Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex Alpha #1
Writer: Sam Humphries
Artists: Ed Mcguinness, Kris Anka
Sam Humphries’ Legendary Star-Lord has been a goofy joy since its beginning. It’s everything that a Star-Lord comic should be but that’s why I was always skeptical about this event. Humphries did such a great job of writing a small-scale, character-driven comic but I couldn’t imagine the quality translating directly into an epic crossover of 10+ issues. What made his book special wasn’t the plot, it was his portrayal of Peter Quill, plain and simple. And what happens when you take away that portrayal’s focus? You get an only okay primer to an event that doesn’t have much of a hook or reason to go beyond 5 issues. Unfortunately, Black Vortex: Alpha is an underwhelming primer for an event that I most likely won’t be picking up.
If anything can be said about this issue is that it feels like wasted potential. Humphries is forced to recap the current status’ of each team but doesn’t get the time to set-up a really intriguing plot or reason for the two teams to congregate. There are fun scenes that showcase the Guardians playing D&D (awesome right?) and the two teams ignoring Peter Quill’s speech endeavours but nothing really holds these little nuggets of fun together. There are too many pages that squander any opportunity of establishing a solid foundation for the story that will ensue in the 2 coming months. Too bad, because Humphries is a perfect fit for portraying the Guardians’ weird personalities and dynamic.
Ed Mcguinness and Kris Anka split art duties for this issue and both artist do a solid job. Mcguinness is a perfect fit for the Guardians, with his cartoony style and incredible aptitude for drawing awesome action scenes. Unfortunately though, said aptitude is wasted on a fight scene that is literally a splash page of a bunch of heads. Did they really need to waste pages on dull recap instead of a Mcguinness pencilled action scene? As for Anka, his pencils are solid and his style meshed with his co-artist relatively well. For my eyes, the transitions felt smooth and I barely noticed them.
I read this comic twice. First time was around 11h30 P.M. last night and I actually ended up enjoying it quite a bit. But my brain was completely turned off. I read it again this morning and the critic in me seemed to be a bit more intact and I didn’t enjoy it all that much. So, if you want to get a book that can be enjoyable if you don’t put much thought into it, I would recommend Black Vortex. Sam Humphries does a great job of writing funny banter and goofy characters but aside from that, this book unfortunately lacks substance.
Artists: Ed Mcguinness, Kris Anka
Sam Humphries’ Legendary Star-Lord has been a goofy joy since its beginning. It’s everything that a Star-Lord comic should be but that’s why I was always skeptical about this event. Humphries did such a great job of writing a small-scale, character-driven comic but I couldn’t imagine the quality translating directly into an epic crossover of 10+ issues. What made his book special wasn’t the plot, it was his portrayal of Peter Quill, plain and simple. And what happens when you take away that portrayal’s focus? You get an only okay primer to an event that doesn’t have much of a hook or reason to go beyond 5 issues. Unfortunately, Black Vortex: Alpha is an underwhelming primer for an event that I most likely won’t be picking up.
If anything can be said about this issue is that it feels like wasted potential. Humphries is forced to recap the current status’ of each team but doesn’t get the time to set-up a really intriguing plot or reason for the two teams to congregate. There are fun scenes that showcase the Guardians playing D&D (awesome right?) and the two teams ignoring Peter Quill’s speech endeavours but nothing really holds these little nuggets of fun together. There are too many pages that squander any opportunity of establishing a solid foundation for the story that will ensue in the 2 coming months. Too bad, because Humphries is a perfect fit for portraying the Guardians’ weird personalities and dynamic.
Ed Mcguinness and Kris Anka split art duties for this issue and both artist do a solid job. Mcguinness is a perfect fit for the Guardians, with his cartoony style and incredible aptitude for drawing awesome action scenes. Unfortunately though, said aptitude is wasted on a fight scene that is literally a splash page of a bunch of heads. Did they really need to waste pages on dull recap instead of a Mcguinness pencilled action scene? As for Anka, his pencils are solid and his style meshed with his co-artist relatively well. For my eyes, the transitions felt smooth and I barely noticed them.
I read this comic twice. First time was around 11h30 P.M. last night and I actually ended up enjoying it quite a bit. But my brain was completely turned off. I read it again this morning and the critic in me seemed to be a bit more intact and I didn’t enjoy it all that much. So, if you want to get a book that can be enjoyable if you don’t put much thought into it, I would recommend Black Vortex. Sam Humphries does a great job of writing funny banter and goofy characters but aside from that, this book unfortunately lacks substance.
A Look Inside
