Comics Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

While I missed the first and second Guardians of the Galaxy movies in the theaters, I’ve been really interested in the group.  This group of Guardians looked fun.  The previous version from the 70’s, which I’d had some exposure to, never caught on with me.  Their struggle in the future against aliens who’d conquered earth never resonated.  Starhawk was the only character that was interesting.    

With the modern group, I’d missed their original series from a few years ago (and I keep trying to get a trade of it).  It didn’t feature exactly the same cast as the current series or movies.  It even somehow included Bug from the Micronauts.  (Don’t ask me how or how he became full-sized.)  I was unfamiliar with Starlord, Gamora, and Drax, though they’re long-standing cosmic characters.  I once had Rocket Raccoon’s mini-series from the 80’s.  That dashing romantic character (yes, even as a raccoon) is a far cry from the tortured and sarcastic Rocket from the movies.  Still, it seemed like an interesting group from what I’d seen and I wanted to at least read about them, even if I couldn’t get anyone to see the movies with me.  

So, I kept trying to buy various Guardians comics.  I’d like to say I liked them, but ultimately what I ended up with was a bunch of frustration.  You’d think Marvel would have made it easy for new fans to just pick up issues of Guardians comic books who were intrigued by the movies.  Not so fast.  They kept renumbering the series, and the story picked up from the original series, which was an out-of-print trade.  The potpourri of variant covers was very nice.  In fact, I ended up with a couple of copies of a couple of issues by accident because I couldn’t identify the issues.

The artwork was very, very nice.  Unfortunately, the story was lacking and decompressed.  It was completely unsatisfying, but ever so tantalizing.  The trade paperbacks should have been a salvation in getting a whole story at least.

Not so fast.  The trade with the above issue, which I wanted more of, only comprised a couple of issues.  The rest had lesser art and the vague story didn’t seem to be coherent.  I never even bought it.  I ended up eventually getting the individual back issues I wanted (a couple times over in fact, thanks to the alternate covers).  But I kept looking at the trades, hoping for something better to come up.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Through the Looking Glass

This looked promising.  It contained an annual featuring Frank Cho’s excellent artwork.  (If you want to complain that he keeps drawing the same two women, namely Brandy and Jen from Liberty Meadows, at least he does so very well.)  The rest of the volume had a story with the X-Men.  It might have been interesting.  I couldn’t tell.  If I was willing to track down three other trades, I could have gotten the whole story.  Instead, all I got was a tease.  

Later, there was this scene, which was kind of funny and at least seemed to capture what I was looking for.  (Yes, a pile of puke.  No, some humor and having fun.)  Kitty Pride, one of my favorite characters, was hooked up with Peter Quill here.  Kitty being in space isn’t foreign territory for her, but did seem a bit weird (much like Tony Stark being with the group, as shown above).  The relationship should have been fun, but wasn’t, as I saw in other issues.

Kitty, Venom, and the Thing (Ben Grimm) joining the group were more of a movie marketing ploy, than a story one.  Specifically, those characters’ rights were owned by other studios, so Marvel was broke up their groups to make them less valuable by not promoting them in their comics anymore.  Along with the Agenda (the socio-political one), their insistence on spreading out all stories over multiple titles in mega-crossovers, and their movie policy (which doesn’t involving tying into their own movies, but sabotaging other people’s movies with their characters), Marvel comics are virtually unreadable.

Guardians of the Galaxy: Communications Breakdown

Finally, several years later, I got what I was looking for.  Here we have a Guardians of the Galaxy comic book that looks good (very good), tells a whole story (albeit the intro to a larger story), and is fun.  Congratulations to Aaron Kuder and Gerry Duggan for creating most of this trade.  You guys somehow slipped under Marvel’s editorial radar and made a good comic book.

The artwork was perfect.  It was like a Moebius story from an issue of Heavy Metal, absolutely appropriate for a science fiction setting.  Even a fill-in issue didn’t disrupt the flow.  The characters were well-handled in their personalities.  The story made sense for the group to be involved in.  Even Quill’s terrible beard didn’t hurt the look of the comic.

Unfortunately, the next trade didn’t seem to follow the story in this one and Marvel went right back to what I didn’t want, a pointless crossover.  This volume being so good just makes it more hurtful that they’re not producing quality material like this on a regular basis.  The formula for success is right there and they already know it: develop iconic characters, get a good writer with a story, get a good steady artist, and leave them alone. 

The movies should be making the comics more popular than ever.  Instead, there’s almost a complete disconnect between what’s published and what’s onscreen.  They don’t have to be exactly the same, but they need to be recognizable.  Actually, Guardians is maybe the only one that even comes close.  I just can’t understand this idiotic discontinuity in marketing from a Disney company.  Fire everyone at Marvel Comics and start over with a synergy plan to connect with movie audiences.