These are the Infinity War issues, so EVERYONE guest stars. This is not fun for people like me who tag every character. By now, if you read my posts regularly, you know that the I.W. event is vastly inferior to the Infinity Gauntlet event, and the tie-ins are even less relevant. Of course, overall the drop in quality year-by-year from 1990 through the end of the century is swift and precipitous.
We all suffer as we read this era of Marvel Comics.
In these issues, there is incessant blathering with the Elders of the Universe.
Quasar goes back to Earth, joins the heroes, and goes back into space for the big doppleganger battles from Infinity War.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Quasar’s role in the War is that he gets hit by the Ultimate Nullifier, and in issue #40 we see what happens to him after that.
He activated the Ultimate Nullifier, but Magus at that point was able to use the Infinity Gauntlet to redirect the nullification back at Quasar. And so we explore what happens to Quasar after he was nullified.
Turns out, Eon is also in the null area, and he helps Quasar get out. There’s waaaaaay too much talking in these issues. They’re wordy and boring. Mark Gruenwald is a good plotter, but he doesn’t write like Jim Starlin, who would have done much better with all this.
Yet I know these issues have their fans. And there are some very interesting ideas. Like, when Quasar is in the null space, a new Blue Marvel appears, created by his absence. He seeks to join The Avengers.
But they put him in a cage for breaking and entering their mansion.
So he ends up fighting them instead.
Awwww. Herc misses young Quasar! Maybe that’s why he gets “handsy” with Captain Marvel?
Punisher also fights Blue Marvel.
Maybe this was the only way they could crowbar Punisher into a cosmic event–and thereby achieve the goal of having Punisher appear in at least 25% of all comics published each month?
Blue Marvel then goes to null space to face off against his creator.
I’ve decided that the “I can create anything I want” powerset is still dumb, but it’s the cool kind of dumb when two people can do it and they fight each other.
And yes, I know this is a tribute to the various colors of Green Lanterns. Quasar gives Blue Marvel a big hand…
Eventually, of course, Quasar gets his body back–defeating the effects of the Ultimate Nullifier.
Once he is reintegrated, Blue Marvel is gone forever. The character will return in another form–but this one won’t, since he was just a manifestation that the energy of Quasar’s Quantum Bands created to ensure he had a physical body to return to after using the Ultimate Nullifer.
Hm. After reading these issues again for the purposes of writing this post, I find myself increasingly interested in their implications. Maybe they’re not so bad?
And speaking of implications, unlike the disappearance of Blue Marvel, another aspect of these issues does have a lasting effect…
“Her” changes her name to Kismet. It’s better than Her, but still a bad name.
The Infinity War/Cosmic adventure doesn’t end with #43, but I have to break these issues somewhere and ending where Quasar returns to the “real” universe seems as good a place as any.