When
last we left the Guardians, they had finally obtained the shield that they
spent the past six issues (and probably longer) looking for. To do this they had to defeat the awesomeness
that is Force and also survive the crazy games that former Avenger turned
computer homeworld the Vision put them all through. It was like The Hunger Games, just without
all of the predictable romantic subplots.
As eluded to at the end of the last issue, it’s now time for the
Guardians to pick up the long term quest that followed them from their initial
appearance in Marvel Comics continuity, that of finding the last survivors of
planet earth. They got a hit on the
location of the colony last issue, and now they are in transit to that
planet. Being that this is set in outer-freaking-space
that takes a little bit of time.
In the
interim, not only are the Guardians stopping to check out a space ship that
looks relatively abandoned save the faint presence of one life form on board,
but Martinex (beaten senseless over the last few issues) is in the medibay
being tended to by Starhawk. This issue
is separated very strangely, as two very distinct tales are being told (the one
involving the Guardians and their search of the “abandoned” ship and the one
that is basically Starhawk’s origin story.
This is kind of hard to follow at times though as just as the action
gets going on the top panel, it slows right down on the bottom half of the
page. I understand what Valentino was
trying to do, but it just wasn’t well executed here. I’ll go through each story individually
though to try and give each a fair shake, because by themselves, each story is
very good.
Our
first story focuses on Nikki and Charlie-27 as they go to the abandoned ship to
see if they can help the lone life form left on that vessel. Of course, things go south when they find out
that the only life form left on the craft is Malevolence, the psychic
vampire. She starts feasting on the Guardians
and yells at them with her crazy creepy teeth.
Vance, Yondu and Aleta, until now just bystanders aboard their own ship,
decide now might be a good time to join the fray and jump in to help out, until
they start getting their asses kicked too.
Have I mentioned how bad the Guardians are as a super-team? This whole time, Malevolence is screaming
something about a child and how she won’t be stopped until she has it,
etc. This makes absolutely no sense to
us now, but it is obviously setting something up for a few issues down the
road. The Guardians then bring her
aboard their ship because, of course they do.
Meanwhile,
this whole time, Starhawk is basically playing storytime with Martinex, telling
him his origin while he attempts to heal him.
This involves the fact that Starhawk was adopted, he is a mutant (born
to inhuman parents, being human is a mutation) and that after the Hawk God
merged Starhawk and Aleta (his adopted sister) together, they married and had
three children. We also learn that
Starhawk is the “one who knows” because he is basically living his life over
and over again, like Bill Murray in Groundhog
Day, just on a grander scale.
The
stories then merge together as Starhawk confronts Malevolence and tells her
that they don’t have the kid she seeks.
She believes him and curses him out, then teleports away in a burst of
flame. If she can teleport like that,
what is she doing floating around in a spaceship? Is that just so she can transport her buffet
of people around?
Everyone
starts going after Starhawk because he starts his “one who knows” bullshit again,
but before they cann start in on him, Martinex emerges from the medibay to jump
to his defense. They see that, thanks to
Starhawks healing magic powers, Martinex is not only good as new, but he is
actually improved in terms of his “skin” (I don’t know what it’s made of,
diamond or something probably, but whatever it is it’s nice and shiny
now). The art on this page is ridiculous
as, if you look at the doorway he is standing in, it’s an upshot, but his feet
say that it’s a downshot, and his torso is too long/arms are too short.
Will
Martinex and Starhawk get matching BFF necklaces? Will there be more crazy setup with not much
actual payoff? Will there be more
creepy, incestuous relationships revealed in the next issue? You’ll have to come back in a week to find
out.
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