Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
One of the most perplexing and perhaps insistent of all the creations by Marvel comics is The Guardians of the Galaxy. Unlike other explorations into the team ethic made by Marvel, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, West Coast Avengers, X-Men for example, The Guardians of the Galaxy is one that doesn’t necessarily jump off the page and grab the sympathetic attention of the reader. It could be argued that it delves into a space that would have been more suited to the underworld/underground realm of comic books and yet given the amount of time it takes a class A comet to light up the sky and bring an end to all life on the planet, it grows upon you.
The problem with The Guardians of the Galaxy is that it does have more than a touch of aloofness attached to it and yet it is not in the writing, nor in the fairly stunning artwork supplied by Steve McNiven, Sarah Pichelli, Michael Avon Oeming and Ming Doyle, it just seems to come all at once in one big bundle. Like Galluctus devouring a planet, the cold seems to envelope all before it and yet redemption comes.
That redemption is seen in the heart of Brian Michael Bendis’ writing who captures the soul of the five renegades placed together in a way that was never seen in The Avengers. In every team the protagonists are more eager to squabble and fight with each other than they to square up against a foe but the common enemy in Cosmic Avengers is enough to bring them together.
Earth is in danger, as it always is and will forever be, but this is not the job for the Avengers, this is a job that is beyond Thor or the brute force of The Hulk or the guile of the bewitching Black Widow, this is a position in which the Star-Lord Peter Quill is the only man who can get to the bottom of the reasons behind the peril that a vulnerable Earth is facing and when even the Watcher’s look upon proceedings with a certain dread in their omnipotent eye, the reader is left in no doubt just what can expected to happen.
With the brands first major film being released in the next couple of weeks, which stars the former Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan, it is worth remembering that whilst the Avengers Assemble film was a huge success, the first family of Marvel, The Fantastic Four foray, despite a great cast was universally disliked and even derided. Such a shame when you consider just how loved they are in the comic world. The way the film version of The Guardians of the Galaxy goes depends on just how much the makers manage to incorporate the more interesting characters of the graphic novels Gamora, Groot and Rocket Racoon in the film.
Whilst not the most enjoyable of graphic novel team ups created by the stronghold of Marvel’s creative team, it certainly holds up as an adventure worth having, a look at what is beyond our stars and the realms of fantasy therein.
The Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers is available from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall