Say
what you will about the comics from the 1990s (and there is a lot that can be
said about them) but when it comes to story and the ability to just leave
trails of breadcrumbs through previous issues until the payoff down the road,
very rarely did anyone do it better than Jim Valentino. Chris Claremont was the master at this during
his run on X-Men, but Valentino did
an incredible job not only building up to the meeting of Firelord in issue
four, but to the full-on knock down drag out fight with the likes of Force in
this issue. We had been teased about
this group of individuals in earlier issues; a couple panels or pages here and
there, just enough so that we knew where they stood in relation to the
Guardians and what their mission was (they were looking for Captain America’s
shield as well). Instead of needing to
wrap up the story within a specific arc (and believe me, that whole thing with
the Stark in the first four issues would have been dragged out to at least
twice that length today) Valentino drops in clues for us so that as soon as we
are done with the Stark we can move right on to the next challenge without
wasting a whole issue on setup. Not only
do we already know the characters, but during the course of the script, as the
story is moving along mind you, Valentino reintroduces the characters to
us. As cheesy and “90s” as some of the
art can be at times, the writing here is really top shelf stuff in terms of
basic execution. It’s not flashy and
really harkens back to the days of Stan Lee and the earlier stages of Marvel
comics.
What
about this issue though? Does it pass
the smell test and stand up with the previous four issues? The short answer is yes, it really does, but
let’s go into why, as well as our recap of the events of the true (non Vin
Diesel Guardians).
The
Guardians, having found the last clue to the shield’s whereabouts thanks to
Firelord (who just happened to have that information available when he met up
with them last issue) have been traveling for a month on their spaceship. They finally arrive at the planet where the
shield is located and disembark. The
planet, or at least the facility that they are now in, starts to talk to them,
which is actually yet another convenient way for Valentino to introduce the
characters as they enter the facility. No
sooner can the Guardians get inside than they are told that there will be a
contest between their team and the other team that was searching for Captain
America’s shield. This seems like a
relatively contrived plot device, but okay.
They agree to it, obviously, because they can’t obtain the shield
without jumping through the hoops set forth for them. However, before they know what is going on,
Martinex and Charlie-27 disappear, teleported somewhere by the voyeuristic
computer.
It just
so happens that they are teleported to a different area of the facility, and
this is how things are going to go down.
It will apparently be two on two combat to see who gets the shield. Martinex and Charlie-27 will do battle with Brahl
and Broadside of Force. All Broadside
wants to do in this instance is hit on Charlie, and he apparently isn’t too
keen on her gigantic forehead (either that or he’s trying to stay loyal to
Nikki who threw him aside last episode when the flaming Fabio that is Firelord
came to town) because he not only shoots her down, but actually slaps her as
well. Brahl can turn intangible, so
Martinex is pretty screwed from the get-go, and that is shown by the fact that
he keeps losing shards of his “skin” at an alarming rate. Valentino does a good job of showing all of
this happening at once, between the downfall of Martinex and Charlie-27 getting
his ass kicked (he is punched by Broadside and flies literally a mile and a
half through walls and rooms before he comes to a rest – which naturally means
that this building is over a mile and a half long). As quickly as they were teleported in to the
fray though, they are teleported back out to a holding room, where Charlie
shows his concern for Martinex through the use of a jagged panel border. 
We now
move on to part two, which pits Yondu and Nikki against Photon and
Scanner. Photon is the only other member
of Yondu’s race known to still be alive, and Yondu, instead of fighting, wants
to bang her to “save their race”. Yeah,
because she hasn’t heard that from every blue-skinned alien she’s ever
met. Because of Yondu’s hesitancy to
possibly doom his race to extinction (an extinction that he seemed to have made
his peace with before) he, justifiably, gets his ass kicked by Photon. This whole time he is crying and expounding
the emoest of quotes about already being dead inside…and then he
disappears. Nikki has her hands full
with Scanner, the lizard man with the crazy legs. Nikki’s whole society was destroyed by the
Badoon, a race of lizard-like aliens, so she is not too keen on seeing Scanner,
someone that while he doesn’t look like a Badoon per se, is definitely very
lizard-like in his own way. Nikki gets
the drop on him and while he is unconscious she grabs a stick to use as a spear
to skewer him. Just as she is about to
do it she disappears…and reappears over the fallen Yondu, nearly stabbing him
in the process. She collects herself
just in time to see Charlie-27 holding up the (supposedly) dead body of
Martinex.
Is Martinex
really dead? What about the other
members of the Guardians (and Force, for that matter)? Who will get the famed Captain America shield
for their collection of comic book memorabilia?
Will Yondu don all black and turn his Mohawk-sail thing into long black
bangs to complete the emo transformation?
Tune in next time to find out.
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