The biggest threat of them all has now arrived.
Creative Staff:
Story: Dan Abnett
Art: Nic Leon
What They Say:
Welcome to 21st Century Earth, Guardians. Meet…the Guardians of the Galaxy! The Guardians meet the Guardians- what could possibly go wrong? Guest starring Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax, Gamora, Star-Lord, and Star-Lord!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Guardians 3000 has been running through some fascinating and fun material for most of its run and while it’s been complicated at times to get on board with it all, it’s left me with a great sense of fun about it. Time paradoxes and the collapsing of time in on itself in the far future has made for some amusing twists along the way, and it provided for an intriguing new character with Geena Drake with what she supposedly represents. With so many old and established characters running around, someone new in the mix, even if she’s singular across the universes in a way that makes her an obvious plot device, leaves me feeling pretty welcome about it. Having her have a chat with Galactus before being sent back to the 21st century along with the rest of her team in different sections just left us with a whole lot of chaos.
And chaos is what dominates the first half of this book well in two different ways. The first is the fight that the A-Sentience is putting up with them as they Guardians team from the future are anomalies that need to be destroyed to protect the world, while the present day team is getting smacked down simply because they fight back. It’s a mess of action, which makes me wish Sandoval was drawing it because it would have been crazy fun, but it gets the point across well as we see everyone trying to cope with who they are, not realizing that they’ve changed along the way and not realizing who others are, such as Nikki being a part of the team that nobody knows. There’s a really unstable footing under all of this, but the two teams do what they do best, look at everything in a big picture point of view, and work towards a resolution. It plays well and moves us past the A-Sentience piece in a decent enough way so that it doesn’t feel like it’s going to sprawl elsewhere into the present.
With their discovery of how the A-Sentience is operating, it gives them an idea of what may really be going on in the present and it’s certainly a threat. With a good mix of characters here from across the decades of Marvel stories, bringing us back to the Korvac Saga in a sense is certainly intriguing. The idea of the A-Sentience locking in on him as the real threat, since he’s apparently back, sets the hair on end for almost everyone that understands what he’s capable of. And it’s talked about a good bit as well, which is nice to say, as there’s a decent tension as they go to investigate his grave and his former home. That they’re cautious works really well, though I love that Geena basically just goes right in, prepared, and to try and talk to him before things get really bad. Where it can go is pretty much anywhere at this point as everything is close to ending, but touching upon this well known character and story a little more is always welcome.
In Summary:
While I’m waiting to see what the fate of this property is after Secret Wars is done and over with, I’m really enjoying it for the now. Though it’s mostly just dealing with the fall out of time collapsing in the future, it’s brought the team to the past, made for some comical moments as they meet and it’s getting ready to play with one of the more well known villains within the overall Marvel Universe in its lengthy history. There’s a sense that events here are very important, but kept to the side rather than being mainlined, which is good. The cast has been fun to watch, though I’ll admit it doesn’t endear me much to the present day side of them, as the interactions are spot on and the humor is right for dealing with paradoxes and the like. Geena continues to be the key to everything, blank slate that she really is, but I love that she’s touching upon some great things throughout, from the Old Hunger and now to Korvac. Good stuff that plays on a big scale but still has solid character material to work through.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: April 8th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
