Comic Info
Comic Name: Guardians of the Galaxy (Volume 3)/Guardians 3000
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Dan Abnett
Artist: Gerardo Sandoval
# of Issues: 6
Release Date: 2015
Guardians 3000 #3
Reprints Guardians of the Galaxy (3) #14 and Guardians 3000 #1-5 (June 2014-April 2015). Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Martinex, Starhawk, and Yondu are the Guardians of the Galaxy…or are they? When they rescue a young temporal anomaly named Geena Drake from a slave camp, they discover that they might be fighting an endless battle and the “original” Guardians might not be as original as they thought. When a group called the A-Sentience begins to pursue the Guardians, the Guardians hope to reach the heart of the universe to safe their reality from collapsing.
Written by Dan Abnett, Guardians 3000 Volume 1: Time After Time is a post-new Guardians of the Galaxy relaunch of the original team of the Guardians of the Galaxy. The comic features art by Gerardo Sandoval and also collects the back-up story from Guardians of the Galaxy (3) #14.
The original Guardians of the Galaxy comic (the 1990s’ one in addition to their appearances before that) were some of my favorite comics. The 1990s series was very soap opera based and featured tons of melodrama with the characters and their relationships. I was really looking forward to Guardians 3000…and was sorely disappointed.
Dan Abnett really proved himself to me when he teamed with Andy Lanning for the Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy relaunch, but I also wished that the old Guardians would be part of the mix. Approaching Guardians 3000, it was immediately off-base. The original Guardians are reintroduced (minus Nikki) to Geena who plays the young optimistic character. While this wasn’t necessarily a wrong approach, it misses the mark.
Guardians 3000 #5
The comics play with the timestream, but in a way that doesn’t feel original or coherent. The Guardians apparently keep dying (like Edge of Tomorrow), and Geena is the only one who knows it. It takes any suspense out of the story because the story relaunches with all the characters alive in the first issue…promising that it will happen again if they die again. It feels really lazy.
Later in the volume, Nikki is finally reintroduced (and redesigned in a very uninteresting way involving her fire hair), but it too feels lazy because she apparently is a bit of an anomaly as well since she remembers her time with the Guardians…and Starhawk is an anomaly as the One Who Knows but doesn’t seem to know much taking away the little interest I had in Geena. Add to it bad battle scenes and uninspired villains in the A-Sentience, and you have a rather poor comic.
Guardians 3000 stings more than other comic book failures in that it really reduces the chance of the original Guardians getting another chance. If you liked the old Guardians the story isn’t appealing and if you like the new Guardians, the story also isn’t appealing. I will always give the original Guardians of the Galaxy a chance, but this does sour me toward the characters if they were to appear this way again (though I do like the Alex Ross covers). Guardians 3000 Volume 1 is also a bit of a misnomer in that there isn’t a second volume. Guardians 3000 1: Time After Time was followed by Warzones!: Korvac Saga which tied in to Marvel’s Secret Wars storyline. The series was cancelled after Secret Wars.
Related Links:
Guardians of the Galaxy 1: Cosmic Avengers
