Guardians of the Galaxy #20 Review/Spoilers

[Drakeon]

So we will most likely never know why the cancerverse still exists and why it wasnt destroyed by Death.

Also how the Guardians could so easily enter and exit the verse in Assemble.

Just a few of the Gaping plot holes

[Lio_convoy]

No those questions weren't answered.

[TakoM]

So we will most likely never know why the cancerverse still exists and why it wasnt destroyed by Death.

Also how the Guardians could so easily enter and exit the verse in Assemble.

Just a few of the Gaping plot holes

It's full of plot holes(or one gigantic big one) e.g If Richard Raider is dead ? Why can Sam Alexander still access the Nova Force?
Some one mentioned it already Drax wasn't their either.
and I read it and spoiler:
spoilers:

That Richard Rider love Gamora is the best joke ever he was deeply in love with Namorita which he rescued shortly before he vanished. Which by the way also vanished mysteriously

end of spoilers
It seems Marvel let wrote this someone who has no clue of those characters.

[Mr MajestiK]

Richard Rider deserved better.

[nightw1ng]

While the story sucked, it basically leaves Richard Rider in the same place before the story was told: limbo.

He could still be stuck in the Cancerverse, having used up his Nova Force power and the cosmic cube to send the others home; he could have survived, been able to come back with the others, and decided to secretly retire; he could have somehow joined with the Nova Force, which somehow empowers Sam; he could have been sent back in time to assume the identity of Jesse Alexander and become Sam's father (like some people think); or he could be just plain dead.

Either way, we won't be getting any new stories from him for awhile. And now that Marvel is in corporate synergy mode, it's unlikely we'll see him get a starring role in the MCU, because of the way they're pushing Sam. (I also partly blame the fact that his name is Richard Rider, since I could see Disney balking at pushing a character whose name can be turned into "Dick" Rider.) The only hope is if James Gunn, who is a big of the DnA run of Guardians of the Galaxy, puts him into the next GotG film and he's able to build a fanbase that would influence Marvel to bring him back in the comics.

[THANOSRULES]

While the story sucked, it basically leaves Richard Rider in the same place before the story was told: limbo.

He could still be stuck in the Cancerverse, having used up his Nova Force power and the cosmic cube to send the others home; he could have survived, been able to come back with the others, and decided to secretly retire; he could have somehow joined with the Nova Force, which somehow empowers Sam; he could have been sent back in time to assume the identity of Jesse Alexander and become Sam's father (like some people think); or he could be just plain dead.

Either way, we won't be getting any new stories from him for awhile. And now that Marvel is in corporate synergy mode, it's unlikely we'll see him get a starring role in the MCU, because of the way they're pushing Sam. (I also partly blame the fact that his name is Richard Rider, since I could see Disney balking at pushing a character whose name can be turned into "Dick" Rider.) The only hope is if James Gunn, who is a big of the DnA run of Guardians of the Galaxy, puts him into the next GotG film and he's able to build a fanbase that would influence Marvel to bring him back in the comics.

Agreed.

What I don't get is the Nova series needs to answer this Nova Force question.. but its 2 years into the run. The book has no track record of providing answers to even questions it creates. The GOTG stuff is so clunky and awkward, fans really don't expect answers...they just swallow hard and accept its bad continuity (all the while googling at the great art and the name Bendis on the cover). The Loeb plotted Nova book refuses to answer any questions what so ever...and when it does , like "who are the Black Novas" we get a complete dodge.

I know stringing fans around is a fundamental portion of serial fiction...but you have to create the illusion, at least, that your going somewhere.

Its nice they attempted to answer a fan question of what took place in the cancerverse...it was a disappointing answer.. but I tip my hat they did it...however it leaves so much unresolved and makes everything clunky.

Just , if you want Rider...All I ask is don't be quiet about it...let marvel know...and we all know $ speaks volumes.

Gunn is an odd guy..there's no telling where he would go.

[jackolover]

****SPOILER ALERT*****



DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY INFO ABOUT GOTG #20



So I just finished reading GOTG #20 and I have no idea what the hell just happened. The writing and art just aren't clear enough to really say whether Richard Rider lived or died. Quill assumes he died, but that's about it. It's kind of a frustrating resolution to the 3-issue arc.

Also his name was spelled "Ryder" and "Rider" throughout the book. The editor's really not paying much attention. Either way I'd be okay with, but man, pick one and stick with it.

I won't get into it any more than that for now.

I took this from the appreciation page.

Like others, I'm glad Rich's fate is uncertain, paving the way for future returns.

This was an Original Sin tie-in, and like the X-Men OS tie-ins, this wasn't precipitated by anyone being near the eye bomb. This was just a secret that needed to be told, and Bendis decided to slip it into his series, because the elephant in the room is Thanos, Starlord and Drax are out of the Cancerverse, and Rich didn't make it.

I can understand Rich still harboured an enduring love for Gamora though that relationship ended a while ago and Rich and Namorita took up later on. People can have affairs with one person, but still stay in love with an unattainable person for 10 years or more. I know from experience. And I can see why Starlord and Drax kept the secret from Gamora as a last wish of Novas. Bendis then made Gamora pounce on Starlord and force him to reveal what happened in the Cancerverse with Rich, leading to a very tragic ending for Gamora, who left the room at the end of the story to digest that the GOTG said they loved her, and that Rich was a secret lover. For a Universe marauding warrior like Gamora, whose secret lover just saved her father, this is like a big revelation for her to take in all at once.

I can only surmise that Thanos was drawn to be removed from the Cancerverse, because he lept at Rich at the same time Rich used his power, because Thanos and Rich were in contact when the blast occurred. No problem there.

What this conclusion does for Infinity is that it now places Thanos on the board, with his pack of desperados, and, it has nothing to do with Age of Ultron giving Starlord his revelation of memory, as happened in the last issue of that event. Age of Ultron was written by Bendis and GOTG was also written by Bendis, so the two stories about Starlords recollections of the Cancerverse are tied into each other, but just how that is, is still a mystery.

[Bolo]

100% agree with you Jacklover about your review, this moment with Gamora is amazing, I'm glad Bendis have respected the love of Richard Rider for Gamora like in Annihilation by Giffen, unlike DnA who have retconned that and tried again the old Namorita relationship or with the other scientist (never cared for both).

I really like this issue, it was a very amazing, touching and heroic moment for Richard Rider, I really like his death.

[THANOSRULES]

So bolo do you think it was a big honor for bend is to misspell Rider's name 2 different ways in the same book?

[jackolover]

100% agree with you Jacklover about your review, this moment with Gamora is amazing, I'm glad Bendis have respected the love of Richard Rider for Gamora like in Annihilation by Giffen, unlike DnA who have retconned that and tried again the old Namorita relationship or with the other scientist (never cared for both).

I really like this issue, it was a very amazing, touching and heroic moment for Richard Rider, I really like his death.

I think the Gamora component of this story is lost a lot, because of the need for the revelation about the fate of Rich Rider, so it was nice that the GOGT turned sensitive to her at the end of this story. (These were a band of cut throats who spit on any sentimentality whatsoever, throughout the story, and then something happened, and turned it inside out. I think this is a big revelation that the GOTG has this sensitive underbelly). After all, it was Gamora who started the story by capturing StarLord to force the story out of him, and she must have done this out of a lingering disquiet about Nova and the elephant in the room ever since Bendis' arc took over. Two things came from this. Nova is missing under heroic circumstances, and, Gamora has a huge idealistic approach to team members, or, she was in love with Rich Rider too.

I originally didn't think this was a good enough epitaph for the legacy of Rich Rider. But this was the Cancerverse and things happen there that are different to the rules in the MU. I noticed the cosmic cube didn't behave as expected towards the inverted Captain Americas use. The other thing that stood out was the way Richard bled out after loosing his right arm, and how the group had to stem the bleeding with a bandage, in a universe where you don't die? If you don't die, is there a healing component in the universe where the arm is replaced?

Some things in that last issue don't seem to correspond to the Cancerverse, and make the narrative jump suddenly into unexpected places. So when Rich Rider made his sacrifice to remove StarLord and Drax, it was probably under the perception of Rich that this might not even work, either, but to try everything in his power to make it work even spending his very life force doing it. What Rich achieved was probably the impossible, and it was only through the grace of Rich Rider that the GOGT exist in the form they are now.

[50yearoldNovafan]

This ending was just plain unsatisfying.

Someone at another site made a valid point. We believed Richard sacrificed himself in Thanos Imperative. And this story shows that he sacrificed himself in Thanos Imperative. What was the purpose of telling this story, when all it did was re-affirm what we were already shown?

We have been told we will find out what happened to Richard Rider. I thought we would get some degree of finality - that we would find out he was dead or we would find out that he is still alive. Well, guess what - we still do not know. It is still up in the air.

And, as several of you have pointed out, Richard had moved on to Nita - he and Gamora were on the outs. This shows a lack of research by the writer, and a lack of caring for continuity by the editors. BUT, I am happy that Gamora was told that she was loved and that Richard wanted her to be happy, and that he wanted to be with her. That was great for her, as a character that I really liked. That was also great for her, as a character I really liked with Richard.

I have been reading Marvel for decades, and I have never been less happy with how the company has been run than I am now. I have read Marvel through various managers. I cannot wait until this group leaves.

[jackolover]

This ending was just plain unsatisfying.

Someone at another site made a valid point. We believed Richard sacrificed himself in Thanos Imperative. And this story shows that he sacrificed himself in Thanos Imperative. What was the purpose of telling this story, when all it did was re-affirm what we were already shown?

We have been told we will find out what happened to Richard Rider. I thought we would get some degree of finality - that we would find out he was dead or we would find out that he is still alive. Well, guess what - we still do not know. It is still up in the air.

And, as several of you have pointed out, Richard had moved on to Nita - he and Gamora were on the outs. This shows a lack of research by the writer, and a lack of caring for continuity by the editors. BUT, I am happy that Gamora was told that she was loved and that Richard wanted her to be happy, and that he wanted to be with her. That was great for her, as a character that I really liked. That was also great for her, as a character I really liked with Richard.

I have been reading Marvel for decades, and I have never been less happy with how the company has been run than I am now. I have read Marvel through various managers. I cannot wait until this group leaves.

On the last part, I see your pain. But it may just be that I am not getting with the program, seeing as how I am getting on a bit. Whatever is coming in the future, around the Spring 2015 event, had better be an invigorating surprise.

[Commander Rogers]

Wonder if Rich's fate will be the quest of Gamora in her new series. Maybe she searches for him.

[TheMerc]

CBR has just posted their review for GOTG #20, and they're pretty much right on the money: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...review&id=7943.

I've only now had a chance to read it. Wow, was this bad... This was insultingly bad, and this is not me being an emotional Rich Rider fanboy, but simply a reader (BEWARE, SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW AFTER THIS POINT). It really says something when poor dialogue and characterizations (Thanos shouting at the top of his lungs that he'd kill Drax "again and again and again!" doesn't suit the Mad Titan's speech patterns, if the Revengers' dialogue was going to be typical "hurr, we're bad guys and we're gonna conquer your universe" gibberish they might as well have kept quiet like they did in the previous issue and Rocket being so nonchalant about what had happened defused whatever tension there was in the whole conflict. Plus, I swear I've read that "don't do that with X. X has a system. Respect the system" dialogue in one variation or another in most comics Bendis has written. It's a bit ridiculous by now) and inconsistent art (both Schitti and McGuinness did excellent work, but the constant switches between them only served to hurt the quality of both their contributions) are the least of this issue's criticisms.

The story mechanics are waaay off! First, let's start with something light, the Revengers: now that it is all set and done, I think I can safely say this story would have been better served if they were never in it at all. Their appearance contributed to absolutely nothing but further muddy the continuity waters. Even the temporary alliance between Thanos and the Guardians was only valid for when the Revengers were around, because when that wasn't the case, they simply went back to fighting amongst themselves, so basically there was no real character development for the characters we care about. The story would have been better served had it focused solely on Peter, Rich, Drax and Thanos.

Secondly, let me repeat the plothole that's been mentioned over and over (because it's that blatant): why wouldn't Peter and Drax mercy-kill Rich so that he could "respawn" with his arm intact? We'd seen Quill come back after being disemboweled by Thanos, so why wouldn't Rich be brought back with his arm? Bendis went to the trouble of retconning Thanos Imperative at his discretion when it was convenient for him in bringing back Eternal Life to Cancerverse, but when his own retcons presented obstacles to getting his characters where he wanted them, he conveniently ignored or told readers to look at the bright lights that other way, which is embarassingly lazy. It's even made worse by the fact that he could have easily acknowledged the possibility of mercy-killing Rich and explained it away -- with Peter and Drax having qualms about killing a friend, or even that Rich might be brought back without the Nova Force -- which would have made for a better story (at least the first one would have really contributed to the emotional torture the guys had to go through in CV), but no, it was never even addressed. You know how the Chekhov's Gun Rule establishes that if you show a gun, you're forced to use it or it might as well never been shown? Bendis' take on that rule is that the gun is only fired when it's convenient to the writer's plan, no matter if a Character X reassembled it to make sure it's working properly, loaded it and is pulling its trigger as we speak.

Then there's a problem with the tone of this entire story, but this issue in particular. It's clear that the comic tries to maintain a dramatic tone all the way through the end (and at times it kind of suceeds. I recall mainly the double-page with Nova picking up Drax and Quill with his one arm in order to get them away from the Revengers, and you feel the strain Rich is putting himself through in order to save his friends), but it's undercut by two things: first, the fact that two of the four main characters are naked the entire time defuses most of the tension of the proceedings, as it's rather hard to sell the dramatic effect of something when the artist is playing Hide The Sausage/Show The Buns anytime Quill or Thanos are on the page, because at that point, it's more slapstick (no pun intended) than exactly dramatic (wouldn't a look with torn costumes and hell written across the characters' faces convey a much more dramatic feel than naked Quill and Thanos?); and second, some of the story beats are purposefully comedic, such as those two pages with Quill and Nova shooting the Cube in order to prevent Thanos from getting his hands on it. How seriously can you take a dramatic moment with a naked man and a one-armed man (who, due to the artist's decision to repeat panels, aren't moving any time they're doing it) shooting a glowing blue cube to piss off a purple naked gorilla who we can almost hear saying "come on, you guys, quit shooting my cube" without realizing the ridiculousness of everything going on? Or, for that matter, in the panel with a glowing Rich Rider standing over a naked, contorted-faced Thanos, how can you not think about the latent sexual subtext inherent to the scene? I'm not one of those guys who reduces everything that goes on in the pages of a comic to its bare ridiculous bones - i.e. guy walking around in a bat costume, guy dressed in the american flag, etc - , but I couldn't help it here, because of how obvious and grating it was.

Plus, when you consider the fact that our main characters - save for Nova - made very few moral decisions about their predicament, you're left thinking "so, the big deal about their time in Cancerverse was that they spent a lot of time fighting Revengers?" Sure, that's got to be physically taxing, but it was another fisticuffs session (a long one, granted, but one nontheless). If none of the characters underwent any personal growth as a person at all during the whole experience (no hard decisions, no deals with the devil, no compromises. Even Thanos surviving was an accident), then it undervalues the personal meaning of the whole crucible they supposedly went through. Even if that personal development was there in Pete and Drax's decision to honor Rich's final request, guess what: by virtue of telling this story, that's automatically thrown out the window too.

I guess this story insults me not because it messed with established continuity (that's the least of my complaints, really), not because it took way too long to tell (because this really could have easily have been told in two issues. Easily), but because of how sloppily concieved it clearly was. Bendis saying that this was the story he always wanted to tell with this title and that he was only waiting for a chance like the one Original Sin gave him to do so must have been a lie, considering how much thought went into making it as cohesive as possible. This was a chance for him to either finally lay the Rich Rider ghost to sleep (in which case, like 50yearoldNovafan said, why bother telling us a story that we already knew happened, nevermind taking three issues to do so?) or lay the groundwork for him to be brought back further down the line if the powers-that-be feel like it (in which case, a "The End?" type of ending would have been preferrable to leaving things so open to interpretation, because as it is, I can't tell if Bendis knows what he wants to do, and that would have reassured me that no, this story wasn't completely pointless, and yes, Bendis has an endplan in mind). If this was Bendis' way to throw "Ryder" fans a bone (and essentially stop pestering him on Tumblr about what happened to him), then I'd much rather not have been told anything. If I can say anything positive about this story, it's that Rich Rider's character wasn't as corrupted as some feared he might have been (quite the opposite, he was actually the star of this story), but other than that, this was completely meaningless.

[nova3333]

Was that a mirage? A reviewer at CBR actually gave a issue of GOTG a 2 star rating? Well Mr Zawisza congratulations for actually doing an honest appraisal and telling folks here what we already knew - this issue was the worse one ever - and more than proves BMB cannot write Marvel Cosmic. The sooner we all get a writer who can actually do plots, do set-ups without meandering sub-texts and actually appreciates the source characters the better. I say now - time to put GOTG on the miss pile - take it off your pull list and give Marvel a clear message that BMB needs to go.