WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy #15 by Al Ewing, Juan Frigeri, Federico Blee, and VC's Cory Petit, on sale now.
The Marvel Universe has already been shaken up in a major way by the cosmic efforts of mutantkind, between the fireworks of the Hellfire Gala terraforming Mars and S.W.O.R.D. having taken the reigns of the ever-growing mutant space program. However, the upcoming "The Last Annihilation"crossover event is set to throw S.W.O.R.D. into its first major cosmic conflict.
While Nova and Star-Lord were busy meeting with the mutants of S.W.O.R.D. and discussing the fallout of the Hellfire Gala's celestial spectacle, the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy gathered alongside hundreds of other ships from all corners of the universe. They have gathered around Ego, the Living Planet, who has been encrusted in a dense black cocoon of sorts thanks to the machinations of an ancient Skrull fire cult. Doctor Doom has injected himself into the Guardians' lives in the hopes of staving off some great new threat, and presumably, this is it. As the Guardians observe, Ego's shell begins to crack, and from within it emerges the giant-size celestial body of the dreaded Dormammu.
While Dormammu has historically been a mystical threat, "The Last Annihilation" will see S.W.O.R.D. and the new incarnation of the Guardians face the helllord as their first collective major test. Even though few details surrounding the event have been revealed, what has been teased already confirms that 'The Last Annihilation' will be a massive cosmic event that will bring the disparate corners of the Marvel Universe together. Now that the Guardians have reimagined themselves as a kind of cosmic answer to the Avengers, this will test the officially sanctioned team's ability to handle an Avengers-level threat.
How Abigail Brand and her team will handle Dormammu is still yet to be seen, but this could be exactly what the mutant space station needs to cement their place in the cosmos after only recently having declared themselves the capital of the solar system.
No matter how impressive mutant kind's act of terraforming Mars in a matter of minutes was, the fact that they are still flying the flag of a relativly young nation that couldn't even get along with its own sister states has not instilled a lot of confidence in their ability to lead on the celestial stage. Earth is still a planet divided among a cosmos full of interstellar alliances and despots, and it has rarely if ever proven itself capable of acting as a single people, even in the face of threats such as the King in Black.
If S.W.O.R.D. is able to pull their own weight and work with the Guardians to save the universe, it could go a long way to making both group slegitimate in the eyes of the wider Marvel Universe.