SpotOn: Guardians of the Galaxy

A while back, I downloaded the first issue of a series called Guardians of the Galaxy, through the Marvel app, which is what you would consider a cosmic based superhero comic book. I’ve never really given this particular kind of stories any attention, though I am familiar with several of the characters. Readers of marvel like me will most likely have heard of Galactus and his heralds, the Silver Surfer being the most famous one. Both of these originally appeared as antagonists in the Fantastic Four series and have since clashed with both the FF and other heroes of Earth. But Galactus and the Silver Surfer are far from the only cosmic characters in the Marvel universe and of course there are several others that every now and then find their way to earth, including an immense amount of alien races. 

Galactus & the Silver Surfer

Anyways, to get back on topic, Guardians of the Galaxy… After reading the first issue, my interest was piqued, and since GotG takes its departure in events prior to this issue, I read Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest, first. Both of these are absolutely worth reading as well if you have any interest in the cosmic genre of comic books. I then recently picked up GotG again and thought I’d give you my two cents on this. The team consists of very different and stubborn individuals of whom none are really big on teamwork or cooperation. Their leader, a human named Peter Quill, formerly known as Star Lord, was forced into leading a team of various convicts during the Annihilation: Conquest event (during which the alien cybernetic race the Phalanx, took advantage of the devastation left in the wake of the war in the previous event Annihilation and took control of the Kree Empire) into the Kree capital and destroy the Phalanx.  The team is successful, but Quill, upon avoiding yet another galaxy wide threat (Annihilation & A. Conquest) realizes the need for a proactive force, a team that can neutralize these threats before they do real damage.  To this end, he recruits Adam Warlock, Drax the Destroyer, Phyla-Vell, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon and Groot, along with Mantis as a support member of the team. They take up residence in a space station called Knowhere, a severed head of a Celestial (omnipotent universal being), which has a near-universal range teleportation system. Operating as chief-of-security at Knowhere is the telepathic soviet dog Cosmo, who was lost in Earth orbit sometime in the 1960’s and is also working close with the Guardians despite not being an actual member of the team.  One of the team’s first missions brings them on collision course with the Universal Church of Truth, a universe spanning religious empire who will go on to appear frequently through the series, though mostly working behind the scenes.  After returning from their encounter with the church, the team is startled by the appearance of a man from the future suffering from amnesia. He calls himself Major Victory and proclaims he is a member of the original GotG. Readers of either the current Marvel series Avengers Academy or the now cancelled Avengers: The Initiative will recognize Major Victory by his real name Vance Astro, as the Avenger Justice on present Earth. Victory’s proclamation inspires the so-far unnamed team to adopt GotG as their own name.  The team members angrily disband when they learn that Star Lord had Mantis telepathically coerce them into joining in the first place. 

Left to Right: Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Star Lord,
Adam Warlock, Drax  and Phyla-Vell

 Naturally, that isn’t the end of the Guardians and the team in its entirety, with additional new members, eventually does get back together. It’s a comic book with both humor and a more serious tone when there is a need for that and trust me; the serious, grave and dangerous situations are most definitely present through this series, despite that fact that the team consists of some extremely wacky and in some cases unstable personalities. I’d recommend Guardians of the Galaxy to anyone having the slightest interest in both superhero comics and sci-fi since it is a great mixture of both.

Next SpotOn will be a on a series named Rising Stars, by author J. Michael Straczynski , one of my favorite writers whose work among others include: tv series Babylon 5, The Changeling (2008 thriller), comic books Midnight Nation, Amazing Spider-man and several others. 

Rising Stars