It is so exciting that “Guardians of the Galaxy” is back. It’s been almost ten years. Sure, in that time we’ve had two hit movies, a best-selling Bendis series, an ambitious run by Gerry Duggan, oodles of spin-offs, a high-profile scandal involving the director of those two hit movies, and a Guardians led crossover event. You’d think with all of that, the “Guardians” franchise would have something for everyone. But no it’s only with this new series, written by Donny Cates, with art by Geoff Shaw and Marte Gracia that the Guardians are starting to get their groove back. So why is this run supernova-hot? Strap in, and I’ll tell you.
Written by Donny CatesCover by David Marquez
Illustrated by Geoff Shaw
Colored by Marte Gracia
Lettered by VC’s Cory Petit
Thanos is dead… Long live the NEW Thanos! But who will it be?! Will the new Guardians of the Galaxy find that person in time before the universe comes crashing down?
The “Guardians of the Galaxy” run that came out roughly between 2006 and 2010 was a revelation. It took obscure weirdos like Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Vance Astro, and put them at the center of an epic space opera. When the movie hit in 2014, it borrowed liberally from that series in terms of tone and scope and many of the characters. So when the comics relaunched off the success of the movie, they tried to capture the success of the movie. What resulted was a sort of a copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy situation. From 2013 to late last year, the Guardians went though the same few conflicts over and over. They fought Thanos. They looked for the Infinity Gems. They dealt with Star-Lord’s dad. Planets got exploded, then retconned back into existence.
The first and most obvious thing that Cates, Shaw, and Gracia do is shake-up the team lineup for the first time in years. Instead of the five Guardians from the movie being a ragtag found family, the cast really is a wide-ranging ragtag group of misfits. The unfamiliar character dynamics make the book a much more interesting read. Edgy teen Groot doesn’t get along with future Frank Castle, the Cosmic Ghost Rider. Beta Ray Bill wants the team to act with honor and integrity. Instead of a retread of the movie’s greatest hits (Drax is literal and dumb! Star-Lord sleeps around!), Cates’ Guardians find a new team dynamic. It’s similar- it’s a team of misfit superheroes- but it’s not trying to feel familiar.
Then, within the issue, it shakes up the formula. It’s not really clear who’s “on” the Guardians of the Galaxy right now. And that’s okay. No, it’s great! Instead of being a team that’s gonna do a mission, the book has a sprawling cast who all have their own motivations. It really feels like a space opera. Star Wars movies jump from perspective to perspective, never spending more than a minute or two on a scene. “Guardians” is happy to jump from Star-Lord to the bad guys to the Shi’ar flagship for a few panels; the story goes where the action is. As such, it might feel overwhelming with characters, but the characters are broad enough that it’s easy to follow the plot. It makes the galaxy feel epic and lived in.
The sprawling cast of characters in an artist’s dream. Or maybe a nightmare. So many characters! And they run the range of every possibility. And they are all so busy. Not in a Jim Lee too-many-extra-lines way. To draw this book, Shaw needs to be able to draw regular looking people, a spiky tree boy, a horse-faced-skull thing, a regular flaming space skull man, and many many other creatures. These aren’t just incidental characters in the background either, the whole cast is like that!
It almost leaves no time for Shaw to hash out some quieter moments, but he does his damndest with those too. An ongoing thread in the story is Star-Lord’s depression. This manifests in a couple of places, but he’s never short of cruel to his friends. He drunk dials his ex, makes her worried. He checks in on his old friends Phylla and Moondragon (so glad to have them back!) and makes them worried too. Their combination of annoyance and worry is apparent, but has the same teeth-clenching drama the loud superhero fights do. It’s a good tone, heightened and soapy. But it feels a bit at odds with Cates’ script. Some of the emotional beats are supposed to be subtle and relatable. Shaw wants everything to be big. That would be good for another book (“X-Men” comes to mind), but seems creatively incongruous here.
Still, “Guardians of the Galaxy” #2 is so thrilling, a few overwrought pages are more than worth the price of admission. It’s a true back to basics approach, not just superficially, but in deep tonal and thematic ways. By getting back to what made the fundamental dynamics of that 2006 book so appealing, Cates has created something fresh that celebrates the true spirit of the series.
Final Verdict: 8.8 – No series since has been truer to the Guardians of the Galaxy since the legendary 2008 run.
