A Review Of Guardians of the Galaxy #10
Writer: Ewing
Artist: Cabal
Colorist: Blee
Cover Artist: Albuquerque & Maiolo
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed herein are purely the opinions of the author of this article and do not necessarily reflect the official opinions of CosmicBookNews. Timelord regularly reviewed the 2007 “Nova” and 2008 “Guardians of the Galaxy” series with his reviews directly sent to the books’ editors and creators. Timelord’s reviews have been quoted by Marvel in cover blurbs, press reviews, and solicits.
Warning: Contains some spoilers.
The action has been a long time coming, but it finally arrives with issue #10 where our heroes make a stand against Knull. It was mostly worth the wait.
This King in Black tie-in very appropriately places our heroes in the line of fire defending Quill’s homeworld of Spartax. A more mature, self-assured, and effective Quill arrives back in our universe in time to save the day using the hijacked power of the Olympian Gods channeled through his Element Gun. He ends the siege of Spartax and prepares for the next step in dealing with both Knull and the Olympian Gods.
I have to say that Ewing has delivered some of what I have been waiting for in terms of the redemption of the Star-Lord character. It is good to see Quill portrayed (or should I say re-portrayed) as a serious, mature, and deliberately effective leader of men for a change. This is much closer to the Giffen/DnA portrayal of Quill – a man who single-handedly defeated a Herald of Galactus, a man who served as Rich Rider’s Second in Command during the Annihilation War, a man who created and lead DnA’s re-imagined Guardians of the Galaxy. Let’s hope this portrayal persists and that we don’t see a backslide into the silly, goofy, boyish, falling bass-ackwards into success, self-parodying buffoonish portrayal perpetrated by Gunn and Bendis.
I especially enjoyed Quill’s embrace of the Master of the Sun mythology and the associated embrace of the Star-Lord mantle. While admittedly a different interpretation of the original Star-Lord mythology of Englehart et al, it doesn’t exactly invalidate Englehart et al and is likely the best we’re going to get from Marvel at this point; so I’ll take it until another writer comes along and gets continuity back where it needs to be.
I liked that this story demonstrates why Cosmic characters need to be addressing Cosmic threats. If you’ve been following the somewhat muddled mess of the King in Black mini-series, you’ve seen that the almighty Avengers and the other Earth-based heroes have been pretty ineffective against Knull so far. It takes Cosmic characters with Cosmic powers and experience dealing with Cosmic threats to effectively address a Cosmic villain like Knull.
The supporting characters were used effectively in this issue, with Nova, Phyla, and Moondragon having some standout performances. Looks like next issue, Nova and Gamora will be featured alongside Quill and it looks like they may be headed back to Xandar. I hope Ewing uses this story as an opportunity to re-boot the Worldmind and restore Xandar.
Cabal’s art was impressive in this issue. I’m glad he got the opportunity to flex his artistic muscles in the portrayal of some Cosmic combat sequences. Blee’s colors perfectly complemented Cabal’s art, making this issue one of the best artistically rendered and colored of the series thus far. Albuquerque and Maiolo delivered an eye-catching cover, one of my favorites of this series.
This is by far the best issue of the series to date. Giffen/DnA fans will be pleased as we are seeing the embers of their portrayal of our beloved Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova characters within the early stages of re-ignition. Let’s hope that Ewing continues along this path in rehabilitating our beloved characters and resists the temptations that British authors appear to be inflicted with to have beloved characters die heroic deaths. This has been hinted at with future issues and would be yet another terrible editorial mistake. Cosmic fans don’t want their heroes to die and be replaced with politically correct facsimiles. You’d think that would be obvious to the editors by now, but it isn’t. Just pick up a copy of the new PC version of The Eternals if you don’t believe me (anyone disappointed with the current Dr. Who will also be disappointed with the new Eternals). Let’s let Rich Rider Nova and Peter Quill Star-Lord, and Gamora, and all the rest live, stay who they are and who they’ve always been, and keep doing what they do best – inspire us. The fact that some of them are straight white adult males should not be grounds for their deaths and replacement.
Article author: Timelord
Guardians of the Galaxy #10 preview:
