps – and Bill rocket off to find Skuttlebutt. Tana tells them the ship was badly damaged in the attack and its warp drives don’t work, so Rich uses his new powers and the Worldmind’s assistance to briefly tear open a wormhole. Skuttlebutt and its passengers slip through and escape just before the fleet returns – to the immense rage of its master, Annihilus, who commands his forces to find them!

The Annihilation Wave spreads across the Andromeda Galaxy, its huge fleets tearing apart civilisations and setting worlds aflame. Most of these worlds belong to the remnants of the Skrull Empire, now a collection of rival fiefdoms led by petty warlords. One such world is Aks’lo, formerly a idyllic forest retreat for the Skrull Empress, now under the control of Baroness S’Bak and her followers – and under attack by the Annihilation Wave.

As the Wave’s fleet engages with the Baroness’ ships in orbit, Kl’rt the Super-Skrull commands Skrull ground forces to repel the invader’s troops and protect the planet’s anti-air defences. Also in the battle is the Luphomoid warrior Spirit, who’s come to Aks’lo in her quest to find a glorious death. Meanwhile, the cosmic hero Quasar warps into orbit and discovers that the Wave fleet is protecting something massive – a starship the size of a moon on a collision course with the planet!

Spirit battles a Wave commander, who says (before she kills him) that the Harvester of Sorrow will destroy the entire world and everyone on it. Quasar flies into the core of the Harvester (the vast ship) and tries to absorb the anti-energy storm within it, but fails and is repelled into deep space. The Harvester attaches itself to Aks’lo’s atmosphere and fires anti-energy into the planet’s core; the Super-Skrull rallies his forces to their ships and escapes before the whole planet is converted to a mass of high-energy plasma.

In the aftermath of Aks’lo’s destruction, the Super-Skrull is confronted by Baroness S’Bak, who tries to blame him for the loss of the planet; Kl’rt reacts angrily to her accusations and declares that he is done with working in the service of the Empire’s broken nobility, and will follow his own plans from now on. The Baroness’ staff tell her that Quasar is hailing them and requesting an audience, and that they have captured Spirit’s ship; both of them are brought to the bridge of her ship. Quasar argues that a united front is needed to fight back against the Wave, but the Baroness plans to retreat entirely from the conflict and look after her own fiefdom; with the help of Kl’rt, Quasar manages to convince her to reach out to her rivals and start forming allegiances.

While Quasar and Spirit stay with the Baroness’ fleet to help gather allies, the Super-Skrull decides that he needs intelligence on the Annihilation Wave and its super-weapon – and that means entering the Negative Zone. The best place to find entrance to that dimension: Earth, and the scientific genius of Reed Richards. The Baroness gives him a ship to make the journey, and assigns him an assistant – R’Kin, a diminutive Skrull engineer whose father once served under the Super-Skrull.

On the rim of the Andromeda Galaxy, the planet Godthab Omega is a refuge for outcasts, exiles and space-criminals, a world of shanty towns governed by the blade and fist of Gamora and her Graces. Into this hotspot comes Ronan, disgraced Supreme Accuser of the Kree Empire, looking for Tana Nile. Instead he finds his old ally Korath the Pursuer, along with a lost troop of Kree Star Corps, holed up in the town of Abyss – a town overflowing with random violence and conflict.

Gamora sets her agents in town, the space pirate Nebula and the armoured Stellaris, to keep tabs on Ronan – but instead Nebula starts a fight! She is soon overpowered by Ronan and the Star Corps, while Korath is thrown from town and buried under the desert sands by Stellaris, who then grabs the injured Nebula and flies back to Mt Virago. Korath wakes up to find himself in… a 1950s diner from Earth, occupied by a red-and-gold figure who asks him what he thinks of ‘the art’. Called Glorian, the mysterious being seeks validation for shaping Godthab Omega and stoking the flames of conflict; when Korath rejects his requests, he angrily teleports the Kree back to Abyss to rejoin Ronan.

Seeking vengeance on Ronan, Gamora gathers her Graces and enters Abyss, only for Nebula to turn on her and attempt to convince the Graces to become her new pirate crew. She is humiliated by Gamora and spurned by the Graces, and angrily leaves on her own path as the women join battle in Abyss. Ronan throws down with Gamora, but first sends Korath to investigate Mt Virago and find information on Tana Nile. The geneticist flies off, seeing that Abyss is surrounded by a growing bubble of energy, within which reality is starting to warp and shift, but continues to Mt Virago and copies data from Tana’s computer – which then transforms into a Rigellian Recorder android and attacks her!

Within the increasingly hallucinatory landscape of Abyss, Glorian laughs and reshapes reality as Ronan and Gamora engage in epic battle. Nebula tries to steal Ronan’s ship, but the energy field activates its security functions and the ship chases her back to town, shooting at her all the way! She sees Glorian and manoeuvres the ship to crash into him – but he’s unhurt and furiously blasts her, leaving her almost dead. Realising that they are being manipulated, Ronan and Gamora cease fighting, and Ronan (assisted by the returning Korath, who defeated the android) uses his Universal Weapon to enclose Glorian in a field of order, counteracting his chaos and forcing the mad godling into a dormant state (a giant floating cube).

In the aftermath, the battle over, Gamora points a gun at Ronan’s head – and an Annihilation Wave fleet, commanded by one of Annihilus’ queens, approaches the planet in search of this source of reality-warping energy…

In the weeks following the destruction of Aks’lo, Quasar and Baroness S’bak make initial approaches to other Skrull warlords about allying to fight the Annihilation Wave. In-depth negotiations are arranged in neutral territory – the Rigellian space station Azimuth, which is on the border of local Rigellian space and Baroness S’Bak’s domain.

Quasar and Spirit accompany the Baroness to the negotiations, assisted by a personable Rigellian Recorder android named 808. When the station’s security systems detect that Quasar’s Quantum Bands contain anti-energy absorbed from the Harvester of Sorrow, he and Spirit are sidelined to be interviewed by Azimuth’s Rigellian managers. They are not the only ones concerned by the anti-energy – the Silver Surfer detects its traces and comes to the station to investigate. He and Quasar consult over the energy, before breaking up the angry, violent argument the Skrull negotiations have quickly become.

Before diplomatic progress can be made, Azimuth is hit by something at high speed and goes into security lockdown! The missile is in fact Air-Walker, a former Herald of Galactus, who is being pursued by two Negative Zone beings named Seekers and their packs of lizard-beast Currs. The Seekers channel the Opposing Force, the Negative Zone’s equivalent to the Power Cosmic, and have been sent by Annihilus (and their own leader, Ravenous) to hunt down sources of vast power – and both the Surfer and Quasar fit the bill! Although the Seekers are tough and deadly, the heroes realise that their Currs are the sources of the Opposing Force, and by cutting them off from their power are able to defeat them with minimal damage to the station.

In the wake of the attack, the Silver Surfer takes Air-Walker to safety and prepares to gather the other Heralds against this new danger, while Spirit and Quasar rejoin Baroness S’Bak’s forces – along with 808, who has been assigned to them by the RIgellians as an assistant.

No-one yet realises that Quasar’s bands have absorbed a worrying amount of the Opposing Force. And in deep space, near the Crunch, the Mad Titan Thanos encounters two Proemial Gods emerging from the ruins of the shattered Kyln…

The survivors of the Annihilation Wave’s assault on the Nova Corps – Beta Ray Bill, Tana Nile and Richard Ryder, Nova Prime – emerge from the hasty stargate Richard created with the help of the Xandarian Worldmind. Because Skuttlebutt’s warp drives were damaged in the attack, they limp at sublight speed for a week before reaching Nycos Aristedes, a colony planet of the Aakonian race.

But there is no help to be had there – 18 million colonists are desperate for assistance and the Aakonian authorities are unable to maintain order. Meanwhile, refugee ships keep coming through the local stargate – as does a Omega Core prison transport ship that dumps all its passengers (which include Drax the Destroyer and his young sidekick Cammi) rather than take them to the now-destroyed Kyln.

While Bill attempts repairs to Skuttlebutt, Nova Prime and Tana Nile connect with the Aakonian authorities, who demand to know when the Nova Corps will arrive. Richard sidesteps the issue while Tana plunders the local datanet to develop a full info-picture of local conditions. She also patches into the datafeed from the stargate – and finds that an Annihilation Wave scouting force is coming through and attacking the Aakonian fleet!

Nova Prime and Beta Ray Bill head into space to attack the scouting force – but some ground assault forces get past them, and Drax and Tana work to fight them off. Disobeying the orders of the Worldmind, Richard shuts down the stargate with a gravimetric pulse – this stops any more Wave forces from entering the system, but the Wave commanders send a subspace signal to tell Annihilus they have found the Nova Force! His confidence overcharged by his growing power, Richard attacks the remaining Wave forces and is overwhelmed, thrown unconscious back down to Nycos Aristedes.

On the ground, Drax slaughters his way through the Wave forces while Tana Nile reviews all the data she has gathered, looking for some way to evacuate the millions of colonists. Instead, noting that the planet has some unusual energies at its core, she hits upon an impossible plan – to draw those energies through the colony’s geothermal tap power system and create a planet-sized dimensional portal, pulling all of Nycos Aristedes through to Dimension Eleven!

Following Tana’s plan, Beta Ray Bill flies back to the planet, channelling the power of the geothermal core while opening a rainbow bridge to Dimension 11 using his magical hammer Stormbreaker. Bill’s power alone is not enough to open the portal before Wave forces overwhelm the planet – so Drax fights his way over to the badly-injured Nova Prime and rouses him so that he can assist. Richard attempts to stabilise the portal, but he can’t manage it – so rather than fail, he gives control of his consciousness over to the Worldmind, which takes over his body and mind and completes the portal with Bill.

The rainbow light of Asgard washes over all of Nycos Aristedes, blackening with the energies of Dimension 11 and drawing the whole planet out of this universe and away from the Wave. But before the portal can close, an intruder smashes into it – Annihilus’ gigantic flagship, clawing open its own negative-energy stargate and opening fire upon the colony even as the portal closes behind it!

In the weeks since the destruction of the Kyln, Reed Richards has attempted to convince his fellow Earth heroes of the danger of the Annihilation Wave, but they remain focused on their own issues – the so-called ‘Civil War’ around registration and monitoring of superhumans. To assist with this, Reed has been working with Tony Stark on a plan to create a prison in the Negative Zone, and the two of them (plus pro-registration ally Ms Marvel) are about to activate the portal – when word comes from orbit that a damaged spaceship has entered Earth’s atmosphere and is headed straight for the Fantastic Four’s headquarters, the Baxter Building!

The spaceship is piloted by Star-Lord, who seeks Reed’s help in reaching the Negative Zone and finding a way to stop the Harvester of Sorrow. Ms Marvel is suspicious and sees through the deception – the visitor is actually the Super-Skrull! Despite his ruse, the Skrull is sincere in his desire to reach the Negative Zone, and the heroes decide to assist him in finding the source of the super-weapon. They repair the ship and launch it through the portal into the bizarre Negative Zone, then begin scanning and searching the pocket universe – not realising that Mister Fantastic has closed the portal behind them to protect Earth from further incursion.

After three days of awkward travel in a small space, Reed’s scanning instruments lead them to an vast field of mined asteroids and broken spaceships – a shipyard for creating and mobilising the superweapons of the Annihilation Wave. At its heart is a prison planetoid where slaves mine and labour under guard, protected by a force field that destroys organic matter. The heroes manage to shut down the field momentarily, but it comes back up as they fly through, damaging the ship and leading to a crash landing.

The Super-Skrull immediately abandons his allies in order to attack the prison and find his quarry, leaving the Earthlings to fight off a wave of Annihilus’ drone soldiers. They manage to collapse the mine and kill the mindless drones, but Ms Marvel is badly injured in the fight, their spaceship is destroyed, and they have no way of getting home…

In the wake of Glorian’s reality machinations, the frontier town of Abyss on Godthab Omega is largely ruined. Gamora and Cerise have returned to Mount Virago, and Ronan pulls back to the Spaceport to attempt to fix a working ship, leaving Korath and Stellaris to clean up the mess – and to observe the floating red-and-gold energy matrix that Glorian has become. The Glorian Matrix is also of interest to Nebula, who seeks a way off this planet and to regain her fearsome reputation.

But Moondragon has other concerns – she returns to Godthab Omega to warn her occasional allies, the Graces, that the Annihilation Wave is coming. Sadly she is too late – Wave forces, led by a 15km long flagship, land nearby and disgorge a vast swarm of uncontrollable insectoids that advance on Abyss and Mount Virago! Led by Eradica, one of Annihilus’ monstrous Queens, the swarm seeks the Matrix’s power for the Wave.

Gamora prepares to defend Mount Virago and sends Moondragon to Abyss to collect the Matrix. She arrives just as Nebula attempts to steal it, and as Korath creates a trans-dimensional stasis cell to sageguard and transport it. Along with Stellaris, the group agree to put aside their differences in an effort to escape – but as the swarm attacks Abyss, Korath is forced to abandon the Kree soldiers he has led to this point.

The four return to Mount VIrago, stasis cell in hand, to find it overrun with giant mutant bugs – including flying bugs, who force Nebula to crash their transport into the side of Gamora’s headquarters. The four fight against the swarm, but they are too badly outnumbered. After injuring Nebula even more than before, Eradica overpowers Korath and Moondragon and makes off with the Matrix. Faced with overwhelming odds, the Graces (and Korath) evacuate in Moondragon’s ship, and watch the mindless swarm destroy everything left on Godthab Omega.

In the aftermath, the Graces pick up Ronan (who made it to orbit in an evacuation pod), Moondragon sets a course to meet up with her lover Phylla-Vell and other resistance forces, Gamora disbands the Graces – and Korath reveals that he set a psychic tracer on the Matrix, allowing him to follow it anywhere.

While Nycos Aristides has been dragged into Dimension 11 by Tana Nile, Beta Ray Bill and the Xandarian Worldmind (in the body of RIchard Rider), the Aakonian colony is far from safe – Annihilus’ flagship, 20km long and bristling with weapons, is raining destruction down upon the alien city and its inhabitants!

Bill attempts to summon a storm to repel the ship, but the local atmosphere – indeed, all of local space-time – has been disrupted by the dimensional shift, and he is unable to take control of the weather. Instead, for his trouble, the Wave invaders identify his hammer Stormbreaker as a powerful energy source, and the ship’s batteries open fire upon him. As he evades their fire, Tana Nile reroutes the power generated by the colony’s geothermal tap into the Nova Force, and the Worldmind uses the energy of fire a massive gravimetric blast at the ship, smashing through its shield – and attracting the personal wrath of Annihilus, who flies from the ship to launch an attack!

Battling on two fronts, the defenders find themselves outmatched – Annihilus’ physical power is incredibly enhanced by his Cosmic Control Rod, a device containing a naked singularity that he uses to drain away almost all of the Worldmind’s energy (and Richard’s vitality). Meanwhile, Bill takes the fight to the flagship, smashing his way onto the bridge and laying about with Stormbreaker, but is pinned down by battalions of Wave marines onboard.

A desperate Tana Nile hatches a new and even bolder plan – she channels the strange energy at the heart of Nycos Aristedes into the Worldmind, hoping to cause a dimensional shockwave that will throw everyone back to their native universes. The shockwave erupts through the Worldmind, and Annihilus falls back to his ship – where he engages Beta Ray Bill in savage combat. The power of the Cosmic Control Rod is too strong, and the alien warlord not only overwhelms Bill but wrests away control of Stormbreaker – moments before he and the flagship are shunted back to the Negative Zone, leaving Bill to fall back to the ground (and be rescued by the Worldmind).

Nycos Aristedes and its inhabitants are restored to their own universe, but not their own galaxy – the planet now orbits a star in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, far away (for now) from the predations of the Wave. In this place of relative safety, Beta Ray Bill begins enacting ancient magic rites, trying to find an Asgardian weapon that will help him regain Stormbreaker; the Worldmind returns control of its vessel to Richard RIder; Drax the Destroyer and Cammi look for a way to get off-planet; and Tana Nile decides to stay and assist the Aakonian colony and find a new path – and a new love – among its people.

And in the depths of the Negative Zone, Annihilus’s flagship sets a course for the breach back through the Crunch into the positive matter universe. The Annihilation Wave’s master may not be present for the moment, but his forces continue to swarm and destroy in his absence – and he will not be gone for long.

This war is far from over.

As the dust of the collapsed mine settles over the UX-73 Prison Planetoid, Iron Man tries to salvage what he can of their ruined spaceship while Mr Fantastic and a wounded Ms Marvel strike out for the centre of the complex, where escaping prisoners clash with armed and merciless guards.

Meanwhile, the Super-Skrull rampages through the prison complex as the sadistic Commandant Hawal rallies its defences – pausing only to taunt the captive Praxagora, whose fusion core heart has been powering the prison for years. But the Skrull damages the containment facility, and Praxagora is finally able to break free – and to contemplate revenge.

As Ms Marvel brings down guard towers to stop the fighting, Mr Fantastic stretches to the heart of the prison and gains control of its fading power systems. Praxagora chases Hawal to the stardock at the rear of the planetoid; she captures him and clashes with the Super-Skrull, who wishes to torture the Athrosian for the secret of how to destroy the Harvester of Sorrow.

Praxagora persuades Hawal to cooperate, and the scientist-warden reveals that the Harvester is a vast cyber-biological organism; the only way to defeat it is to infect it with a virus, delivered by a missile – but such a weapon will take months to create. The heroes realise that their best bet for assembling the missile is to remain in the Negative Zone, where time passes some 10-12x faster than in the positive matter universe. So long as they can defend themselves against Annihilus’ forces, and rally allies in local space, they may just have a chance to build their weapon, pass through the Crunch and cripple the Annihilation Wave…

Due to its location near a stargate to the Greater Magellenic Cloud, Azimuth Station has become a major waystation for thousands of refugee ships seeking to flee the Andromeda Galaxy and escape the Annihilation Wave. It’s also a stopover for those who have encountered the Wave and lived to tell the tale, such as Gamora and her Graces. After another argument about who should lead the Graces, Nebula breaks off from the group once and for all and begins looking for a ship and a crew, hoping to re-start her piratical career and search for the Infinity Gauntlet. She falls in with Paibok the Power Skrull, who commands a small band of Skrull opportunists, and they begin constructing a plan.

In the darkness between stars, in a vast and radioactive cathedral-cube, the Silver Surfer meets with two other Heralds of Galactus, Firelord and Stardust, to discuss the threat posed by the Seekers. Still loyal to her master, Stardust summons Galactus to the meeting, and the Devourer of Worlds tells the Heralds that the destruction of the Kyln has freed two of the Proemial Gods, vastly powerful entities that Galactus battled and imprisoned during the first moments of the universe’s birth. If they recover their strength, or if the Seekers manage to capture one of the Heralds and subvert the Power Cosmic, reality itself could be threatened.

Devos the Devastator has also made his way to Azimuth, but only just – his high-tech armour is almost completely drained of power. Searching for a way to regain his strength and self-respect, and to fight back against the Wave, he meets with Recorder 808, adjunct to internal security leader Spirit, to ask how he can assist resistance efforts. At the same time, Gamora and Moondragon meet with Spirit to discuss what they can do. All receive the same answer – there are no resistance efforts against the Wave.

Meanwhile, Quasar – Azimuth’s external security leader – flies out to meet a Shi’ar battle cruiser that has come through the local stargate. Commanded by Gladiator, the cruiser demands Azimuth’s surrender, and that it acts to stop the flow of refugee ships – as the ships are flooding into space now controlled by the Shi’ar Empire. Quasar does his best to persuade Gladiator that working with the station’s Rigellian masters to help the refugees is the best way forward, but his argument is halted by a sudden alert – the station is powering up its weapon systems to attack the cruiser!

In truth, Nebula has engineered a massive energy spike to cause a distraction so that her crew can steal a ship. Devos defeats one of Paibok’s agents in the security centre and flies across the station, exhausting his armour’s reserves, to stop the spike from destroying Azimuth – and by draining the excess power, recharges his own systems. Moondragon races through the powered-down station to intercept Nebula, who has abandoned her allies in order to escape alone, and captures her with her mind-control abilities. With the power spike quelled, the Shi’ar no longer think the station is on the attack, and Quasar is able to negotiate an agreement with Gladiator, who will stay on Azimuth as the Empire’s liaison – and perhaps to help the resistance efforts taking shape on the station.

In the aftermath, Firelord arrives at Azimuth to check on his friend Air-Walker; he uses the Power Cosmic to imprison Nebula in a impenetrable sphere of fire and launches it into space. And the Silver Surfer and Stardust arrive at the Crunch to find that the Proemial Gods are building something from the remains of the Kyln, some kind of gigantic energy storage and conversion system. They watch the immortals at work and wonder how to proceed – unaware that their every move is being observed by Thanos, the Mad Titan…

In the penumbra of the Crunch, the freed Proemial Gods – Aegis, Lady of All Sorrows, and Tenebrous of the Darkness Between – build incomprehensible machines and make plans to remake the universe in their own image. They are approached by Thanos, the Mad Titan, who bargains with them for a temporary alliance, and the release of the Fallen One (his ‘herald’, who they captured), in return for him weakening their great enemy Galactus.

The current and former Heralds of Galactus – Stardust, Firelord and the Silver Surfer – scour the Andromeda Galaxy for more information on the Seekers and the Annihilation Wave’s quest for sources of cosmic power. They detect a trace of the Power Cosmic reminiscent of Morg, a rebel Herald who they once fought together to defeat, and follow it back to a system where Skrull and Wave forces fought each other to a standstill, and where the remains of a world destroyed by the Harvester of Sorrow still tumble through space.

On a planetoid bearing the remains of the Skrull spaceport, the Heralds find a Kree ship, its systems and life support almost completely depleted, and the remains of a Wave ship, within which the partially-devoured remains of Morg are splayed upon an altar of red-and-gold material. Before they can reclaim the body or rescue the Kree, the Seekers – led by their leader Ravenous, the right hand of Annihilus – spring their trap. They attempt to capture the Heralds and drain their power, aided by the reality-warping energies of the Glorian Matrix (the altar).

Their plan is an abject failure, though – the Heralds easily defeat the Seekers, and Ravenous is only just able to escape along with the Matrix. The Heralds re-energise the Kree ship’s system and find it is manned by Kree soldiers led by Korath the Pursuer, who has been following his psychic trace on the Glorian Matrix; they follow the Matrix across the galaxy to learn that Ravenous has rendezvoused with Annihilus, who has finally returned from his recent exile back to the Negative Zone.

No sooner has Annihilus emerged from the Crunch than his flagship is invaded by a visitor – Thanos! Fighting off the warlord’s minions and repelling the power of the Cosmic Control Rod, Thanos makes his case for an alliance with Annihilus and aiding him in his genocidal plans. The two tyrants come together to hatch a new and terrible scheme – one that involves the fall of Galactus…

After nearly a year in the Negative Zone, building a viral weapon to combat the Harvester of Sorrows, Mr Fantastic and his allies – Iron Man, Ms Marvel, the Super-Skrull and Praxagora – emerge through the Crunch back in the positive matter universe, where only a month of local time has elapsed. They quickly gather data on the state of the galaxy and the war against the Annihilation Wave, then set out to intercept the Harvester in their ship – the UX-73 Prison Planetoid, now fitted with hyperspace engines and outfitted as a mobile battle platform.

The Harvester, and its accompanying fleet, are attacking the Yaruan system – home to Azimuth Station and the burgeoning resistance against the Wave. For days the station’s defenders have fought against the invaders, but the Harvester is immune to all attacks and pushes through the system, primed to destroy Azimuth’s planetary base. Gladiator and Devos are among those fighting back, while Quasar attempts to coordinate the Skrulls, Shi’ar and other defenders – but it’s not until UX-73 enters the system that they see any hope of victory.

Conferring with Mr Fantastic, Quasar sends most of the defending ships away from the Harvester to attack the rest of the Wave fleet, opening up a path for UX-73 to launch the virus missile; the Super-Skrull pilots it rather than let it fly unguided. Devos, Gladiator, Praxagora and Ms Marvel help defend the missile from the remaining Wave forces – it impacts the Harvester, riddling the organic superweapon with poison and weakening its defences!

But the battle is far from over, as the Harvester moves into position to unleash its anti-energy core upon the planet. Devos exhausts his armour’s power and Gladiator is struck down by the Harvester’s weapons, so Quasar joins the fray; he and Ms Marvel fly into the Harvester to attack the core while Praxagora unleashes her fusion powers to take down the ship’s communications. Faced with the weapon that defeated him once before, Quasar taps into the Quantum Zone to destabilise space-time within the core before the ship’s internal weapons can re-activate and stop him; the core collapses and the Harvester explodes in a massive ball of energy!

In the aftermath, Ms Marvel and Quasar are critically injured, and are taken to recover on Azimuth. Iron Man and Mr Fantastic return to Earth to continue dealing with the superhero civil war. The remaining Wave forces scatter to nearby systems or through the stargate to the Kree Galaxy, while the resistance forces regroup after their victory.

And Annihilus, furious beyond measure at the loss of his planet-destroying weapon, is mollified by Thanos – who has a plan for an alternative…

On the edge of the shattered Skrull Empire, the Heralds of Galactus – Firelord, Stardust and the Silver Surfer – stumble across a force of Annihilation Wave ships while searching for signs of the Proemial Gods. They easily defeat the Wave, but find no sign for the Proemial Gods, other than a thin trace of energies in one ship – along with a trace of the reality-warping energies of the Glorian Matrix. Suspecting a connection between the Wave and the Proemial Gods, they begin tracking the movements of the Wave through the Andromeda Galaxy. Meanwhile, Galactus decides to slake his hunger in far-off parts of the galaxy, far from the threat of the Wave or their allies.

Nebula tumbles through hyperspace, trapped in a sphere of burning cosmic energy that she was bound into by Firelord after her attempt to destroy Azimuth Station. Suddenly the sphere comes to a halt – plucked from hyperspace by the hand of Tenebrous of the Darkness Between. The Proemial Gods examine their captive and wonder what to do with her, while Nebula tells them of her hatred for Firelord, Galactus, her former allies, the galaxy and existence in general. Inspired by her hatred, and the concept of having a mortal agent, the Proemial Gods imbue her with a fraction of their own power, making her their Herald.

On Nycos Aristides, deep within the Kree Galaxy, Nova Prime moves the Xandarian Worldmind from his own consciousness into the information network of the Aarkonian colony, while Beta Ray Bill finally succeeds in mystically conjuring up an Asgardian weapon – Jarnbjorn, the axe Thor wielded in the age before he took up Mjolnir – to replace his stolen hammer Stormbreaker. Perhaps just in time, as a Kree ship approaches the misplaced colony – which turns out to be Ronan the Accuser, accompanied by Korath the Pursuer and his Kree Starforce soldiers. Ronan confronts Tana Nile, demanding the truth of her involvement with his trial for treason and exile from the Empire. Korath is looking for the Glorian Matrix, and his psionic tracking abilities tell him it’s somewhere in the Kree Galaxy. By accessing the Worldmind’s star charts, he realises it’s on Hala, the Kree homeworld. Tana Nile tells Ronan she framed him on the order of her Rigellian masters, as part of an agreement with the Kree mercantile group House Fiyero, who now govern the broken empire from Hala. The two Kree warriors depart for their homeworld to finally get answers – accompanied by Nova Prime and Beta Ray Bill, both keen to take the fight back to the Annihilation Wave.

Concerned by the fragility of Azimuth Station, and the continued danger posed by travel through the local stargate to Shi’ar controlled space in the Kree Galaxy, Gladiator decides the best course is to annex the station, throwing out all its inhabitants and turning away all refugees, and converting it to a military outpost. Quasar and Spirit attempt to talk him out of it, and note that the station is actually Rigellian property. When pressed about the ownership of the station, Recorder 808 drops his ‘bumbling butler’ routine to reveal that the Rigellians have been continually monitoring all activity on Azimuth, and that there are hidden defences and weapons that can be activated if required. Spirit and Quasar broker a deal in which the station is sold to the Shi’ar, while all refugees and inhabitants are moved to the nearby supply planet, which will be made fully inhabitable and accessible with Shi’ar assistance. Quasar joins the terraforming effort, while Spirit joins Praxagora and the crew of the UX-73, which sets off to find and battle the Annihilation Wave.

Nova and Beta Ray Bill warp into the Hala system on board Skuttlebutt, looking for the Glorian Matrix, along with Ronan and Korath, who seek answers from House Fiyero about why they framed Ronan. (Although Korath is perhaps more interested in the Matrix.) They try to bluff their way past the defences of the Kree homeworld, but are quickly discovered, and Bill stays in orbit to distract the Kree (and protect his ship) while Nova opens a miniature stargate to bypass the defences in Ronan’s cruiser.

Pursued by Kree ships and soldiers, the cruiser flies in towards the Hala capitol and the Citadel of the Kree – headquarters of the Accuser Corps and the Supreme Intelligence, now the seat of House Fiyero’s government. Korath senses that the Matrix is somewhere near the top of the building – so rather than dock at the ground and fight their way up, Nova smashes through the side of the Citadel near the top. The cruiser blasts in behind him, dropping Ronan, Korath and their Kree Starforce followers into the massive Hall of Justice. There, in front of the Council Chambers, the invaders fight a squad of Royal Guard defenders, led by Korath’s old ally Captain At-Lass, as well as a massive Sentry robot.

Taking down the Guard, Korath opens the doors to the Chambers to discover who has been meeting with House Fiyero – Annihilus’ lieutenant Ravenous, who carries the Glorian Matrix! The powerful alien sends his Currs to tear apart the Starforce soldiers, but lets his guard down long enough for Korath to grab the Matrix, at which point Nova grabs his comrade and teleports them both back to Nycos Aristides. But Ravenous tears open a hole in space to follow them, so Korath has to tap the power of the Matrix and imprison Ravenous in a giant dodecahedron of energy to stop him. Nova teleports the energy-jail into the local sun, but Ravenous teleports away – defeated, but with the knowledge of where Nycos Aristides can be found.

On Hala, Ronan defeats the Sentry and confronts House Fiyero’s Board of Directors, executing any that dare defy him. Terrified, they confess that they allied with the Rigellians to frame him and get him out of the way so that House Fiyero could more easily control the Empire. Interrogating the prisoners and examining the evidence, Ronan realises that the Annihilation Wave is tearing through the Kree Galaxy, but that House Fiyero has covered this up while trying to bargain with the Wave for safety – and that they lobotomised the Supreme Intelligence, ultimate ruler of the Kree, to prevent it interfering. Enraged by these discoveries – and lionised by the Kree citizens that have watched him tear apart the pretender government – Ronan assumes the throne of the Kree Emperor to lead his race in battle against the Wave.

And back in the Andromeda Galaxy, Annihilus screams with fury over Ravenous’ failure and the loss of both the Matrix and the Harvester of Sorrow. Before he can kill Ravenous or destroy any more of his fleet out of pique, Annihilus is calmed by his erstwhile ally Thanos. The Mad Titan says that the time is nigh to enact his secret plan – a plan that centres around Galactus.

On the far side of the Andromeda Galaxy, Galactus prepares to devour an uninhabited planet to stem his eternal hunger. Firelord comes to tell Galactus that the Proemial Gods are in league with the Annihilation Wave, only to discover that he has led the enemy right to his former master. Tenebrous and Aegis appear to battle Galactus, and when Firelord attempts to interfere he has to contend with the Gods’ new Herald – Nebula, wielding dark energy powers! While Firelord manages to fend off her attacks, he’s unable to protect Galactus, who falls to the power of the Proemial Gods. The former Herald only just manages to escape the dying planet as the Gods tear open a portal and leave with the Devourer’s unmoving form.

Gladiator, patrolling the space near Azimuth Station, is called back to the Shi’ar fleet’s flagship to witness a data transmission – a live broadcast of Galactus’ fall from the other side of the galaxy! The transmission is orchestrated by Thanos, who teleports onto the Shi’ar ship to demand the Praetor come with him as a hostage – willingly or not. Gladiator is unwilling, and the two fall to destructive battle. Despite Gladiator’s immense power, Thanos defeats him – he tells the watching Shi’ar that they have lost their greatest hero, and that the Empire should avoid conflict with the Wave if they want to survive. He then teleports away with the unconscious Gladiator as the flagship explodes.

In the wake of these events, resistance groups from across the Skrull and Kree Galaxies come to Hala to ask the aid of Ronan, the new leader of the Kree Empire. Ronan is reluctant to join forces with other races or groups, preferring the Kree to stand alone against the Wave – but Korath persuades him to listen, suggesting that these allies could take the brunt of the Wave’s attacks while leaving the Kree strong. Nova and Beta Ray Bill put forward the case for a unified front to fight the Annihilation Wave, and their argument is backed up by the requests of other groups and heroes. In the end, Ronan agrees to lend the strength of the Kree forces to the battle – just as word comes in of Wave attacks on the outskirts of Kree space.

Giants have fallen. But legions rise up to take their place.

The battle continues.

It has been six standard months since a United Front assembled to fight the Annihilation Wave.

The war is not going that well.

Wave forces continue to pour into the Kree Galaxy, destroying civilizations and planets in the non-unified quadrant. Kree forces have maintained the borders of the Empire, preventing the Wave from invading further, but even after allying with the Skrulls and Rigellians they cannot push the Wave back. The Shi’ar could tip the balance if they became involved, but they keep their distance after the loss of Gladiator, and stay back in their annexed territories on the other side of the galaxy, safe from the invaders. A variety of soldiers, scientists and space heroes lend their abilities to the Front, but it’s still not enough.

On the planet Daedalus 5, a United Front military base stands guard over a massive stargate to the Milky Way, where envoys attempt to negotiate with the Badoon and the Church of Universal Truth for military assistance. The system comes under attack by a massive vanguard of the Annihilation Wave, bombarding the planet as the bulk of the fleet passes through the stargate. Kree ships attempt to hold back the bombardment, while ground forces battle hordes of giant bugs.

Among the forces defending the base are Beta Ray Bill, Quasar and Nova Prime. They fight alongside Kree and Skrull units as Nova receives intel from the Worldmind – a squad of Wave soldiers are breaking into the base to steal the Glorian Matrix, which was being experimented on here at the frontier. Quasar and Nova create a energy pulse that scrambles the local hivemind, causing the Wave hordes to become mindless and aimless, while Bill defeats a giant beetle-dinosaur hybrid and its handler.

While Quasar defends the Glorian Matrix (and Korath, who has taken charge of the experiments on the reality-shaping cube), Nova and Bill fight the leader of the Wave horde – Eradica, first concubine of Annihilus, who rockets down from her flagship to investigate the hivemind disruption. She webs up Nova and almost injects him with larvae before the two heroes cut her down – but they take her alive on the Worldmind’s insistence, in the hope she can provide desperately needed intelligence on Annihilus’ plans and Wave forces.

With Eradica unconscious, the remaining Wave fleet loses cohesion, giving Front forces a chance to retreat. And just in time – the Wave’s new planet-destroying weapon is en route to the Daedalus system. As for what has replaced the Harvester of Sorrow, sensors reveal the horrible truth – an emaciated and paralysed Galactus, shackled to the hull of an advanced ship, his limitless hunger turned into a planetary devourer for the Wave!

The Aakonian colony on Nycos Aristides has become the Central Command planet of the United Front, missing from all star-charts (since it’s supposed to be in a different galaxy) and hidden from the Annihilation Wave by cloaking technology. But the promise of unity seems fleeting – the Kree want more forces to push back the Wave in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, the Skrulls threaten to withdraw back to their galaxy to fight the Wave there, the Shi’ar are still reluctant to join the Front and the Rigellians argue for reinforcements in their native Milky Way. Complicating all this are the transmissions recovered from the Daedalus system after the Kree fleet retreated – transmissions of the enslaved Galactus tearing apart Daedalus 5 in a massive explosion of crude cosmic energy that was then collected to supply and power the Wave.

As the delegates from the ‘united’ races yell, bicker and throw punches in the negotiation chambers, FIrelord and the Silver Surfer return from more attempts to learn what has happened to Galactus – fruitless attempts, as something is blocking their cosmic senses. The obvious culprits are the Proemial Gods, but they cannot be confronted – they have altered space-time for light-years around their base in the Crunch, making it impossible for the Heralds to enter or observe. Also at Central Command is Mister Fantastic, who has returned from Earth armed with space/time deconstruction technology, created by the Eternals of Titan, that could turn the tide in the war (or possibly destroy reality) – as well as the human adventurer Star-Lord, who has been fighting in various ragtag groups against the Wave for months.

With hostile negotiations, enslaved gods, vast armies and unknowable plans arrayed against the Unified Front, the mood at Central Command is bleak – and the power system unstable, as Aakonian technicians struggle to keep Eradica prisoner in a quantum cell constructed by Quasar, surrounded by telepathic dampeners to prevent her contacting the Wave hivemind. Firelord creates a new prison of cosmic flame as Eradica vows to destroy all ‘meat-things’, resisting all attempts to get information from her about Annihilus’ movements, tactics or plans.

Meanwhile, Star-Lord and the Surfer confront the warring delegates and tell them that they must unify to stop Annihilus. The delegates, who include Baroness S’Bak and Deathbird, react poorly to being lectured; they tell the heroes that if they don’t get useful intel from Eradica within one standard hour, then the negotiations will be cancelled and their fleets withdraw from the Unified Front.

Star-Lord comes up with a plan – shut down the telepathic dampeners so that the Silver Surfer can read Eradica’s mind. The problem is that the Queen is part of the Wave hivemind, and would instantly reconnect to it, transmitting her location to the enemy. To prevent this, Mister Fantastic uses the Titan tech to create a pseudo-hivemind (based on the design of the Earth mutants’ Cerebro device), that could fool and divert Eradica’s awareness away from the Wave.

The four heroes hook themselves to the jerry-rigged unit, Tana Nile shuts off the dampeners – and Eradica instantly smashes through the false hivemind to reconnect with the Wave! The minds of the four are swept up in her psychic wake and immersed in a terrible, insectile mass consciousness. But before Eradica can reveal Nycos Aristides to the Wave, Star-Lord and Firelord attack her on the astral plane, confusing her long enough for Mr Fantastic to reboot the Cerebro. To make sure Eradica is fooled, the Surfer psychically disguises his thought-form as Annihilus – but the disguise is so powerful it resonates through the hivemind, drawing the attention of the Lord of the Negative Zone himself! For an appalling moment, the heroes psychically connect with the consciousness of Annihilus – and just as Tana Nile re-activates the psychic dampeners, they learn the terrible truth of Annihilus’ ultimate plan.

Star-Lord explains everything to the horrified Front delegates – that Annihilus wants to subvert the Power Cosmic from Galactus, and use it to kill every living thing in the entire universe, and in the Negative Zone to boot, leaving him as the sole, immortal survivor in a barren reality. It seems impossible – but with Galactus, the assistance of Thanos and the Proemial Gods, and the Wave’s unstoppable savage madness, Mister Fantastic theorises that it could be done.

The annihilation of EVERYTHING.

Faced with danger not just to their own races and galaxies, but the entire universe, the delegates agree to rejoin and refocus the United Front. Annihilus’ fleet speeds towards Earth, and the first step must be for Front forces to intercept the ship transporting Galactus – Thanos’ ship – and rescue the Great Devourer. This also means confronting the Proemial Gods to release Galactus from their power – and the only way is for the Heralds to enter the Negative Zone through Mr Fantastic’s portal on Earth, go through the Crunch and then somehow defeat two of the most powerful beings in the universe.

The stakes have never been so high.

The odds have never been so overwhelming.

The need for heroes has never been so great.