Guardians of the Galaxy – Movie Review

 

Yeah, these guys are hooked on a feeling—a feeling called life! I may be overgeneralizing out the wazoo here, but ensemble casts really do have a special fit with comedies. In a drama, every character acts for himself and often at odds with each other, because that’s how you generate the layers of conflict that make good drama. But in comedies, no character can truly act for himself. Even when they’re at each other’s throats, they’re really working together to push the comedy forward, and teamwork is part and parcel of an ensemble.

That’s what makes Guardians so powerful a movie and, in some ways, one with far more personality and perhaps even likability than The Avengers. When the Avengers fight amongst themselves, they get in each other’s way and almost slow down the action; when the Guardians fight, the speed and rhythm of the action kicks up, and their every move is choreographed to get a laugh every few seconds. That takes a hell of a lot of good writing, so director-writer James Gunn and writer Nicole Perlman deserve high credit for the hit they’ve produced.

Of course, no amount of craft would be of any use if not for interstellar performances from the cast. The actors behind the Guardians themselves commit so thoroughly to their strange, misfit roles that even the characters who nearly 100 percent CGI come across more alive than the actual human players. Bradley Cooper’s biting, cocky, gun-happy depiction of Rocket will make the space raccoon everyone’s favorite character and Vin Diesel works wonders with the vocabulary-limited Groot, proving that a good actor really can make the most of the sparsest lines (“I am Groot.”). But it’s Chris Pratt as Peter Quill who keeps the ensemble centered, anchoring their wildly extreme personalities from spinning out of control. His innate charm and complete lack of mean-spiritedness turns what might have been an insufferable character into the movie’s most likable one, which probably explains how he manages to rally the Guardians at all. By opening the film with a goofy dance routine through an ancient alien temple, he proclaims the spirit of fun that carries you through the remaining two hours.

Guardians of the Galaxy #14 – Review

by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Nick Bradshaw, Todd Nauck & Jason Masters (pencils), Justin Ponsor & Justin Keith (Colorists)

The Story: Peter and J’son Quill have a long overdue talk about the birds, the bees and interstellar domination.

The Review: The Brian Michael Bendis volume of Gaurdians of the Galaxy has been something of a slow burner since it launched, which as any avid fan of Bendis’ book knows should come as nothing of a surprise. Throughout the course of this series we’ve been witness to J’son’s machinations and in this issue we finally see him strike against his son and the rest of the Guardians.

In a series of scenes the Guardians are taken out either individually or in pairings by bounty hunters, the Badoon and Shiar. The range of adversaries to the team seem to indicate that there is a deeper game afoot which hopefully will add a deeper layer of mystery to this storyline. What slightly irks about this issue is how easily the members of the team get taken out, when you have two members who’s monikers are “The Destroyer” and “The Universe’s Deadliest Woman” you’d expect them to put up more of a fight.

Where this issue really does shine is in the interplay between Peter and his father, the writing is extremely crisp with both characters having a defined point of view and attitude. Both characters believe that they are right despite being diametrically opposed which makes for a great showing for Bendis’s flair for naturalistic dialogue. Peter easily flips from childish petulance to righteous anger whereas every word that escapes J’son’s lips seems calculated and suspect, it is a treat to read and where the writing excels.

Guardians of the Galaxy #8 – Review

by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Francesco Francavilla (Artist/Colorist)

The Story: S.W.O.R.D. is under attack! Thankfully, the curiously Earth-obsessed Guardians are there to save the day…or at least try to.

The Review: Brian Michael Bendis could be seen as a writer that really like to take his time, to let the situations and conflict build up just the right way in the stories he is telling. In his tenure on Daredevil, he had used his style to great advantage as he let one change affect the whole life of Matt Murdock in strange ways. In some of his books, his decompression and the way he treat dialogue is truly an advantage.

However, this style of his does not really work in some series or with certain genre of stories, with this issue of Guardians of the Galaxy being an example. While his take on dialogue, characterization and action can certainly work on other books, it makes this cosmic oriented series suffer a bit.

The first thing that is hurt by this is the pacing, with the issue being incredibly uneven at times. The first few pages of Gamora and Star-Lord bickering doesn’t seem to get to the point fast enough, lingering on with potentially interesting points that aren’t explored enough. When the action do start, it picks up in speed as it sometimes seem to slow down and then go faster as the dialogue and the non-descriptive action continues with Star-Lord, Rocket and Abigail Brand. It jumps around in terms of its plot progression and the importance of its elements, with character development and the action suffering as a result.

Guardians of the Galaxy #7 – Review

by Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Sara Pichelli, Valerio Schitti (Artists), Justin Ponsor (Colorist)

The Story: Angela gets interrogated by the Guardians as we learn more about her origins in the process.

The Review: There are times when certain theories of ours gets closer and closer to being real. What may sometimes start as some kind of inner joke turns out to be much closer to truth, to either our joy or our horror.

My actual theory, which is just that, mind you, is that Brian Michael Bendis got this title our of editorial mandate rather than by choice. With the movie releasing in less than a year, those characters needed a presence in their original format and as such a strong creative team needed to be presented, thus Bendis being given this title. It may sound harsh, yet this issue do provide a lot of material that adds to the previous issues being released to support this thought of mine.

Guardians of the Galaxy #6 – Review

Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Sara Pichelli, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales (Artists), Justin Ponsor, Ive Svorcina (Colorists)

The Story: Star-Lord continues his discussion with Thanos, as the rest of the team face-off against Angela.

The Review: As Bendis continues his huge tale featuring the X-Men from the past, present and future, it would be hard to remember the fact that he has another team book under his sleeve. With this book seeing a particularly harsh delay in its release (with the latest issue being released at the end of July), it kind of got lost in the shuffle of big events that is up with the bit two. However, with Angela supposed to be properly introduced in this arc, does Bendis manage to convince the readers that the wait was worth it?

Unfortunately, not so much as this issue simply doesn’t seem to know what it wants to achieve. There are interesting tidbits, to be sure, yet those moments don’t amount to much for both this simple issue and in the long run of this comic, or so it seems. While the discussion that Star-Lord and Thanos share is indubitably captivating, with Bendis actually writing the voice of Thanos in a much better way this time around, it amounts to build up toward Infinity, an event that has already seen its third issue being released. On its own merit, it does manage to play well into the current version of Thanos that is being pushed by Marvel.

Another character that seems to be thoroughly pushed by Marvel, albeit it is a somewhat-new yet not-so-much one, is Angela. While the action certainly do push certain qualities of the character to the forefront, it does not amount to much in terms of readers investment, as her characterization is almost non-existent. Despite a few lines here and there and being generally very angry, Angela just has no presence that justifies the big push she has been getting. Besides beating the tar out of the whole team in an overly log action scene, she gets one line of dialogue, which is exactly one word: ”Demon”. Not the best introduction to a character, especially not one that Neil Gaiman is consulting for.

Guardians of the Galaxy #3 – Review

By: Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Steve McNiven, Sara Pichelli, John Dell (Artists), Justin Ponsor (Colorist)

The Story: As J-Son, king of Spartax and father to Peter Quill, is acting like a royal jerk, the team has to be rescued from captivity.

The Review: I had my doubts about this series. Being a huge fan of the previous volume, I just didn’t know if Bendis could pull the big cosmic ideas that Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning threw in each and every issues. Worse yet, he had changed a couple of elements that I loved from the previous iteration in favour of adding some elements that were most probably due to editorial demands more than anything. It’s easier to sell the book if Tony Stark is in it after all, with the character being one of the breakout stars from the movie universe they had created. I had tons of reasons to be wary of such a move on a property I loved.

Now, I’d like to tell you that this issue blew me away, that my fears were silly and that Bendis has a brilliant future ahead on this title, but that would be partly true. I am mitigated after reading the conclusion to the first arc, as there are several elements that work and some that just don’t. It’s a mixed bag of quality with some pretty nice things and some that just felt wrong to me.

Guardians of the Galaxy #2 – Review

By: Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Steve McNiven & Sara Pichelli (Penciler), John Dell, Mark Morales, Steve McNiven & Sara Pichelli (Inkers), Justin Ponsor (Colorist), VC’s Cory Petit (Letterer)

The Review: Something about Guardians of the Galaxy still seems a little…off. It’s definitely an enjoyable read but Bendis doesn’t quite seem as at home with space opera as he does with the more earthbound drama of books like All New X-Men, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man or (and I know this is a bone of contention) Age of Ultron. A big hint lies in that this, his first story arc, is centred entirely around Earth and its position of Universal importance. 2008’s GOTG crew never set foot on Earth once and was no poorer for it. The much maligned Green Lantern movie could barely slip the surly bonds of Earth and look how that turned out. When you’ve got an  entire universe at your disposal – a limitless expanse of planets and alien cultures for your cast to explore – ditching your characters on Terran soil at the first opportunity ends up feeling a little uninspired.

Guardians of the Galaxy #1 – Review

By: Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Steve McNiven, John Dell (Artists), Justin Ponsor (Colorist)

The Story: Peter Quill meets his father and has an argument with him. After, he meets Iron Man and fights some Badoon.

The Review: Take a good look at the ‘’Story’’ section up above. This may sound like a very brief summary of what happens in this issue, which this section usually serves for, but unfortunately this is pretty much spot on what happens here, without spoiling the ending.

Indeed, one of the major flaws of this first issue would be the decompressed nature of the story, as Bendis really takes its time with a lot of things. Decompression isn’t necessarily a bad thing in comics, as some storylines can be enhanced by a longer structure and some emphasis on reaction from the core cast of the book. However, decompression can also seems like a cheap attempt at making a story that could be told in two to three issues longer, to fill out a trade, something that we also call ‘’writing for the trade’’. Now, this would be much too soon to properly classify in which category GotG will fall in, but judging from this issue, it would seem that the latter would be the correct answer.

Annihilators #1 – Review

By: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Tan Eng Huat (pencils), Victor Olazaba (inks), June Chung (colors), Joe Caramanga (letters), John Denning (assistant editor) & Bill Rosemann (editor)

Rocket Raccoon/Groot by: Abnett & Lanning (writers), Timothy Green, II (art), Nathan Fairbairn (colors), Clayton Cowles (letters), Rachel Pinnelas & Denning (assistant editors) & Rosemann (editor)

The Story: Quasar, Ronan, Gladiator, Beta Ray Bill, Silver Surfer & a Spaceknight (yes…a Spaceknight) team up to keep the Universe safe.  And….we catch up with everyone’s favorite spunky sentient Raccoon.

What’s Good: The mere premise of this book is kinda “Avengers in space”.  And it isn’t some weak team of heroes either.  Abnett & Lanning (DnA) have basically gathered together the most powerful cosmic beings in the Marvel U. on the premise that the Guardians of the Galaxy were a good concept, but simply not powerful enough to stop the truly massive threats.

There is a lot of “team’s first meeting” in this issue, but the real highlight for me is that one member of the Annihilators is an honest-to-goodness Galadorian Spaceknight.  Alas, it is not our favorite silvery Spaceknight hero from the early 1980’s: ROM.  ROM is still stuck in the trademark penalty box between Marvel and Parker Brothers, but the story of the Spaceknights and their mortal enemies, the Dire Wraiths, is a good one and worth exploring in the Marvel U.  Granted, Marvel has never completely abandoned the Spaceknight concept (there was a miniseries ~2000), but it is always good to have them back.

It was also a fun to catch up with Rocket Raccoon in a truly zany tale that shows Rocky in his post-Guardians phase pushing a mail-cart through a prairie dog warren of cubicles for some faceless cosmic corporation.  Sigh…he hates his job, it’s boring, his boss is a prick and then he get’s attacked by a very strange killer clown which causes him to want to track down his old buddy, Groot.  Fun abounds.

This is also a beefy issue.  So, we’re getting 38 pages of comics for your $4.99.

The art is very solid throughout.  Huat’s designs and layouts interpret the story very effectively and I really like Olazaba’s inks.  He shows a real commitment to shading with very fine lines and it gives the comics a very throwback feel.  Green’s art in the Rocket Raccoon story is much more comical and that not only fits the silly nature of the story, but it is usually a good choice with Rocky.  It is really hard to draw a “realistic” bipedal raccoon and not have it look like a monkey.

Guardians of the Galaxy #25 – Review

By Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (artist), Andrew Hennessy (inker), Wil Quintana (colorist)

The Story: Thanos lives!!! And holy shit does he have an axe to grind…

The Good: Fellow critic Dean Stell and I were talking about this series the other day and we both agreed that one of the things that makes Guardians of the Galaxy (and really any of Marvel’s cosmic comics) such a fun read is how surprisingly accessible it is. Abnett and Lanning work hard to make every issue easy for new readers to jump into and rewarding for those of us that have been reading for awhile, and it never ceases to amaze me what a great job they do of walking that fine line month after month. It was also a great pleasure to see Walker back on the book. I never had a problem with Wes Craig’s art over the previous few issues, and am actually looking forward to seeing him come back to the book at some point, but I have to admit that Walker is the perfect artist for this comic.

Guardians of the Galaxy #21 – Review

By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (artist), Andrew Hennessy & Victor Olazaba (inkers), Wil Quintana (colorist)

The Story: Following the events of last month’s issue, the Luminals have foolishly brought back an alien life form with them from their unwarranted expedition into The Fault. The Guardians want to send the abomination back to where it came from, the Universal Church of Truth wants to worship it as a god, and the alien wants to hibernate in somebody. Needless to say, it’s a bad day to be a Guardian of the Galaxy.

The Good: I’ll tell you what, taking a chance on this comic has been one of the best decisions I’ve made all year. I’ve picked up six issues so far (excluding the first two graphic novels I picked up to fill in the back stories) and every single one of them has been an astounding blend of political intrigue, manipulations, action, and science fiction ingenuity. With each new issue released under the “Realm of Kings” banner, you new information is revealed that makes the nature of The Fault all the more terrifying. Without giving anything away, let me just say that as a mild-mannered reviewer living with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, this issue’s revelation put honest to God chills down my spine and made my skin crawl. And shit, if you want to talk about terrifying, let me take a moment to talk about that alien life form. Abnett and Lanning, to their credit, somehow found a way to take all the utter creepiness of the movie Alien and condense it onto the printed page. Moondragon’s encounters with the xenoform are vile and disgusting, bringing to mind images of when the alien burst out of Kane’s chest in the movie. Abnett and Lanning excel at getting across the repulsiveness of life on the other side of The Fault and what a genuine threat it poses to our universe, and if they can pull that off with one measly alien, I can’t wait to see what they have in store when the story kicks into high gear.

Guardians of the Galaxy #8 – Review

By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (Writers), Brad Walker (Pencils), Victor Olazaba (Inks), and Wil Quintana (Colors)

Some Thoughts Before The Review: I knew it was going to happen sooner than later, but I’m still a bit disappointed by the big War of Kings banner on top of the eighth issue of one of my favorites. You see, the Guardians are really the only cosmic characters I have any interest in (though I may check out the new Inhumans series based on the strength of the Secret Invasion story) and I have very little drive to play catch-up with the bigger picture of the space portion of the Marvel universe. Oh, well. I guess I’ll give the Secret Invasion: War of Kings one-shot coming out on Wednesday a read and use that (along with GotG #8) to evaluate whether it will be worth investing in the latest cosmic crossover.

The Story: Star-Lord goes to Hala to evaluate and investigate how the Kree have responded to the Skrull invasion. He ends up trading barbs and fists with Ronan the Accuser, a fight that leads to the predicament seen at the end of the last issue. Meanwhile, the “new” Guardians continue to battle the Badoon and Adam Warlock takes the fight to the Church of Universal Truth with the help of Gamora.

What’s Good: I have to hand it to Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning for really drawing me into the bigger events at play in a corner of the Marvel U. that I am less than familiar with. While I have no investment in (and little knowledge of) the Kree, Blastaar, or the aftermath of either Annihilation event, the efficient, witty dialogue quickly got me up to speed. No small feat considering we’re talking about years of continuity. Also good about Guardians of the Galaxy #8 is the quality artwork and enjoyable characters (but you probably already knew that).

What’s Not So Good: The only thing that took away from my overall enjoyment of the issue (besides some gaps in my knowledge of continuity) is the artwork. While it looks great for the most part, it also looks a bit different from what I am used to. The characters just don’t look as lively or vibrant as they do when drawn by Paul Pelletier and inked by Rick Magyar.

Conclusion: High marks all around for the first GotG tie-in for the War of Kings, especially considering how I initially approached the issue with quite a bit of hesitation. Now, in addition to looking forward to more of the usual Guardians goodness, I find myself more interested in the cosmic War than I had ever thought possible. Not sure if my wallet is particularly happy about that fact…

Grade: B

-Kyle Posluszny

Guardians of the Galaxy #7 – Review

By Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (Writers), Paul Pelletier (Pencils), Rick Magyar (Inks), and Will Quintana (Colors)

Some Thoughts Before The Review: In my opinion, Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the most consistently entertaining and visually impressive books Marvel puts out. It effortlessly blends action, comedy, and drama into one hell of a satisfying package. The question now is whether or not the series can maintain momentum since Secret Invasion pulled the team apart. My guess is that it can.

The Story: The issue opens with a glimpse into a devastating future as described by Starhawk, who is being held in captivity by Cosmo the dog for precautionary reasons. Apparently, humanity’s future is doomed unless Starhawk can manage to correct an error occurring during the present time. Meanwhile, Rocket Raccoon’s new team of Guardians answer a cry for help from a colony in need that seems to be facing problems strikingly similar to the ones Starhawk spoke of. Adam Warlock seeks to find out more information regarding the Church of Universal Truth with the help of Gamora. As for Drax and Quasar, they are out in search of answers regarding someone named Cammi. And Starlord? Well let’s just say that he’s got problems as well.

What’s Good: Despite all the characters in play in this issue, the creative team once again knocks one out of the park. While mostly set-up for the future, the storyline provides for some great character work and extremely good looking artwork. While I may not have fully grasped the implications regarding some of the plot beats, I found myself completely entertained, thanks to the colorful cast of characters. Simply put, Guardians of the Galaxy #7 is another great chapter in an awesome series that seems to get better all the time.

What’s Not So Good: My only major complaint with the issue is that I felt a bit lost regarding some of the plot beats. While I am sure Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning will catch me up with everything next month, some of the impact regarding the story was simply lost on me.

Conclusion: If you aren’t reading Guardians of the Galaxy, you should be. ‘Nuff said.

Grade: B+

Looking for a Response: Anyone want to catch me up on what I might have missed regarding some of the stuff in this issue?

-Kyle Posluszny