Guardians of the Galaxy 1: Cosmic Avengers

Comic Info

Guardians of the Galaxy (3) #1 Skottie Young Variant

Reprints Guardians of the Galaxy (3) #.1-3 and Guardians of Galaxy:  Tomorrow’s Avengers #1 (April 2013-September 2013).  Peter Quill aka Star-Lord finds that Earth is “off-limits” to extraterrestrials by order of his father and a council of galactic emissaries.  With such a warning, a target has been placed on Earth and Peter must reassemble his team the Guardians of the Galaxy to protect it.  Joined by Iron Man, Peter seeks to protect the Earth from a Badoon invasion, but Peter finds that the orders from his father could come back to haunt him.

Written by Brian Michael Bendis, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1:  Cosmic Avengers collects the first three issues of the third volume of Guardians of the Galaxy in addition to Guardians of the Galaxy #.1 and Guardians of the Galaxy:  Tomorrow’s Avengers #1 which were originally published in an online shorts format.  The series has been relatively well received by critics and fans.

I love the Guardians of the Galaxy…but I’m leery of Brian Michael Bendis.  It is this conundrum I faced when I learned that the new G of G series was going to be written by Bendis who I felt just finished wrecking the Avengers.  I have almost every Guardian of the Galaxy appearance from their initial premiere in Marvel Super-Heroes (1) #18 (January 1969), to their ’90s guilty pleasure series, to the Abnett and Lanning relaunch which reimagined the team.  This new volume brings back much of the Abnett and Lanning team and throws in Iron Man to tie it closer to the Avengers being written by Hickman.

Guardians of the Galaxy (3) #2 Variant

I’m about 50/50 on this series thus far.  Bendis has abandoned much of his talking heads format from his run on Avengers, but it still has that disjointed nature that I felt hindered Avengers…just not as severely.  I think Bendis really struggles with team books and wish that Marvel would quit handing over the reins to him blindly.  Not much really happens in this volume and that is one of my biggest problems with Bendis writing…I read five issues and essentially got a story with very little meat (and at $3.99 a pop that is a bit weak).

The art for the series, however, is very good.  I love Steve McNiven and Sara Pichelli’s character designs and think they bring a lot of life to a ho-hum story.  In addition to their good art, you are treated to some more abstract versions of the characters from the online stories which were collected in Guardians of the Galaxy:  Tomorrow’s Avengers.  Here you have some fun art from Michael Avon Oeming, Ming Doyle, and Michael Del Mundo which has me wishing for a guest stint on the regular comic.

Guardians of the Galaxy 1:  Comic Avengers gets a pass from me simply because I love the Guardians.  With a new movie coming out (which I also question the validity of a small bunch of characters carrying a big budget film), Guardians of the Galaxy might have some hope.  I am going to stick with this series a bit more due to the arrival of Neil Gaimen’s Angela in Guardians of the Galaxy (3) #5 (September 2013) and I’m curious if he’ll have any contribution to the stories.  Guardians of the Galaxy 1:  Cosmic Avengers is followed by Guardians of the Galaxy 2:  Angela.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2:  Angela

Guardians of the Galaxy 1:  Legacy 

Guardians of the Galaxy 2:  War of Kings Book 1

Guardians of the Galaxy 3:  War of Kings Book 2

Guardians of the Galaxy 4:  Realm of Kings