Guardians of The Galaxy has gotten pretty popular lately since the movie is coming out. Right when the movie was first being speculated and only mildly confirmed, they quickly started the comic series. It definitely had a lot of potential and Iron Man was also added for good measure. Would this be the next Xmen or Avengers? (I would mention Fantastic Four, but those guys just aren’t as popular anymore)

The plot of the comic is pretty straightforward. Starlord decides to assemble a group of heroes(?) to stop whatever his father is up too. He doesn’t know exactly what that is, but it can’t be good for the Earth. The King (AKA…His Father!) arrests them, but can you really arrest such powerful combatants for long? The Guardians must now stop a fleet of alien invaders from destroying Earth. Will they be able to succeed!?

The collection of comics is pretty short so the story isn’t that large yet. There are other plots that will occur soon like Thanos and the other Raccoons that have mysteriously appeared. Those will be dealt with in future issues, but this was more to do with seeing how the team could cope with their first big threat. They did pretty well and we’ll see what Starlord has in mind for them. There’s no big threat attacking yet so they can do whatever they want. I’m hoping that they decide to go and take the fight to the council! Unfortunately, they can’t count on the other teams since the Avengers, Xmen, and Fantastic Four basically disappeared when the aliens attacked. Communications were down and I guess that none of them noticed the alien invasion…..hmmmmm. It’s not something that you’ll want to think about for too long because it won’t really help the realism factor!

Star Lord is the main character of the comic and one could argue that he’s also the leader of the team. It would be a tough argument to pull off, but maybe you would be able too. As a kid, Star Lord is definitely not likable and while he did have his “Hero” moments, you just couldn’t root for him. He didn’t get much better when he grew up either. He had a Captain Kirk type of scene and he seems to be really similar to him in other aspects. He wants to stop his father’s big plans for conquest, but does he really have what it takes to win? It’s a good thing that he has some partners to help him!

Groot is another one of the main characters and he is known for saying “I Am Groot” more times than you may expect. It seems to be the only thing that he can say, or he could just be messing with everyone. Regardless, he’s just not really my type of character. He’s all right I suppose, but it’s just hard to root for him. Being a tree means that he’s incredibly vurlnable and that is dangerous. On a ship where aliens have laser guns, he realistically shouldn’t stand a chance at staying alive. Still, he did all right in his origin story and he Is a Hero. I’m not really a fan of him, but I’ll likely root for Groot when he’s in a fight.

Rocket Raccoon is definitely one of the best members of the group. He is the fan favorite and this time I can agree with the many that like him. Rocket Raccoon does get some pretty intense lines and he makes the most out of his laser blaster. He always likes to remind people that he “murdered em” once he’s taken them down with the laser. Usually he accompanies this with a “Blam”, “Blammy”, “Blammoo”, or something like that. He reminds Tony Stark that it isn’t the armor that makes the man and he definitely does a lot of damage to the enemies. That being said, he’s a character that the writers need to thread lightly with. He’s a character that can be wrecked very easily if the wrong writers come in. (Case in point…Ultimate Spiderman!) Still, this is one Raccoon that has definitely earned his spot on the team!

Drax The Destroyer is another one of the members and he’s easily one of the worst ones. I just miss the classic Drax from the 90’s. He had a cool design/cape and he had a variety of energy attacks to go with his incredible super strength. He was also a much more likable character. Nowadays, he’s basically a gladiator with mild super strength who uses a blade to take down his foes. He just isn’t as cool as he used to be. The old Drax didn’t need weapons and he wouldn’t be defeated so easily. They hint that there is a reason why Drax is so weak in the comics, but since they haven’t explored it yet…I can’t cut Drax any slack. Perhaps he will get better in the next few comics.

Gamora is another member of the team and she has direct ties to Thanos. Thanos trained her to be the best and now she uses her talents to defeat any villain that stands in her way. Her title is “The Deadliest Woman in the World”, but there are too many powerful ones for us to really consider that. (Ms Marvel, Rogue, etc) She is decently strong and she’s great at close combat, but she lacks the overall super abilities to be included in that category. Her strength seems to be around on par with Drax’s, but nowhere near any of the powerhouses of Marvel. That being said, she has great agility and quickness, which give her an edge over the other members of the team. She had a pretty good fight in her origin story and she took out a lot of minions. She can definitely fight well, but we can’t gauge just how strong she is until a true opponent appears. For now, she is strong enough to beat the other members of the team…and that’ll have to be enough.

Iron Man is another member of the team and he joined because…he’s Iron Man! He’s wearing a new armor in this series and I can’t say that I really like it. It’s his space armor and it looks downright evil. Now, it’s not a bad design…that being said, I prefer most of his classic ones. They just looked a lot more impressive. Speaking of impressive, Iron Man’s suit doesn’t look that strong. He’s the only one to be taken out during the first fight with the Badoon. Unfortunately, they take away his armor so we don’t get to see it in action anymore. It’s actually a decently clever way to get it out of the picture.

See, if Iron Man’s armor is at least as strong as his older ones, then he’s instantly the strongest member of the team. That could be dicey because then the villains may not really be threats and that could hurt the pacing of the series. If he can speedblitz every opponent or just finish them off with a Uni Beam, then where’s the danger? Of course, I hope that they don’t do that every time a big threat occurs, because that would get old very fast. Tony Stark himself looks all right and he talks a good game, but I expect more out of him. He’s one of the original heroes so he should take this all in stride. He also takes a shot at Captain Britain which was sad for the poor hero. He was pretty good when he teamed up with Spiderman and I think that Ironman may be underestimating him!

The art for the comics is pretty good and it shows how far we’ve come in the modern days. It’s a lot easier to write comics than it used to be, but it should still be noted when the art is really good. Ignoring the origin stories, the art is very good and can hold up to anything else that we have to offer. It’s nice and streamlined and it makes everything look nice and flashy. It’s what you would expect from one of Marvel’s big series!

The comics have a fun atmosphere and it’s mostly due to Bendis’ style of writing. For better or for worse, all of his comics will have a lighthearted feel to them. You never really feel like the heroes are in danger in these comics, but that’s not really a bad thing. Ultimately, we know that the heroes will pull through so it’s okay to skip the danger part. As long as we still get a lot of action and epicness, then it’s okay. That being said, it can still be a little tough to see them talking so bravely and posturing as if they had just won a battle when they had actually lost. They seem a little too confident in themselves considering all of the close calls that they’ve had. It would be like constantly bluffing through Poker…when you never really win!

There is a council of important cosmic people who discuss important things, which was pretty fun. Frigga looked really good and she let them know what the score was. “Attacking Earth will be seen as a declaration of war against Asgard” is a pretty nice way to tell everyone that it is under their protection. Of course, the Badoon (Well, the other half of the Badoon) ignore this. I hope that Asgard retaliates and Thor will be more than happy to avenge Earth. The other cosmic beings all have their own veiled threats and plans around so we’ll see what they do as well. Of course, Infinity will probably sidetrack those plans for a while.

Overall, this was a fun start to the Guardians of the Galaxy series. I’m not sure if I like the fact that they are called Future Avengers since they are in the present and they should not be associated with The Avengers. Still, the team has always been intriguing and they were pretty solid in Avengers EMH. It’ll be fun to see where the series goes from here and hopefully Drax and Gamora get to look a little more impressive in the next issues. Gamora did pretty well in a fight, but it was mostly with skill as opposed to overall ability. I also wouldn’t mind if someone kicked Starlord off the team, we don’t need two humans in this group do we? I recommend this to comic fans and to people who like to read an adventure featuring action, aliens, and space!

Overall 7/10