Hello and welcome to part 2 of my Reviews for this week. You can check out part 1 if you missed them by clicking on the link. If not, glad to have you back and ready for more. This time I’ve got four more books with my personal favorite, Guardians of the Galaxy, ready to go!
***Spoilers Ahead***
First up is…Guardians of the Galaxy #25 (Thanos Imperative).
Publisher: Marvel
Writer(s): Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Artist: Brad Walker (cover by Alex Garner)
Alright, well if you didn’t know, Thanos is back! He was inside a cocoon that The Universal Church of Truth was cooking up at their hideout. Nobody knows why he’s back yet, but we do know he likes to kill people for no other reason than to impress Lady Death, so look out! In this issue we see the Council of the Guardians from the future talking about the time-stream being screwy because of an event in this time. They figure out that the Magus is the reason for this ripple in time and that they have to do something about it pronto. We then flash to what happened immediately after Thanos broke free from the cocoon. It appears that he’s killed Phyla-Vell and that he’s not satisfied with just that. The team tries valiantly to stop him, and seems to be out classed at first, but then Star-Lord remembers that he has a Cosmic Cube and puts the whammy on Thanos and knocks him out cold. The Council then figures out that Thanos is the error in time, and that the Guardians are the only people that can stop him and put everything right again. 4.5/5
Next on the list is…Avengers vs. Atlas #4 of 4.
Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Gabriel Hardman (cover by Humberto Ramos)
So in this conclusion, we find out that this spacial anomaly is really caused by an event when Pym destroyed Kang’s time travel device while he was trying to travel back in time. This created a “ChronoVirus” as explained by Banner amongst all the chaos. Eventually, all the time displaced Avengers have to sacrifice themselves for the current time-line to keep existing. In the end, the Avengers do what’s right and stop the Chrono Virus, and in turn stop their own existence. There was also a back-up story featuring Gorilla Man that told his origin. All in all it wasn’t a really bad limited series, but I definitely would have skipped it if I knew it was this kind of story. It was just a little hard to follow at times. 3/5
The third book is…Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #2 of 2.
Publisher: Marvel
Writer(s): Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente
Artist: Ariel Olivetti
This was a great issue to lead into the new Heroic Age: Prince of Power book coming out next month. It showed the gods using Amadeus Cho and other Earth beings as pawns in a game of sport. At first it was all out war with Skaar and Namor battling it out, then we saw Bruce banner and Cho outsmart Nightmare. Really cool scenes with all these great Marvel characters from different backgrounds in it. Finally though, Cho and the other pawns figured out that nothing good will come out of this, so they turn on their hosts. Not much really happens with that, but Cho takes a trip to the realm of the dead to look for Hercules, and finds out that he isn’t there. 3.5/5
And finally we have…Captain America: Who Won’t Wield the Shield? #1 (one-shot).
Publisher: Marvel
Writer(s): Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, Stuart Moore
Artist(s): Mirco Pierfederici, Brendan McCarthy, Joe Quinones
I don’t really know what to say about this one, other than it contained four stories that poked fun at current story lines. One was making fun of Captain America #1. Another was taking a shot at Spider-Man Fever, and the other two are comics I must not read because they didn’t remind me of anything. I understand what the writers were trying to do. Really, I get it, but sometimes things “sound” funny, when in reality and on paper, they really don’t translate as such. This is one of those times. Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of times I chuckled, but not $4 worth of laughter. Office humor just needs to stay in the office from now on. 1/5
That’s it for this week’s books, but I’m going to have more by week’s end, so stay tuned for some more Marvel mayhem!
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
I’m debating whether or not I should get the Thanos Imperative now or wait till the trade comes out. Ugh!
Speech, just get both! Thanos is well worth it.
Ah, I’m glad I turned that Who Won’t Wield the Shield thing down.
@Speech- Get the singles…unless your running out of room. lol
@Eli- Great advice! 😀
@Kris- Definitely be glad you saved the money. That wasn’t worthy of FCBD material. 🙁
Guardians has been on-target cosmic entertainment since issue 1, despite a handful filler issues with uneven art. What a shame that this book is not getting dollars from buyers, but Marvel keeps vomiting up more appearances of Deadpool that the brainless can’t get enough of. By the time these books make it to trades (IF they do) the series will have been canceled for lack or readership, and that is a crying shame. I hope the Thanos Imperative is enough to prove to Marvel that this book has earned its place on the shelf, and to throw some muscle behind it.
@Goodguy- Couldn’t agree more. You’re actually preaching to the choir with anybody that reads marvel’s Cosmic stuff (GotG, Nova, etc.). Wolverine, Deadpool, Spider-Man, etc., the list is a mile long for the characters that get a million appearances a month and yet people aren’t reading the better written books like Guardians. Abnett & Lanning are pure genious with cosmic stories.