Annihilator #4 (Legendary)

via Previews World

writer: Grant Morrison

artist: Frazer Irving

Morrison's latest bid for immortality continues with an issue that goes a long way to unlocking the entire story.

Hollywood screenwriter Ray Spass has met the lead character of his latest script, Max Nomax, who tells him he's real and that Ray needs to finish the story so that he can remember how he defeats the cosmic forces working against him, which include Makro, who has begun impersonating Ray.

Makro shows up at the door of Ray's ex-girlfriend Luna, but thankfully Max and Ray intervene in time.

And then we learn from Luna more about Ray, and we see more about Max, and then Max's full story is explained, and by the end of the issue, Makro's impersonation has reached true crisis proportions...

So yeah, a pretty big issue.  It also continues the thread of what I picked up with the last one, with Annihilator acting as a kind of therapeutic release for Morrison.  This is not just another Morrison-does-a-story-about-a-character-meeting-his-creator thing, as one of the comics blogs I follow recently concluded.  This is one of those culmination projects, a sum of everything Morrison has sought to accomplish in his career.  It reminds me of Kid Eternity, in some respects, which when I read it became another signal project that unlocks much of what Morrison has tried to do in his career.  

And as it currently stands, I've pegged Annihilator as the best comic of 2014.