REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy #24

[CBR News]

Brian Michael Bendis writes the second chapter of "The Black Vortex" for Valerio Schiti to draw in "Guardians of the Galaxy" #24, which features an amped-up Gamora letting loose on the Slaughter Lords.


Full review here.

[Charles J. Baserap]

Hopefully, at the end, they'll FINALLY address what a colossal hypocrite Hank McCoy has been all these years, along with most of the X-Men, about his treatment of Cyclops. You know, considering he killed hundreds while on a secret squad of Avengers in Warren Ellis' first issue, was complicit in genocide during Ghost Boxes, was willing to deal with Sinister and Doom and Sugar Man and Dark Beast among others to find a fix to the missing x-gene, supports other mutants like Wolverine who gets mind controlled every second Tuesday and kills and killed people by the truckload, and now uses the Black Vortex--not because it was forced into him after a mistake caused by Tony Stark, but because he WANTED it.

[Teste]

Meh. Typical Bendis comic - a lot of talking heads sharing the exact same voice, discussing about nothing. We know the Beast will revert to normal after seeing him in 8 Months Later; if he will go back, everyone will likely be reversed as well. The main conflict, then - talking about what happens after people use the Black Vortex - becomes moot.

[santino27]

I liked the leadup in Legendary Star Lord but man, this issue was terrible. :/

[ComicBookMan]

Yep, another Bendis pile of crap. He's a master of the filler comic. Lots of pointless chatter and not much gets accomplished. Often, at the end of each comic, he tries to leave the reader with a cliffhanger. I find that is usually of slight interest and the rest of the comic is generic banter.

I read some of his X-Men and he did an amazing job at ignoring their actual character that has been developed and writing them the way he likes. Constant debaters/arguers/lame attempts at wit. Repeat.

Someone tell these 'high profile' writers that quality always trumps quantity. Writer fewer books and put some thought into the ones you do write.

[Rocket Rick]

The sooner they offload Bendis elsewhere the better. He's really effed up the Avengers and X-Men. Any success of the Avengers now is because of Mark Millar and the film.

[Ragdoll]

Yep, another Bendis pile of crap. He's a master of the filler comic. Lots of pointless chatter and not much gets accomplished. Often, at the end of each comic, he tries to leave the reader with a cliffhanger. I find that is usually of slight interest and the rest of the comic is generic banter.

What you call filler is what I consider necessary to any story to make it matter. A story can't be plot plot plot. People need to act like people. If issues like this one frustrate you, you might be better off waiting for trade releases instead of reading singles.

[peterporker]

The sooner they offload Bendis elsewhere the better. He's really effed up the Avengers and X-Men. Any success of the Avengers now is because of Mark Millar and the film.

Except that Bendis' Avengers came years before the movie had nothing in common with Millar's Ultimates and was Marvel best-seller all the time?

[MarvelMaster616]

Good review. I really enjoyed this. So far, Black Vortex has met and exceeded my expectations. But I thought this issue went the extra distance with the end. It had the perfect "Oh crap!" moment. It's not unlike what happened in Avengers vs. X-men. A lot of these characters are suddenly imbued with cosmic power they didn't ask for. Now we have to see what they do with it. And if at the end of this Beast still gives Cyclops crap, then he's without excuse.

[TehMidcap]

Meh. Typical Bendis comic - a lot of talking heads sharing the exact same voice, discussing about nothing.

THIS.

Sure Bendis may have played a vital role to Marvel's revival in the early 2000's, but he sure isn't doing ANYTHING useful these days. I love the characters of Guardians of the Galaxy and X-Men and would really like to follow them more closely but I do not and won't because of Bendis' writing. The basic plot lines are not all together unlikable (they're not astonishingly well thought out or deeply layered by any means either, but for the most part at least mediocre) but the way in which they are written is quite unreadable. Clunky, unnecessary dialogue in which there is barely any character or personality just filling page after page. Every character speaks like a teenage girl (see the typically portrayed as somewhat cold and direct character Maria Hill saying something along the lines of "he just got the mic dropped on him like it's 8 mile"). I think the problem of Bendis' writing is that it is trying much too heavily to be cool and particularly to the young teen market (see new Powers #1 where 60% of the dialogue is the word "****"). I wrote a huge e-mail to Marvel editors about a month ago about this very subject, I'm still waiting for a response.

Yet Guardians of the Galaxy and X-Men titles continue to sell well because of the CHARACTERS and artwork and may be misleading in Marvel's eyes in terms of BENDIS sales (I'm sorry but GoTG is one of the most poorly written comic on the stands right now, and that's such a shame because there's endless possibilities with these characters who have a lot of heart and fun personality).

[TehMidcap]

What you call filler is what I consider necessary to any story to make it matter. A story can't be plot plot plot. People need to act like people. If issues like this one frustrate you, you might be better off waiting for trade releases instead of reading singles.

It is just filler when done poorly, though. You can truly tell not a lot of thought or heart goes into it, it's sole intention is to suspend the main story.

See Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Superior Foes of Spider-Man, and many many other Marvel titles for examples of how this "filler" can still be engaging, fun, and entertaining without having that dreadful monotonous vibe.

[SickAlice]

I'm already buying most of the involved books so I'm there anyways. Else not liking it sorry. The Black Vortex is just a Deus ex machina so I don't have a reason to care about it. Apparently it makes people power mad. I also gives them new costumes. Notably the girls if cleavage is showing on their original costume get covered up else uncovered (?). Else...what else happened? Oh Thane. I'm sort of interested there. I got introduced to him in that Facebook game and Infinity and have been curious and there was a little insight here so good on that. Only chapter 2 so I can't write the whole thing off though. Maybe it will go somewhere, just not this time I guess.

[Zeitgeist]

Hopefully, at the end, they'll FINALLY address what a colossal hypocrite Hank McCoy has been all these years, along with most of the X-Men, about his treatment of Cyclops.

Nope sorry Cyclops being an asshat is firmly canon

[Venom2099]

I gave up on this book after watching the movie....the movie was great....this comic is not.

[Wellman]

The sooner they offload Bendis elsewhere the better. He's really effed up the Avengers and X-Men. Any success of the Avengers now is because of Mark Millar and the film.

Personally I have liked Bendis' X-Men run, at least on Uncanny X-Men for the most part. Still hated his Avengers run though, also his Moon Knight run and his GotG has been massively underwhelming besides a few bright spots here and there.


Still wouldn't mind seeing him take over Amazing Spider-Man though, if only because of all the good to great work he did with the Ultimate version of Peter Parker and his successor Miles Morales. That or Hulk, I think he works better on solo series or ones where he only needs to focus things around nailing one character's voice as the crux of the story.