Guardians of the Galaxy #1
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1
Capsule Review
Brian Michael Bendis doesn’t miss a beat — the lineup has been scrambled, but his Guardians keep on swashbuckling and quipping their way through one space battle after another as if there’d never been a reboot. Nice characterization, as is always the case with Bendis. Artist Valerio Schitti stages dialogue nicely and handles facial expressions well, but I found colorist Richard Isanove’s palette limited and repetitive. Fun to see Star Lord every bit as unsuited to the job of being a king as you might expect, and even more fun to see The Thing having fun as a spaceman, fulfilling his life-long dream. (Now, if I only knew how the heck he’d gotten on the team!)
Approachability For New Readers
Poor. You’ll need an Associate of Arts degree in recent Bendis-era Guardians of the Galaxy history to know what is going on, but even then there will still be plenty of holes, like why is Kitty Pryde standing in for Star Lord, when did Drax get an intellect, and (biggest of all) how the heck did Ben Grimm join the Guardians? Whatever. Just go with it.
Read #2?
Oh yes.
Sales Rank
Read more about The Guardians of the Galaxy at Longbox Graveyard
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Posted on November 18, 2015, in Reviews and tagged All-New All-Different Marvel, Brian Michael Bendis, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Comics, Richard Isanove, Valerio Schiti. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
dangvozden
Paul O'Connor
Kris (not Chris)
markginocchio
miloapama
Dean Compton
Moya
ryanmcswain
Longbox Graveyard 
I’ve said here before that I largely credit Bendis and his Daredevil run for sucking me back into the comic game in the first place, but somewhere in his Avengers run, he just lost it. He goes overkill on the banter. Everyone is snippy, so they all have the same voice. (The patron saint of no quarter asked or given, Chris Claremont, also got into that tone deaf funk of sameness, so I can forgive Bendis of this.) And I may be wrong on this one, but I think he’s the guy obsessed with the retort, “You don’t get to ____!” It’s a turn of phrase I have yet to encounter one time in real life, but could easily get bombed on if I was playing a drinking game with a stack of BMB comics.
I’ve found his Guardians run to be a pale comparison to the Abnett/Lanning series from…my god, almost 10 years ago. There’s a lot of forced X-Men crossover and… and… and… well, there’s a lot of forced X-Men crossover.
And despite ALL these complaints, I still have a subscription to Guardians because I keep hoping it’ll get better.
Totally unrelated, Paul, you need to check out IDW’s Gutter Magic by Rich Douek when it comes out in January. I got my hands on an advance copy and WOW. Magic + crime + dystopian reality. It’s fresh.
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I’ve been reading a lot of Bendis lately — the Guardians and his recent X-Men run, plus I’m nearly finished with his Avengers books. I’ve remarked before that Bendis is the king of the long, digital re-read, where the cover price is all-you-can eat and you really don’t give a darn if nothing happens for a half-dozen books or more. I wasn’t crazy about (most of) his X-Men, but his Guardians series was breezy fun (not that I can remember a word of it), and I am still enjoying his Avengers. Just good chemistry in that book. You wouldn’t think it, to look at the cast, but those parts fit together well, and the Bendis Avengers has proven the best place to read recent-era Luke Cage and Doctor Strange stories (and I like the way he handles Spider-Man and Wolverine, too). My love/hate relationship with Mr. Bendis continues to trend toward the former.
I agree with you that the Abnett/Lanning series was great, at least until it ran into the bugaboo of mandatory editorial crossovers. I should go back and re-read it, maybe even review it for the blog. It’s almost old enough!
(And totally unrelated — sight unseen, I had a copy of Gutter Magic tossed in my pre-order for January, entirely down to your recommendation. It better be good!)
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If you don’t like Gutter Magic, I will send you $4. For real.
I do agree, as someone who never got into Dr. Strange, that I enjoyed his appearances in Avengers. Cage got really old really fast for me.
That said, the MCU is essentially the BendisCU. The Avengers became A-list popular for the first time in ever under his watch. He launched Jessica Jones, wrote a definitive DD run, and brought Cage and Iron Fist back to prominence. Despite my meh attitude toward his recent stuff, 10-15 years ago, he laid the groundwork for the amazing world we live in today.
Okay, back to drawing Batman 1,000,000 times in my daughter’s sketch pad (at her command… “MOH BADDAN! MOH BADDAN!”).
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Is your daughter an editor at DC Comics? MOH BADDAN nicely sums up their publication strategy.
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