20 years later and after multiple movies, the 2006 Annihilation event remains the high water mark for Marvel’s Cosmic characters.

“Prologue” was a double-sized book that serves as a launchpad for more than a half-dozen titles–nearly all of which rate as well-above-average to excellent.

The special issue shows Annihilus, the old Lee/Kirby Negative Zone villain–invading the 616 universe with an armada called the Annihilation Wave. They start at Xandar, killing off all of the Nova Corps except Richard Rider. Rider is able to gain a power-up before the Corp are completely destroyed, and this is the jumping-in point for the Nova story.

There’s a sequence with Thanos and Death, picking up where his series ended; Ronan gets arrested by the Kree; Drax and Cammi are still in the craft they left Earth in after the end of his miniseries and one showing that Super Skrull will also be involved in this epic. Silver Surfer’s story launches here, too, as he can feel a shift in the Universe and flies off to help.

All four of these storylines will get Annihilation miniserieses. Next month the following titles begin: Annihilation #1 (the main series) and Annihilation prefix serieses featuring Ronan, Nova, Silver Surfer, and Super Skrull.