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The Tinkerer

It takes a lot to get someone to wholesale tinker with their roster by week three, say, their top draft pick being suspended for the year for beating his kid, that kind of thing.

Not so New Comic Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (1991) #62

                This is it, the moment you’ve all been waiting for (okay, at least I know I have)!  The final issue of the Guardians of the Galaxy.  We open with the conclusion of the Starhawk parentage saga (why you would spend the majority of your final issues on one character I have no idea).  When last we saw Starhawk he had just been shot by a Pathbreaker robot on the outskirts of the planet where Starhawk’s mother, known as Kismet, was last seen.  Of course, this is the all-powerful Starhawk we’re talking about, so he makes short work of the robot and heads down to the planet’s surface.  There, he meets his mother, still alive and well, and hasn’t aged a day.  Even though she is not supposed to leave the convent, Starhawk whisks her away anyway.

                As they are flying off, Starhawk tells his mother what happened to his father and as soon as he mentions Eon, she gets pissed because apparently Eon took Starhawk away from her as soon as he was born.  With that, Eon’s son Era, who looks just like Eon (who is apparently a girl!?), shows up and tries to kill both Starhawk and Kismet.  They fight until Era decides he’s had enough and just leaves.  The Hawk God then shows up to tell Starhawk that Era has been behind all of the nasty stuff that has happened to him and that the Hawk God is willing to help Starhawk track him down.  Before they do that though, Starhawk and Kismet travel to visit the gravesite of Quasar.

                There you go.  The end of Starhawk’s quest.  What do you think?  Pretty underwhelming, right?  Can they do any better with the rest of the Guardians?  Let’s see.

                We start with the Guardians gathering on the Icarus (except for Talon, who is meditating and Yellowjacket who is now back in the present) along with Martinex and Hollywood.  Of course, as soon as Martinex shows up Vance gets into an argument with him again, because he’s terrible.  Nothing is mentioned of the lost colony of Jovians that Charlie was looking for, so I guess that plot thread is just going to dangle forever.  Instead, we get another War of the Worlds history lesson (with nothing new added by the way) except we find out that Mainframe has found a way to send them back in time to prevent the tragedy.

…

…

                Forgive me if I’m confused, but there are a couple inconsistencies here.  First, the Guardians went back in time once already, to the present day.  They went there to wipe out the Baddoon and prevent the genocides of their races (Charlie and Nikki, at least, Yondu and Martinex were not with the team at the time).  The ability to travel through time has apparently been around for quite some time.  Plus, on that trip, Vance refused to help them, and in fact sabotaged their mission, nearly resulting in the death of Charlie.  Now, all of a sudden he is fine with killing a large portion of the Martian population…as long as it saves his race.  Real nice.   Not only that, but Yellowjacket just traveled back in time as well, so this whole “waiting for Mainframe to figure out how to transport us through time” thing holds no water at all. 

                Whatever.  They go through time and use their vastly superior technology to destroy the Martian ships.  Seriously, it takes them no time at all, and Hollywood does half the work for them by destroying many of the ships with his bare hands.  How the Earth fell to the Martians in the first place is a mystery to me.  Just Wonder Man and Thor alone could have handled the entire fleet, not to mention any number of mutants or other heroes. 

                With the Martian fleet decimated, the Guardians begin their trip back home.  Unfortunately, they are being watched by Wormhole (remember him, the Inhuman bad guy that used to work for Loki) and he isn’t happy with them.  He creates a, wait for it, wormhole that sucks them in and drops them on an unknown, uncharted planet somewhere.

             

 And that’s it.  That’s the end.

What.  The.  Galactic. Fuck.

                Next week: A Guardians of the Galaxy Post-Mortem before we start the next review series. 

Trade Bait 3

Week Three-

Standings:

Shrimp:		Assorted Freaks:
The Masked Shrimp	2-0	The Slugomatic	1-1
Fred	2-0	The Wormy Guy	1-1
The Masked Shrimpette	0-2	Mr. Happee	0-2

Schedule:

The Masked Shrimp v. Fred

The Slugomatic v. Mr. Happee

The Wormy Guy v. The Masked Shrimpette

My brother can attest to the ludicrous nature of some of the trade requests.  

He had the roster everyone wanted, even if we had nothing to give him for those players.

AC/DC – Rock or Bust: Yes, You’ve Been Here Before

                We made it.  We slogged through every disc in the AC/DC catalog and it brought us to this point, Rock or Bust.  This is the new album, six years in the making.  What you get when you fire it up is the same AC/DC that you have come to know, and hopefully love.  The songs are all not only fairly similar to one another, but if you listen closely, you can even pick out pieces of the current tracks that are stolen from previous songs in their catalog (at least they’re not stealing from other musicians, just themselves).

                This does not mean that Rock or Bust is a bad album.  Far from it in fact, as it is actually quite a good AC/DC record, right up there with Black Ice and Stiff Upper Lip.  At this point, we’re splitting hairs when it comes to AC/DC records, right?  They are a known commodity, and when you attempt to judge them on anything other than their individual merit, you will be disappointed, not by the album itself, per se, but by the simple fact that the albums are all essentially the same. 

                Rock or Bust is no different, but where it lacks in originality (and boy does it ever) it makes up for that by providing a comfort in the simple fact that I could play this record and know that I would enjoy it.  If you like AC/DC, you will like this album, it’s as simple as that.  The opening tracks, “Rock or Bust” and “Play Ball”, the two current singles, are exactly what you would expect, but everything you have come to love about AC/DC.  Angus’ guitar work is masterful in its execution and the bottom end, the bass and drums, are as good as you remember.  Brian Johnson’s vocals are as good as ever.  The most amazing thing about AC/DC has to be the way that Brian Johnson can sound the same as he did in 1980.  Is it a trick of the recording process, or did he somehow avoid the ravages of father time?  Either way, it’s one of the highlights of the record in my opinion.

                Honestly, at this point, the only question you have to ask yourself is “Do I like AC/DC?”If the answer is yes, then the only thing left for you to do is go out and purchase Rock or Bust.  If you are already not a fan of the band, and believe me, after listening to their entire discography back to back, I can understand your argument, this is probably not the album for you.  If you are looking to “try out” a band that has been around since the early seventies in one incarnation or another, then this album is as good of a place to start as any.

LaForge Yourself a Quality Receiver

That was not my drafting method, just so you know.  But I would not be opposed to drafting a player named Spock.  

It's only logical.

One Point

This really happened, and it was glorious.