It’s a
double-sized adventure in the thirty-first century with the Guardians of the
Galaxy. Nowadays we can’t get twenty-two
pages out of a creative team in a month’s time, but back in the day, the random
double issue (as well as double-sized “anniversary issues”) were the norm. It’s even more impressive here because
Valentino has done all of the writing and pencils for every issue (along with
Steve Montano on inks, let’s not forget his ever-present contributions) and not
missed a month, even going so far as to create an entire sixty-four page annual
while still holding down the monthly series.
Valentino’s commitment is astounding and unheard of in this day and age.
Okay,
on to the actual content of the comic, where the cover tells us that “one of
them (the members of the Guardians and Force) will die. Who is it?
Well, we had three good candidates at the end of last issue as Nikki,
Photon and Eight-Five are all on the verge of being killed. Surprising no one, none of them die, though
Yondu does cut Photon’s throat as she lunges at him (after a healthy recap of
the exchange that those two had last issue regarding Photon’s origin). In Yondu’s defense, Photon was attacking him
and he reacted to that attack, but it still doesn’t sit well with Interface
who, if you remember from last issue, thinks of Photon as his daughter. She is not dead, but she will surely die if
she is not taken to the ship’s infirmary, something Yondu is willing to help
with until Interface (who’s powers are of transmutation, to convert matter from
one form to another). He does this with
Yondu’s right hand, converting it from a hand to water vapor, which, as vapor
does, instantly dissipates in the air.
That’s cold, Interface, ice cold.
Speaking of ice (see what I did there) Martinex encases Yondu’s hand in
ice so that he doesn’t bleed to death.
Vance tells everyone to chill out (see what I did there too, oh boy, on
a roll today) but Brahl tries to instigate some more. Broadside steps in and puts that plan on ice
(somebody stop me) and even prevents Scanner from killing Nikki just as
Starhawk prevents Replica from killing Eighty-Five who, for a guy that controls
the force of magnetism, is pretty content with just laying on the ground and
letting a girl kick his ass. He’s
obviously the shitty clone of Magneto.
Down on
Homeworld, Aleta and Malevolence start to fight for the right to be the
Protégé’s nanny, with Aleta striking first with a well-placed shot to the
lady-bits of Malevolence. I looked at
that panel a couple times to make sure that’s what I was seeing and yup, that’s
it, square in the lady-bits. The
fighting continues until the Protégé tells the women to stop so he can learn
more about Aleta and her powers. This
pisses Malevolence off as she thinks she has every right to kill people at her
own pace, but the creepy looking child-god has other plans.
Back on
the ship, Martinex has quickly crafted a weapon for Yondu with the help of the
ship’s matter transmuter (ie. the cure-all device). Martinex affixes the appendage to Yondu’s
stump and immediately creates Marvel’s version of the shitty Aquaman that had a
hook for a hand (remember him, long hair, beard, “edgy”). Interface (whose head seems to grow in every
panel) is pissed that Yondu sliced Photons throat and gets a fancy new “hand”
out of the deal and is ready to break the tenuous truce between the teams until
Photon tells him to relax. Replica
whines some more because she thinks everyone would have hated her because she’s
a Skrull (instead of the real reason we hate her, because she is like Lori from
The Walking Dead, constantly making
trouble for everyone else). Next we get
a history lesson on the Universal Church of Truth and the Protégé before heading
back down to Homeworld, where Aleta is already trying to get the Protégé to be
a little less like Joffrey from
Game of
Thrones, much to the chagrin of Malevolence.
Back on
the ship, the Guardians and Force agree on a “no powers” team-up to take down Malevolence
so she doesn’t corrupt the Protégé. The
no powers rule is because, if you remember, the Protégé can mimic any powers he
sees. To avoid making this kid any more
super-powered and omnipotent than he already is, the teams have agreed to fight
Malevolence the old fashioned way, by ganging up on her. Of course the tables are turned when they get
down to the Homeworld and the Protégé sics his royal guard on them. And then, of course, Replica sees the Protégé
and immediately falls to her knees to worship him, putting herself and her
teammates in danger in the process.
Martinex abandons his “no powers” rule to protect her by encasing her in
ice, and everyone else sees that and start using their powers too. That rule lasted all of three pages, good effort
Guardians.
Aleta
goes berserk on Malevolence because she begins to view the Protégé as her own
child (remember, Starhawk allowed her children to die) and she is about to win
the battle when the aforementioned Starhawk shows up and reabsorbs her before
flying off at light speed.
The
Protégé wants Aleta back so he stops all of the fighting and threatens to kill
the Guardians/Force for displeasing him.
Replica makes herself useful by groveling to the Protégé, who in turn
takes her as his plaything/companion while awarding Malevolence the position as
his nanny (basically by default). Vance
cries some more for Aleta, how I have no idea and everyone teleports off of
Homeworld. Mephisto rejoices because he
thinks he won while on the ship, Photon and Yondu come to a mutual
understanding (basically, they don’t try to murder eachother). Love could be in the air there after
all. Everyone else says their good-byes
with Broadside doing her best to creepily seduce Charlie and leave him wanting
more. Martinex discusses reprimanding
Nikki for being a bitch to Replica, and pretty much everyone and Vance loses
his mind. He’s pissed about Aleta, sure,
but he just up and quits the Guardians because of it, cementing his status in
the whiny-bitch hall of fame. In fact,
he turns the ship toward Earth so that he can quit in grand fashion (a
month-long journey to a distant planet).
That’s showing them, Vance!
Next: The team goes to Earth! Will it be ruled by the Kardashians or big
oil companies? We’ll find out next time.
In
today’s comic market, this issue would be a #1 issue. It’s a new beginning for the group and a new
storyline and some dumbass editor at Marvel would have seen all of this and
said ”let’s reboot the series!” Luckily,
this series was produced in 1991 so Jim Valentino just puts the tagline “1st
issue of a brand new era” on the cover.
After Nikki’s new costume and Yondu’s new hand, you had to know that we
were in for a couple more shakeups to the group, and this issue surely has
them. We’ll go through them all as they
come up, but they reshape the Guardians completely and the plot is some of the
best of Valentino’s tenure (the script is often lacking but that’s pretty
characteristic of this series as well. 
We
start with the Guardians sitting around the dinner table discussing the future
of Starhawk as part of the team.
Remember, he reabsorbed Aleta last issue, cutting down the Guardians
membership (which was only exacerbated by Replica staying behind to play with
the Protégé). Everyone agrees that
Starhawk is a mega douche and should be kicked out of the group. We then cut to Starhawk, hiding behind a
rock, apparently wrestling with not only Aleta’s personality within him, but a
third personality has arose. Could this
be the hawk-god that gave those two their powers? I honestly don’t remember but wouldn’t be
surprised. We then cut to the Protégé
who is looking for Starhawk himself so that he can get Aleta back (for what I’m
not sure since Malevolence is his nanny now.
Replica tries to reason with him to go easy on his generals, they’re
doing the best they can in terms of finding an all-powerful being that can
travel at the speed of light after all, and Malevolence schemes to get rid of
Replica so she can have the Protégé all to herself.
Back on
the Guardians’ ship, they are nearing Earth and train their cameras upon it to
get a good look. What they find is
destroyed cities that stand empty. This
obviously shocks everyone as the Earth they left a mere four years ago was
teaming with life and not nearly as destitute as the one they see now. We get a quick recap of the Guardians’ time
on Earth in the form of an answer to Nikki’s question before they look through
their cameras again to see Manhattan completely cut off from the rest of the
country. Everyone gets ready to go and
we get another big reveal, Charlie’s new costume, complete with pockets, pockets
and more pockets (along with bullets, oh so many bullets). 
The
Guardians beam down to Times Square (which still has a Coke sign after all this
time) and are immediately attacked by the Comandeers. We get some internal monologues from Nikki
and Vance while they’re fighting (something you rarely see in comics today). Everyone continues to fight until the leader
of the Comandeers, Tarin, steps in and implores them all to lay down their
arms. Tarin is apparently someone that
the Guardians had met back before this series started, when they helped save
the Earth from the Badoon. Then we get a
couple history lessons. First, we learn
about Tarin’s history with the Guardians, then, once everyone gets back to the
base of the Comandeers (the sub-basement of an abandoned Avengers mansion) we
learn what happened to Earth. The
culprit of the downfall of civilization?
Television. I shit you not. Apparently this hyper-realistic television
emitted a gas that kept people transfixed, not allowing them to move, eat or
sleep until they eventually just died where they sat. All of the older people died like this,
leaving the younger generations to form gangs and fight over territory. The most ruthless, and therefore the ones
that emerged victorious, were the Punishers, a group of youngsters that
fashioned themselves after everyone’s favorite vigilante: Frank Castle. Of course, no one would have known anything
about the Punisher if it wasn’t for Vance’s Docu-Chips, which apparently had information
on all of the super heroes from his era.
Vance looks like he’s going to start getting all bent out of shape about
it (which Martinex hilariously worries about, it’s nice to know that Valentino
isn’t blind to the fact that his own character is a whiny bitch) but instead he
pledges to stay and fight the Punishers.
Everyone else decides to stay with him, except Martinex, who would
rather go into space and form the Green Lantern Corps. (seriously, read his
mission statement and tell me that’s not the Green Lantern Corps.). They let him go and head to the surface to
find the Punishers.
Next issue: You
guessed it, they find the Punishers, and the goofy looking guy with the
negative mohawk. 
