Everyone thought Korvac died at the end of the Korvac saga, but it turns out that right before he died he sent his power forward in time to find an ancestor. The Guardians of the Galaxy are the common thread to these four annuals, as they jump through time trying to stop the Korvac power’s movement in the time stream.
They hook up with present-day Fantastic Four and get shamed by the Time Variance Authority. And from there, it just gets more and more convoluted. Because it’s time travel. The Thor annual isn’t about the Thor we know–it’s about the 26th Century Thor, because they go forward to chase Korvac. They stay in that timeline to meet future Silver Surfer, too. And finally, in their own Annual, the Guardians get to the end of it all. They travel back to their OWN time to stop baby Korvac from being born.
There are back up stories in these annuals, and I’ll cover them quickly because nobody can be very interested in most of these. In the FF story, Molecule Man returns. Thor’s back up has Earth Force and Silver Sable, two things nobody wants to see. And a second backup with Beta Ray Bill and Ego, which is slightly better.
Silver Surfer has Eros serially raping women by using his powers to seduce them. Yuck. But there is a Blue Devil crossover.
OK, not really. But he looks a heckuva lot like that DC Character, so I’m tagging this as a crossover.
Surfer’s annual also has a shorter back up retells the origin of Midnight. (I told you nobody would care about most of these.)
Of all these annuals, only the GotG one rises to a C. The rest are sub-par.