It’s
that time again, time for another Guardians of the Galaxy Annual. This one is brought to you by Michael
Gallagher, the writer of the regular series, and penciler Colleen Doran. Unlike the past annuals, this one is one
large self-contained story instead of a bunch of little ones. Let’s see how it goes.
We
start out pretty much right where we left off at the end of the last issue of
the regular series. Earth is starting to
rebuild itself under the leadership of President Tarin and they have enlisted
the Guardians to go and search for the fabled Book of Kells, which will
apparently help greatly with the illiteracy problem that is running rampant
throughout the earth. This seems a
little too after-school special-ish for me, but we’ll see how it turns
out.
Before
we get too far in, I would like to make a quick comment about Colleen Doran’s
pencils. While being technically ok, as
in, she draws very well, there seems to be a distinct lack of personality in
her pencils. I am not sure where this
book falls in terms of her bibliography, but it has a feeling like it’s one of
her first published works, like she has yet to find herself and her own
artistic voice, so instead she is trying to be technically proficient (which
she is).
Okay,
now that that is out of the way, back to the meat and potatoes of the comic in
general. The Guardians gladly take on
this “fetch quest” as they apparently don’t have a whole galaxy to guard. We then get a quick history of the Book of
Kells from Mainframe, and then an extended history of it, along with a bit of
the War of the Worlds that ended the time of superheroes on Earth before the
Guardians head out to start their search.
This
search takes them Ireland, where they find an old stone structure that
apparently still houses the book (it was put here for safekeeping). Of course, it’s not going to be kept safe
without a guardian, which is where Cuchulain, the Irish Wolfhound come into
play. He’s dressed in a medieval Irish
garb and knocked out Charlie with one punch (which means he’s pretty damn
powerful). He also seems to either be
incredibly simple in the head, or just completely unaware of superheroes and
“modern” society altogether as this group of heroes, and especially the women,
just totally blow his mind. Eventually
the battle turns in the favor of the Guardians until probability gets in the
way, or more specifically, someone that can control probability in the form of
Shamrock (who is basically the Scarlet Witch in green). The Guardians start to lose again until
Hollywood shows up and charms the pants off of Shamrock (possibly literally but
the comics code prevents us from seeing that).
The
fighting stops and we get a quick primer on Shamrock’s origin story before
hearing how she fit in to the whole War of the Worlds thing as well as how she
got the Book of Kells in her possession (thanks to Dr. Druid, who also saddled
her with Cuchulain as a companion for basically the rest of time). 
Before
we can get a chance to really feel sorry for Shamrock though, the true villain
of the story emerges (a whole forty-four pages in). Samhain and his army of blue banshees shows
up to claim the Book of Kells for his own, because he apparently hates to read,
or something like that. The Guardians
battle the banshees as Samhain ventures into the cave where the Book of Kells
is kept. Shamrock is there to greet him
and she unleashes her full power on him in the form of the various spirits that
make up her mind (they are the ones that affect the laws of probability which
is where her power is derived from).
This overwhelms Samhain and sends him screaming into the night. Shamrock then hands the book over to the
Guardians and goes off with Cuchulain to find adventure and to attempt to
basically do to Europe what Tarin is doing to America (jump start
civilization).
The
Guardians take the book back to Tarin and they all basically live happily ever
after. A couple pinups close the book
and there we have another annual down.
The story was just as silly as we are used to and the art was for the
most part technically proficient without offering much in the way of
personality. All in all, another dud.
Next issue: It’s back to the regular series as we check in
on Loki and the Inhumans on the moon!
Oh…joy.
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