REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy, #18

[Haquim]

Ooook. The story isn't over yet so I feel we can't really comment on the situation as a whole, and I'll just point out some of the things that happened to bother me (besides the mandatory "BENDIS!!!" I scream every time I read him these days):

CONS

-Gamora and Starlord: why on all that sacred did she have to resort to bondage besides the obvious cheap motive (i.e. appealing to some reader's kinky side)? Seems just the usual Bendis mischaracterization. Are we supposed to believe starlord would not have answered Gamora if she just asked seriously enough?
-Thanos: during Imperative Thanos was at insane levels of power and barely rational. Now we are supposed to believe he got smaked around by Starlord and Nova quite easyly mere minutes after the incident with the fault. Granted Peter had a CC in his hands (more than enough to deal even with Thanos) but could not use it properly at all. Besides even Richard Rider seemed to be able to hurt Thanos... the same Richard Rider who could not do anything against Silver Surfer in DnA Nova's
-Cancerverse: no one can die in the cancerverse, there's no death there. So why is Thanos threatening Nova and Starlord with death? Granted Drax mentions that "no one can die here" but then immediately proceeds to try to kill Thanos... Seems a little irrational (being Drax around Thanos, could be) but I have this nagging suspect it's just BENDIS! doing whaterver he thinks he needs to tell a story and reinventing the rules.

PROS

-Mc Guinness art. Gorgeous as usual
-Well done bringing back Drax with the same costume and form he had when Thanos killed him last time, I would have expected him to be in his "new slimmer form", instead that's how he was when he apparently died.

EDIT: Somewhere Jim Starling is crying tears of blood reading this... :P

[THANOSRULES]

Ooook. The story isn't over yet so I feel we can't really comment on the situation as a whole, and I'll just point out some of the things that happened to bother me (besides the mandatory "BENDIS!!!" I scream every time I read him these days):

CONS

-Gamora and Starlord: why on all that sacred did she have to resort to bondage besides the obvious cheap motive (i.e. appealing to some reader's kinky side)? Seems just the usual Bendis mischaracterization. Are we supposed to believe starlord would not have answered Gamora if she just asked seriously enough?
-Thanos: during Imperative Thanos was at insane levels of power and barely rational. Now we are supposed to believe he got smaked around by Starlord and Nova quite easyly mere minutes after the incident with the fault. Granted Peter had a CC in his hands (more than enough to deal even with Thanos) but could not use it properly at all. Besides even Richard Rider seemed to be able to hurt Thanos... the same Richard Rider who could not do anything against Silver Surfer in DnA Nova's
-Cancerverse: no one can die in the cancerverse, there's no death there. So why is Thanos threatening Nova and Starlord with death? Granted Drax mentions that "no one can die here" but then immediately proceeds to try to kill Thanos... Seems a little irrational (being Drax around Thanos, could be) but I have this nagging suspect it's just BENDIS! doing whaterver he thinks he needs to tell a story and reinventing the rules.

PROS

-Mc Guinness art. Gorgeous as usual
-Well done bringing back Drax with the same costume and form he had when Thanos killed him last time, I would have expected him to be in his "new slimmer form", instead that's how he was when he apparently died.

EDIT: Somewhere Jim Starling is crying tears of blood reading this... :P

I thought old school Gamora would have strung him up earlier...and in a much more sadistic way.

Nova did fine against the surfer.I thought he should have got to him quicker in the Harrow arc, but it was a standstill. He was pretty weakened after going through the engines in that story to escape the planet. He was above surfer in power levels during Annihilation. Unbeknownst to him, he did not always have the full Nova force at times. At the end of TI , he was given ALL the juice. He schooled the mega threat Annhilus (who Thanos served) in that full mode.

As for the cancerverse death, in the comic when death showed up it was supposed to undo this...but we dont know if Death stuck around when it closed up.

[Exciter]

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

In Minimum Carnage they explained that he went and rejoined the Micronauts, where he has languished in obscurity since.

-"No one can die in the cancerverse" unless you remember what Thanos Imperative was actually about and that they brought death to the cancerverse, that’s why that **** was imploding!

...

-The cracked cosmic cube Star-Lord had is now fully powered........I'm fine with this actually, I just thought I'd point it out.

Yeah, that’s why they needed Thanos in the first place… because as an Avatar of Death he could kill people in the Cancerverse.

The cube was cracked and was said to have maybe two shots left in it. I suppose I can accept that the collapsing universe has repowered it somehow?? Though the universe was supposed to collapse in 60 seconds. Seems like a hell of a lot happened in that 60seconds, at least enough to merit two issues…

[THANOSRULES]

In Minimum Carnage they explained that he went and rejoined the Micronauts, where he has languished in obscurity since.



Yeah, that’s why they needed Thanos in the first place… because as an Avatar of Death he could kill people in the Cancerverse.

The cube was cracked and was said to have maybe two shots left in it. I suppose I can accept that the collapsing universe has repowered it somehow?? Though the universe was supposed to collapse in 60 seconds. Seems like a hell of a lot happened in that 60seconds, at least enough to merit two issues…

From an editorial standpoint I didn't think the Bug thing was ok. The new GOTG book needed to address that to inform fans...albeit a line here or there...something akin to Quill saying "Wish we still had bug, but he had to go home" etc..(or the old "Poochie died trying to go home" type editors note)

Minimum Carnage / Spider Man are not really places you would expect Microverse Bug stories to show up. They are not complimentary books so they would have different readership. Many fans were in the dark about this...it was just another sign of poor or sloppy editing IMO.

[Ceebiro]

I thought old school Gamora would have strung him up earlier...and in a much more sadistic way.

Nova did fine against the surfer.I thought he should have got to him quicker in the Harrow arc, but it was a standstill. He was pretty weakened after going through the engines in that story to escape the planet. He was above surfer in power levels during Annihilation. Unbeknownst to him, he did not always have the full Nova force at times. At the end of TI , he was given ALL the juice. He schooled the mega threat Annhilus (who Thanos served) in that full mode.

As for the cancerverse death, in the comic when death showed up it was supposed to undo this...but we dont know if Death stuck around when it closed up.

Thanos didn't do that out of fear. He did it out of curiosity.

When Annihilus revealed that he was basically going to obliterate everything that's when Thanos turned against him.

As for Rich being above Surfer in power-levels, it should be remembered that Surfer's power-level was greatly reduced as well until he agreed to being Galactus's herald again and Surfer's big Annihilation feat was waaaaay above Rich's.

I may not have read that book in years but I remember that much.

[THANOSRULES]

Thanos didn't do that out of fear. He did it out of curiosity.

When Annihilus revealed that he was basically going to obliterate everything that's when Thanos turned against him.

As for Rich being above Surfer in power-levels, it should be remembered that Surfer's power-level was greatly reduced as well until he agreed to being Galactus's herald again and Surfer's big Annihilation feat was waaaaay above Rich's.

I may not have read that book in years but I remember that much.

Agreed about Thanos..I don't think any character besides maybe Strange has more undefined powers..

It was never totally explained, but I do feel Annihilation Annhilus was much more powerful than Thanos at that time.

The Harrow arc in Nova Surfer was once again Big G's herald and had boosted powers

[Trevel8182]

Agreed about Thanos..I don't think any character besides maybe Strange has more undefined powers..

It was never totally explained, but I do feel Annihilation Annhilus was much more powerful than Thanos at that time.

The Harrow arc in Nova Surfer was once again Big G's herald and had boosted powers

I think Nova could absolutely take down Thanos, it would be by the skin of his teeth but still, for all of his strength, Thanos completely lacks any speed. Nova could probably take on anyone! Nova means space nuke so if he went Supernova, I think he could probably kill anyone but it would resolve in his immediate death.

[50yearoldNovafan]

I think Nova could absolutely take down Thanos, it would be by the skin of his teeth but still, for all of his strength, Thanos completely lacks any speed. Nova could probably take on anyone! Nova means space nuke so if he went Supernova, I think he could probably kill anyone but it would resolve in his immediate death.

A number of other things to remember. Nova was not trying to fight the Surfer - he was attempting to talk Surfer and Galactus into allowing him to evacuate the locals before Galactus ate their planet. Rich only punched the Surfer because he would not listen.

Lastly, Rich may have had all of the Nova Force, however, he never used it all. He was always fearful of going crazy and the Worldmind never allowed him to get to that level.

[DrTraveler]

Agreed about Thanos..I don't think any character besides maybe Strange has more undefined powers..

It was never totally explained, but I do feel Annihilation Annhilus was much more powerful than Thanos at that time.

The Harrow arc in Nova Surfer was once again Big G's herald and had boosted powers

Rich was outclassed by Surfer in the Harrow arc. Surfer likely couldn't have immediately destroyed Rich out of hand, but Rich wasn't going to win that fight if Surfer had really wanted to kill or defeat Rich.

As for Annihilus, it was implied he was fairly high up on the powerscale. I do not believe Thanos would have beat Annihilus during that event. On the flipside though, Thanos was running at probably his highest power level he's had since the Infinity Gauntlet or The End in the Thanos Imperative. He was a serious threat.

[Trevel8182]

Rich was outclassed by Surfer in the Harrow arc. Surfer likely couldn't have immediately destroyed Rich out of hand, but Rich wasn't going to win that fight if Surfer had really wanted to kill or defeat Rich.

As for Annihilus, it was implied he was fairly high up on the powerscale. I do not believe Thanos would have beat Annihilus during that event. On the flipside though, Thanos was running at probably his highest power level he's had since the Infinity Gauntlet or The End in the Thanos Imperative. He was a serious threat.

Neither of them where really trying to fight each other, so I say I'm gonna call it a draw for the moment, but I'm still super positive that Nova could kick the crap out of Thanos.

[THANOSRULES]

what I never got about imperative is Thanos used to depend so much on tech, which included "Nannites" in his blood that did usually did whatever writers wanted them to...but the Thanos in TI was almost powered by magic..

[THANOSRULES]

[Trevel8182]

So........So Awesome!!!! The Master would be proud.

[DrTraveler]

what I never got about imperative is Thanos used to depend so much on tech, which included "Nannites" in his blood that did usually did whatever writers wanted them to...but the Thanos in TI was almost powered by magic..

He came back empowered by Death as a weapon. He had an immortal body and was a well and truly powered Avatar of Death. I may be misremembering it, but unless he was given power by Death in Thanos Quest what makes Thanos scary is that while he's Death's Avatar, he doesn't actually draw power from her. He's never needed to.

[Zartan's Brother]

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.

I'm not a fan of Bendis's GotG work (lots of poor writing, imo), but I'll give him credit on a few of these: Mantis actually showed up in one of the early issues of his run doing her own thing (and with dialogue and mannerisms that were out-of-character; typical Bendis). Bug, as stated previously, popped up in Minimum Carnage. Darkhawk showed up in Avengers Arena, but he always was tied to earth and to Nova more than the Guardians. The new Nova Corps that Rider was building have just vanished since introducing them forces a writer to address Rider's absence, so I'll give them a pass on that one since it was part of the plan to wait before going into Rider's absence.

None of that excuses the bad writing though, and it would have been nice to at least get some throwaway references to Quasar, Flag, Major Victory, Namorita, and Moondragon.