REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy, #18

[CBR News]

Brian Bendis and Ed McGuinness use "Original Sin" as a gateway to investigate what really happened in the Cancerverse and why Richard Ryder hasn't been seen since.


Full review here.

[THANOSRULES]

"Guardians of the Galaxy" #18 is one of the best issues of this current volume featuring Peter Quill and his band of vagabonds, which is interesting considering this is actually a flashback story told between the panels and after the closing cover of a previous volume of Guardians. At least Bendis and McGuinness are putting a significant amount of effort into the story and making it a fun read in the process. This is exactly the type of story that fans of the motion picture need to trip across. It gives the characters familiar ground to cover, but does so in a way that is almost as big and explosive as the movie itself. If this were an Annual, I'd be re-reading it right now. As a multi-part tale, I'm temporarily satisfied, but anxious for more. "Guardians of the Galaxy" #18 is a fine appetizer.

Its one of the best issues and arcs because they did this series with just too many gaps in what went on.. lets face it , it detracted big time from what they were going to do. I get trying to do your own thing , but there just needed to be more of a bridge. (its also of course the best issue because it has Rich Rider in it)

This cancerverse question is not even the sole part.. we never got explanations for costume changes, many missing characters who have just disappeared with no , even token mention, characters like Quasar, Jack Flagg, Vance Astro, Namorita, Mantis, Moondragon, all the great Nova corps characters, Darkhawk.. BMB did not even really explain BUG's disappearance from his original Assembled team, I guess he popped up back in the microverse for Minimum Carnage though. There are huge gaps in the Nova transition as well..again, doing your own thing is cool, but there needed to be bigger and better bridges to bring readers along...especially when the content a multi zillion dollar movie was based off purports to use the prior DnA stuff as the inspiration.

Bendis didn't even show Knowhere as a detached celestial head until issue #17..correct me if I'm wrong, but he has not ever used Cosmo, although he's popped up in Nova on Knowhere in that series..

The art on this series has been phenomenal. I'm really quite high on Bradshaw as well. This looks like the Ed MCg show, and of course he is doing some of his best stuff in the last couple years. It is really cool to see him do Rich Rider (Note it is RIDER not RYDER, in issue #17 they don't even catch the mistake when they spell it both ways!)

Book needs some tweaks and better editing...but hopefully this is the start of some better stuff. We needed these bridges to get on to new stories...and its a bit late...but the book is doing very well,

[Drakeon]

Art was great, and while not much happens in this issue it was a treat to see Rider again, and holding up quite well against the mighty purple puss. I knew it all hinged on the cosmic cube and I am sure whatever happens next issue the sin will involve the cube. I doubt we will get all the answers we want but this wasnt terrible so far.

One note: Quill mentioned using hoa element gun. I thought he didnt have his element gun during Thanos Imperative. Or am I wrong?

[Michael P]

Do we really need an explanation for why someone changed their clothes? Are we that anal?

[Moriarty]

now...just explain what happened to Bug between the Avengers Assemble Guardians team up and the Guardians relaunch.

[The BaRoN]

17 pages is an utter disgrace and such a terrible ending.

[THANOSRULES]

Do we really need an explanation for why someone changed their clothes? Are we that anal?

Really one thing is not in it self noteworthy...but i didn't even mention the belief that many people feel the core motivations and characterization of these characters has been swapped out...(and we clearly get Bendis acknowledging that fact this issue finally with some of Gamora's comments about changing here)

[Mahes]

So far this wasn't so bad. I wonder if it's just seeing Rich in action that is making me blind to fault here. Granted there's Bendis compression but it's still a good opening start to this arc.

[Technodox]

I guess I should've expected this to be the opener of an arc, we can't get answers in one issue anymore. It was nice to see a bit of rump whooping but I read through this whole thing wondering just how much of the Thanos Imperative BMB actually read instead of just running with the cliff notes. Its been a while since i read it myself, but i seem to remember the Cube being a whole bunch more volatile than what's being tossed around here, and if the thing was still anywhere near as powerful as a CC should be that would pretty much be game over for Thanos, right?

Least its good seeing Rich again, for however long it lasts.

[KurtW95]

Brian Bendis and Ed McGuinness use "Original Sin" as a gateway to investigate what really happened in the Cancerverse and why Richard Ryder hasn't been seen since.


Full review here.

It's Rider.