Guardians of the Galaxy #24
The world’s best editor shot me a line this weekend, asking me to write up the latest installment of Guardians of the Galaxy. A glutton for punishment, I agreed, not seeing the downside. The Symbiote story was pretty lackluster, but that was in the past and Sam Humphries’ Black Vortex: Alpha was a decent story. It was solid enough that it could easily set up Brian Michael Bendis’ return to quality storytelling with our favorite rag tag group of cosmic ne’er-do-wells. Turns out I wasn’t entirely correct, but I wasn’t entirely wrong either.
BMB brings us Chapter 2 of a whopping 13 part story, designed to end just prior to the launch of Secret Wars, so they don’t have to come up with multiple stories to fill in the dead time. I don’t want these words to come across as anti-BMB. He’s one of my favorite writers out there. His work on Ultimate Spider-Man (both Parker and Morales) has been pitch-perfect. He has a niche where he excels. Cosmic storytelling is not that niche. He managed alright with the introductory stories, but the one-two punch of Original Sin and the Symbiote planet has left his credibility in a questionable state. His installment of Black Vortex isn’t helping his case. This isn’t a personal-level story, no matter how much he tries to shoehorn the dialogue into that setting. The bickering and accusations do not fit well here, and why are the X-Men even involved? I don’t even want to get into the Ebony Maw and Thane. J-Son is the sole interesting character, the deposed ruler turned outlaw, but he isn’t given much time to shine. Decisions are made here with little logic or motivation. Even the characterization seems to be off. I’ve given the Guardians of the Galaxy main title a lot of room because of my love for the characters. This issue borders on being a drawn out mess, instead of being simply drawn out.
The saving grace is the quality art outing from Valerio Schiti and Jason Keith. Everything is fun to look at, and the colors pop. All too often cosmic stories fall victim to muted pallettes and drab exteriors. I’m really enjoying their approach to this. Well, with the exception of the 90’s-ized versions of characters we get when they look into the Black Vortex. Those are just. I can’t.
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Matthew can be found on Twitter as @mahargen, where he is enjoying a scotch while he wistfully remembers the days of Abnett and Lanning’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The throwback with Mantis and Cosmo on the cover of this issue was pretty great, though.
BMB brings us Chapter 2 of a whopping 13 part story, designed to end just prior to the launch of Secret Wars, so they don’t have to come up with multiple stories to fill in the dead time. I don’t want these words to come across as anti-BMB. He’s one of my favorite writers out there. His work on Ultimate Spider-Man (both Parker and Morales) has been pitch-perfect. He has a niche where he excels. Cosmic storytelling is not that niche. He managed alright with the introductory stories, but the one-two punch of Original Sin and the Symbiote planet has left his credibility in a questionable state. His installment of Black Vortex isn’t helping his case. This isn’t a personal-level story, no matter how much he tries to shoehorn the dialogue into that setting. The bickering and accusations do not fit well here, and why are the X-Men even involved? I don’t even want to get into the Ebony Maw and Thane. J-Son is the sole interesting character, the deposed ruler turned outlaw, but he isn’t given much time to shine. Decisions are made here with little logic or motivation. Even the characterization seems to be off. I’ve given the Guardians of the Galaxy main title a lot of room because of my love for the characters. This issue borders on being a drawn out mess, instead of being simply drawn out.
The saving grace is the quality art outing from Valerio Schiti and Jason Keith. Everything is fun to look at, and the colors pop. All too often cosmic stories fall victim to muted pallettes and drab exteriors. I’m really enjoying their approach to this. Well, with the exception of the 90’s-ized versions of characters we get when they look into the Black Vortex. Those are just. I can’t.
----------------------------------
Matthew can be found on Twitter as @mahargen, where he is enjoying a scotch while he wistfully remembers the days of Abnett and Lanning’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The throwback with Mantis and Cosmo on the cover of this issue was pretty great, though.
A Look Inside
