It’s
been twenty-two issues (one of which was double sized) plus a sixty-four page
annual since Jim Valentino took a break.
He has been a trooper and the fact that there is another annual and an
anniversary issue around the corner proved to be a little too much for him this
time around. Lucky for us he called in
one of the preeminent illustrators of 80s and 90s comics in Mark Texeira (not
the Yankees' first baseman). While the artistic
style is quite a departure from Valentino and Montano, it is nonetheless
captivating to see. Texeira does not
dabble too much in backgrounds, and the fact that his character work is so
superb makes this not a big deal at all.
His work is equal parts more and less realistic than Valentinos and as a
little change of place it works incredibly well, and honestly might be one of
my favorite issues of the entire series.
We open
with Starhawk’s betrayal, something that was teased at the end of last issue,
but honestly I was a little skeptical of it actually happening. It does in the form of an energy burst shot
amongst Starhawk’s former teammates, forcing them to disperse. This causes an ideological division among the
ranks as well because Charlie just wants to blast the shit out of Starhawk with
his array of giant guns while Vance, knowing that his lady love Aleta is in
there somewhere, just wants everyone to get along until they can find a way to
extract Aleta. While the visual of
Charlie and Vance arguing about this is great, it doesn’t really fit the
dialogue too well. Is this just
overzealousness but Texeira or is Valentino having difficulty expressing what
the panels are supposed to look like because he’s used to just doing the whole
thing? Who knows, and it’s been over
twenty years so I’m sure the parties don’t even remember.
Anyway,
in typical Valentino fashion, it’s time to check in on a different part of the
universe, where the mysterious character that keeps snapping up all of these
villains is apparently Brahl, you remember him right? The douche that sold out the rest of Force to
Malevolence? He apparently was kicked
off that team so decided to start one of his own. Beyond this slight introduction though, we’ll
have to wait and see what Brahl is up to though.
Back to
the Guardians, we see that Aleta is affecting Starhawk from the the inside,
causing him immense amounts of pain, like appendicitis I’m assuming, in order
to get him to let the Guardians go and leave them alone. In all this commotion, the mutants have escaped
and are still searching for Wolverine.
They get to an abandoned palace but before they can determine where
Wolverine is now, the Guardians burst in and put a hurt on the mutants (and the
palace too, I’m assuming, architecture never comes out on the winning end of a
superhero fight).
Talon
and Rancor get into it because they are similar in style and somehow that’s how
superhero fights always turn out.
Honestly, it would be better strategy to pair up opponents that could
exploit the other’s weaknesses, but what do I know, I’m no superhero. Just as the fight is about to reach its
stunning conclusion…the mutants are teleported away. It looked like the Guardians had them on the
ropes, a resounding win for a team that usually can’t do that by themselves was
snatched from their grasp. Where did the
mutants go, you ask? After a lot of
foreshadowing the last few issues it becomes clear that another player is about
to enter the game, the one, the only, Doctor Doom. I’m definitely interested in seeing how they
incorporate him into this universe, and whether it’s even the same Doctor Doom
that has somehow managed to survive an extra 1000 years.
We
quickly cut to Hollywood, who is making his proclamation that he’s leaving the
Comandeers to go visit The Vision (Mainframe) on his home world. This makes Tarin, the leader of the
Comandeers cry, because people cry a lot in this comic.
The
Guardians are now flying through space, for a reason unbeknownst to me as their
base is apparently still on Earth, probably just to get us to this issue’s
cliffhanger, which is the coming of The Silver Surfer!
Next
Issue: The Silver Surfer! You can’t have a comic in space without him
(it’s a rule, I checked).
No comments:
Post a Comment