The last time we met up with Star-Lord and our merry band of space-pirates turned interstellar heroes, each member of the team was being picked off one-by-one by various enemies they've made over the years.
It seems this was all part of a diabolical scheme by Star-Lord's evil galactic dictator of a father to disband the Guardians and force his son to accept his destiny as ruler of the galaxy alongside dear old dad. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?
Wasn't there some goofy space opera made a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away that featured an evil tyrant trying to turn a farm boy from a desert planet into a fellow baddie so they could rule the universe as father and son? If there was, the plot to this issue of
Guardians of the Galaxy might have borrowed a few cues from it, but in all honesty, who would go and watch a space opera anyway? It would never catch on!
Star-Lord, aka Peter Quill was arrested by his pops and given an opportunity to choose between two rather unsavory outcomes. He could choose to take his place in the family business, or spend the rest of his life rotting away in prison. If you've been keeping up with the series, then its pretty easy to guess which decision Quill made, given his long history of daddy issues. Yep, you guessed it. He chose prison.
The fate of other members of the Guardians of the Galaxy makes a lifetime of solitary confinement look like a walk in the park.
Gamora has been captured by the Badoon and is being beaten to a pulp, complete with a few donkey punches to the back of the noggin'. Rocket Raccoon finds himself in the midst of a strange sort of Kree biology class with the Supreme Intelligence as the instructor, who wants to teach his class raccoon anatomy by slicing and dicing Rocket into iddy-biddy pieces. The Supreme Intelligence has some weird fascination with Rocket's particular speices and seems to relish the idea of getting a peak at Rocket's innards.
Groot has been imprisoned and attacked by The Brood, while Drax finds himself a prisoner of the Shi'Ar. In typical Drax fashion, he challenges the Gladiator to a trial by combat, but he opts out of the challenge. Perhaps he's a bit of a chicken turd. I can't really blame him. I'd be terrified of fighting a guy named Drax the Destroyer too.
Agent Venom, also fondly known as Flash Thompson of Spider-Man fame, is being hunted down by a group of Skrulls who pretended to be members of the Avengers, but failed epically.
The end of the issue has Quill attempting to cut a new deal with his father where he agrees to become the "Star-Lord" in exchange for rescuing his team members and officially disbanding the Guardians of the Galaxy. Unfortunately, it seems negotiations have ended, so Star-Lord cracks some nugs and escapes by leaping haphazardly out of a window.
Overall, the issue was pretty entertaining.
Guardians of the Galaxy is a series I've read in its entirety and look forward to each new issue that comes out.
The writing seemed a bit slow in spots, especially the parts with Agent Venom, and the dark "villains have their day of triumph" bit seems a little too much like the plot from
Empire Strikes Back. As a long time fan of the comic, I found myself actually getting ticked at the way poor ole Rocket was getting experimented on, so the fact that the issue actually evoked an emotional response is a clear sign of an overall solid writing effort.
The art was fantastic in this issue, which is what gave it a big boost when it came to the slower parts of the story.
The biggest complaint is the fact that Captain Marvel is on the cover, and is seen briefly in the previous issue, but remains nowhere to be seen in this release. I was a little confused by this, as I assumed by the cover that Captain Marvel was going to breeze on in and save the day.
Despite a few weak spots this is still a solid issue that is definitely worth a read, and was my favorite new release from Marvel last week. If you haven't read it yet, go check it out!