Guardians of the Galaxy

[Anubis]

Or he's just crazy as a bag of Spanners.

 

[SouLeSS]

I was cracking up throughout this issue for some reason, DnA seem to know how to put little subtle things in. Rocket Raccoons explanation of what was going on followed by his debriefing saying he understands Jack Flag had me going pretty good.

 

[sandwraith]

Only DnA can make an Earth-based hero like Jack Flag feel cool in a cosmic title. Yost and Kyle tried it with Havok. Didn't work.

Look at what they did with Vulcan, I loved the guy's dialogue from the first ish of WoK, especially his little exchange with Admiral Kaar'dum over the Second Battle Fleet.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, DnA made Vulcan a villain I love to hate when, before, I just hated him. A lot.

 

[sandwraith]

Funny how the wires got crossed in the last ish of WoK when Vulcan accuses Black Bolt of being just as evil as him. I actually agreed. It was a rather ****** move on Bolt's part.

Also, the Imperial Guard Smasher should be a recurring in-joke. Really, that guy cracks me up.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I completely agreed. I was like, "Tell him, Vulcan! Then kick his ass!" I was never so happy to see two characters explode as I was in that issue.

 

[SouLeSS]

Funny how the wires got crossed in the last ish of WoK when Vulcan accuses Black Bolt of being just as evil as him. I actually agreed. It was a rather ****** move on Bolt's part.

This was my problem with War of Kings. It was basically just two ***** fighting each other because they can, and the end result will end up destroying the universe.

Annihilation was like...Oh **** some super D list character pops out of no where with a huge ****ing army and is destroying entire 'parscets' of space at a time with no real danger, this badass space bug is going to conquer the entire reality and be king of both that space and the N-Zone.

Conquest was machines taking over everything, which was actually kind of cool how it turned into a sort of 'street level' event towards the end.

War of Kings was just fighting for fightings sake where the whole time they were just trying to prevent the fight from happening as opposed to killing the badguy trying to take over everything. Or thats how I saw it. I dunno.

 

[sandwraith]

This was my problem with War of Kings. It was basically just two ***** fighting each other because they can, and the end result will end up destroying the universe.

Annihilation was like...Oh **** some super D list character pops out of no where with a huge ****ing army and is destroying entire 'parscets' of space at a time with no real danger, this badass space bug is going to conquer the entire reality and be king of both that space and the N-Zone.

Conquest was machines taking over everything, which was actually kind of cool how it turned into a sort of 'street level' event towards the end.

War of Kings was just fighting for fightings sake where the whole time they were just trying to prevent the fight from happening as opposed to killing the badguy trying to take over everything. Or thats how I saw it. I dunno.

Would be stunned at how much of our world's military history is built up on that very fact.

 

[sandwraith]

I completely agreed. I was like, "Tell him, Vulcan! Then kick his ass!" I was never so happy to see two characters explode as I was in that issue.

I loved when Bolt lets loose his Master Blow and you can see Vulcan's "reflection" in the sound effect. Pelletier rocks.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

'parscets'

"Parsec." It's a measure of distance--a little more than 3 light years, if I recall my one astronomy class correctly.

Anyway, I liked War of Kings. It started with Vulcan being a crazy son of a b**** with too much ambition and not enough sense; he picked a fight with the Kree, who'd just been taken over by the Inhumans, and the Inhumans couldn't afford to show weakness at such an early stage of their takeover, so it snowballed from there. Politics in action, my friend. I love that sort of stuff in fiction.

 

[Red Mask]

"Parsec." It's a measure of distance--a little more than 3 light years, if I recall my one astronomy class correctly.

"You're on Dantooine? You took your drink all the way to Dantooine before you drank it? That's 45 parsecs away, of course it was watered down!" ~ Trooper Clerks

 

[Dread]

Vulcan was an effective villain. The point at the end of WAR OF KINGS was to show the Inhumans, or at least all of them but Crystal, being more than willing to be just as ruthless and destructive as Vulcan to end the war, perhaps even more so because at least Vulcan can blame his issues on a horrific childhood. The Inhumans came very close to being bigger jerks than the Shi'ar usually are.

Repost of my review of the last GOTG issue, with spoilers:

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #17: You know a cast is large when about half of them are missing and you hardly even notice. It reminds me of X-Men books in the mid to late 90's, only this is done much better. To be fair, that is usually how Abnett & Lanning have handled the book; slice up issues between several characters rather than try and fail to write 14 at once. It's often successful, and in this issue the aftermath of WAR OF KINGS starts and comes to a head.

Spoiler

The fight between Bolt and Vulcan created The Fault, a tear in space & time that is huge and threatens the entire cosmos. Starhawk teleported half the team to the far future and they haven't returned. This leaves the other half (Phyla, Warlock, Rocket, Groot, Drax, Moondragon, and Major Victory) to handle the situation. They're also still with some of the Inhumans, who are hardly in a patient mood, having just all but watched Black Bolt sacrifice himself to end the war. Crystal is still the most level headed of the Inhumans, though, with Medusa being as haughty as ever; no wonder she worked with Wizard so long. Satisfied that the Inhumans don't have another T-Bomb, they ally with them to try to close the Fault, especially when a giant monster starts to emerge.

"DnA" try to salvage their old, "I am Groot!" joke by claiming Maximus the Mad can understand Groot via tone and whatnot and it is actually all strategy, akin to Luke and Han knowing what Chewbacca or R2-D2 are saying with all those growls and blips. Of course he could also be insane. Or both. It sort of works. Too late to stop The Fault from being made, the GOTG seek to prevent it from expanding. Warlock arrives with the Universal Church of Truth that worships him and uses their belief as ore for a magical spell that destroys the monter and prevents the Fault from expanding, by attaching it to a set alternate future (rather than all of them in flux). The problem is it is the future in which Warlock becomes Magus and goes psycho. This is further complicated by Phyla turned on Adam as per her pact with Oblivion that saved Moondragon, and she is seemingly slain by Gamora. Yeah, Magus snaps Gamora's neck, but she regenerated from nearly being fried by a sun in earlier issues; she'll be back. Magus, of course, is another cosmic villain from the 90's (INFINITY WAR I believe) so his return is rather big. Considering Gamora and Warlock were old time adventurers, their conflict was quite potent, and brief.

As always, though, the main pull of this book is almost not even the story, which is often good, but the dialogue. Every character is distinct and the lines are crisp and entertaining. It doesn't over think or underestimate it's audience, a rare balance. Brad Walker's art is solid although two inkers may denote a bit of rush, which isn't a problem. It's always a great read, this month more than others, although not many others. I do miss Jack Flag, though.

 

[SouLeSS]

Infinity War eh?

I don't know a thing about him, so if anyone could toss me a list of issues or events I should read, that would be wonderful.

 

[RockSP]

Magus dates back to the 70s Warlock series by Starlin.

 

[Dread]

Yeah, but he also showed up in the 90's as well.

 

[Anubis]

And again during PAD's Captain Marvel run I believe.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Yeah, he did show up there.

 

[Blader5489]

Just read the latest issue. The Phyla attacking Adam and fighting Gamora was completely random and stupid, but at least it ended nicely. I'd like to believe Phyla is dead, but DnA seem reticent to leave anyone dead for long.

 

[Dread]

Spoiler

Phyla claimed that she made a deal with Oblivion that in exchange for her returning Moondragon to life, he would kill Adam Warlock for him. Seemed like a typical "deal with the devil" sort of thing. Moondragon was Phyla's lover after all. Unlike Moondragon or Gamora, Phyla had hardly adventured with Warlock long. They were paired up during ANNIHILATION CONQUEST for a bit, but apparently reviving a lover overrules double-teaming Ultron.

The question is with Adam Warlock "killed", all that may be left is Magus.

 

[fifthfiend]

Popping in to say I just caught up on 5 months of this book and goddamn. I think when I dropped off reading my average view of it was like "pretty good but not quite as good as Nova" but at this point the sheer scale of crazy **** that goes down in a given issue of this comic is head and shoulders above anything else Marvel is doing. At this point I actually kind of appreciate the post-action debriefs since it saves me spending every issue going "omgomgOMGEVERYBODY'SGONNADIE".

The whole 'manmade rift in spacetime on the other side of which lurk unspecified EVIL THINGS' tastes a little like someone got their Warhammer 40k in my Marvel and I gotta say it doesn't taste half bad.

 

[RockSP]

The Phyla attacking Adam and fighting Gamora was completely random and stupid,

Have you been reading the series regularly?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Heh, yeah, Phyla attacking an inanimate object for looking at her funny wouldn't be completely random at this point.

The whole 'manmade rift in spacetime on the other side of which lurk unspecified EVIL THINGS' tastes a little like someone got their Warhammer 40k in my Marvel and I gotta say it doesn't taste half bad.

Is that a big thing in Warhammer? It just seemed like good ol'-fashioned space opera craziness to me. I love it. DnA (and Giffen in Annihilation) are really giving the landscape of the Marvel cosmos its own personality and sense of character, where it's not so much an empty void as the Wild West exploded to truly epic scope. It's fun.

 

[fifthfiend]

Yeah it backstops a big chunk of the 40k mythos. Basically humanity is so evil and destructive and bloodthirsty that its evil destructive bloodthirstyness collects outside of our dimension and gradually forms into psychotic evil gods that tear open a hole between our reality and theirs so they can feast on our sins. It's probably not the first setting to ever use "sentient races' violent ways tearing open a giant-sized semipermanent space hole", it just rang familiar, probably just on account of Abnett used to write Warhammer books.

In whichever case it's also fantastic space-opera craziness and I'm definitely not complaining.

 

[stingerman]

Infinity War eh?

I don't know a thing about him, so if anyone could toss me a list of issues or events I should read, that would be wonderful.

Here are two articles we did on Adam Warlock - Magus to help catch people up to speed:

http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/articles/csawm

http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/articles/csawm_2

Regarding GoTG #17, I am wondering if Adam has been the Magus all along as previously anytime he would use a lot of his power, he would become the Magus. Maybe the Magus could not keep up the spell to look like Adam? Should be good and I am hearing next issue is going to be just as well!

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I'm really curious about that cocoon the Universal Church of Truth has.