Guardians of the Galaxy #2 Review

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #2
Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Art by Paul Pelletier

I should be enjoying Guardians of the Galaxy more than I am. It has all the makings of a great book - solid writing team I've enjoyed in the past, said team working on characters they've revitalized, lots of old continuity being referenced, such as the Church of Universal Truth or the old Guardians team, great art and so on - but something just isn't clicking

I had the same problem with The Order, which I've compared this book to in my previous review, and I'm not sure if it's the similarities in reality TV narrative or if it's the general popcorn flick action dominating the first two issues that has my faith wavering.

For instance, this isse starts us off with the team checking out the floating, frozen monolith that came out of another anomoly at the end of last issue. Instead of dealing with the return of former Guardians of the Galaxy member, Vance Astrovik, who reader, Cierdwyn2, correctly predicted was encased in the ice with Captain America's shield, we are treated to a quick splash page of him coming out of the ice and the rest of the segment was dedicated to fighting giant tentacle monsters just to, I assume, have stuff blow up and add some action to the issue. It just felt completely unnecessary to me and the time could have been better spent on reintroducing Vance to us.

I did love the bits with Rocket Raccoon and he remains the best part of this book. His opening scene with Cosmo, who saddly only appeared once or twice this issue, where he complains about his issues with "talking pets" was great and was probably the funniest thing I've read all week.

However, other characters, specifically Mantis, seem like completely different characters from their pre-GotG appearances. I find her clarivoyance to be extremely annoying and her manner of speech seems off, too, compared to her cute and cryptic Starlord and Annihilation: Conquest appearances. I also miss seeing her in action and think her current Pepper Potts role, for another The Order comparison, is a bad fit for her.

It was good to see the Church of Universal Truth subplot wasn't put on the back burner for the duration of this "team formation" storyarc and the issue ends the Guardians responding to a distress call only to find several cardinals from the Universal Church waiting for them. Their designs are very fitting and you could think of it as a cosmic Spanish Inquisition and no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

One of the other little nitpicks I have with the series that has yet to be resolved is the relative power levels of each character. Adam Warlock gets thrown around like a rag doll by most of the creatures in this and the first issue, yet Peter Quill, who has no powers to speak of, is going up against the same monsters and has yet to suffer any kind of injuries or set backs. Warlock then goes on to annihilate the creatures in this issue with a simple spell. Is he all powerful or not? I like Warlock's character, but his current encarnation seems to be Sentry-ized with little to no focus or direction for his powers and it ends up with him either being a push over or deus ex machina godmode power level to solve any problem.

This all ties into the cardinals that I spoke of. If they are going to be powerful enough to stand up to Warlock or Quasar, what are people like Rocket Raccoon or Peter supposed to do against them with guns?

Verdict - Check It. I was gushing a bit too much with the first review, but was genuinely pleased with the first outing. The second time around has the same narrative I hate and more cracks in the armour are starting to show. It's definitely still worth picking up, but this title isn't grabbing me like the original Annihilation or DnA's Nova on-going.

Related Posts