Who’s
that on the cover? Could it be? The return of Cuchulain? Thank Kirby, I’ve been waiting for this since
the third annual…
Okay,
now that we got the sarcasm out of the way, this issue opens with the
Guardians’ ship appearing above a village on Earth, one that just happens to be
the home of Shamrock and Cuchulain (who made their first appearance in this
book in the third annual issue). While I
give Michael Gallagher a lot of crap for his lazy writing, and terrible
characterizations, the fact that he is treating the Annuals as if they are an
important part of the overarching story is great to see. Many writers use these issues for giant
throwaways, or at the very least, a filler tale that has little significance on
the overall story. Gallagher has not
only introduced characters that he brought back into the comic (the
aforementioned Cuchulain and Shamrock) but he has also introduced big,
overarching plot devices that need to be addressed in the regular series
(talon’s impending forced fatherhood and Charlie’s disappearance). This makes the annual more of an issue 50.5
than a regular annual, and for someone that loves collecting the complete
story, I appreciate that.
Back to
the issue at hand. When the ship appears
above the village, it is not known by the inhabitants that the Guardians come
in peace. In fact, even those that have
dealt with the Guardians before are unaware of the fact that they are the
inhabitants of that spacecraft. It
doesn’t help matters that Vance, in his new black suit, is the first one to
touch down on Earth. His is unrecognizable
in his new getup and everyone reacts as you would expect they would, including
Cuchulain going on the offensive and outright attacking him. The rest of the Guardians make their way down
to the surface, after letting Vance and Cuchulain duke it out for awhile. This seems like a silly re-introduction to
the characters but I have a feeling at this point Marvel was just letting
Gallagher do whatever he wanted.
After
some more mistaken identities, where Talon gets manhandled by Cuchulain
(causing him to complain about his back…again) we cut to the heavy exposition
portion of the program. The Guardians
then learn that Charlie’s whereabouts are actually on the prison planet known
as Stockade, as he is being accused of being the interplanetary serial killer
known as Ripjak.
Right
on schedule, we head out to stockade, where Charlie is getting some pretty poor
treatment from the guards, which only gets worse when he refuses to sign a
confession. He is then thrown into
General Population (which is akin to a cop being placed in the same circumstance
nowadays) with the insane villain known as Diablo. It doesn’t take long for Charlie’s presence
to be noticed though as Tork, the Tokka clone comes in and makes his presence
known. He apparently “runs” the floor
and is hell-bent on making Charlie’s stay a painful one.
Back on
Earth there is more exposition as Cuchulain says goodbye to Shamrock (he has
been asked to join the Guardians for this mission given the fact that their
“heavy hitter” is the one they are rescuing).
They all get onboard the ship and Cuchulain freaks out because he has
never seen anything like this before (remember, he is a medieval character who
is now in the future). While the ladies
are calming him down, Vance and Talon fight once again over command of the
Guardians. That is broken up by request
for aid from Nikki to help control Cuchulain.
After
they deal with that mess, Vance sits down with Aleta to rekindle his
romance. He pulls back the symbiote
around his mouth to reveal his old man face, which Aleta finds appealing for
some reason, and they begin to kiss, until the symbiote gets an alien boner and
tries to latch on to Aleta. She runs in
fear and Vance begins to cry.
We cut
to Talon and Trans-Molecular Reconstitutor, which has helped save Martinex and
Charlie in the past, both times not only saving their lives but augmenting
their existing powers. Talon wants to
use it to help his ailing back but he know that no one else will assist him in
doing so. He then drafts Cuchulain to do
this for him because he knows no better.
After the machine does its job, Talon comes out looking more like a
werewolf and less like a kitty-cat.
Next Issue: we see if Talon’s latest hairstyle sticks and
Vance gets all emo.
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