Review: Guardians 3000 #5

Now THIS is Marvel Cosmic!

While Bendis, Humphries, Duggan, and Young have been busy turning Cosmic into a bad situation comedy, Abnett, in five fantastic issues of G3K, has single-handedly taught a master class as to how Cosmic should be done.

Abnett’s G3K is the superior antithesis to rest of what Marvel is calling Cosmic these days.  In contrast to Bendis, Humphries, Duggan, and Young, Abnett respects the subject matter and the characters – using the situation and the special abilities of each character as a source of drama in approaching the problems to be addressed rather than an excuse for buffoonery aimed at getting some cheap laughs.  That alone places G3K light years above the paltry efforts of Bendis, Humphires, Duggan, and Young – but there’s more.

Abnett weaves a complex, exciting, and fast-paced tale with high-stakes consequences not only for each of the protagonists, but also for the entire known universe.  The pressure is on for this small group of heroes as their actions will have consequences for everyone and everything.

Abnett has nailed the portrayal of the Starlord of the future.  While everyone else is busy vainly trying to imitate Gunn’s portrayal of Starlord from the GotG movie, Abnett gets Starlord back to his roots – both in terms of uniform and characterization.  It is a refreshing change for the better.

In another refreshing change for the better, in the scant few pages given Rael Rider, she outshines the entire run of Loeb’s/Duggan’s deplorable NINO.  It is very satisfying to see a bright, tough, mature, effective Nova for a change.  We haven’t seen that since Marvel dumped Rich Rider and replaced him with the idiotic NINO.  At least we know there’s a better future for Xandar that doesn’t include NINO but does include some descendants of Earth’s true Nova, Rich Rider.

Each of the original Guardians team has their own voice and their own unique part to play in the grand scheme of the story.   Contrast that with Bendis’ lazy storytelling on his Garbage of the Galaxy book where the characterization is so bad that nearly any character could easily be replaced by any other character.

The art has been the weakest link on this book from the start with very mixed feelings being expressed by many of the fans of this series.  Some find it tolerable while others are really turned off.  I have to say that the artist’s style has grown on me, and I find it much more tolerable than I found it in issue #1.  That being said, I would like to see another artist’s take on Abnett’s concepts.  Delgado’s colors once again serve to soften the extremes of Sandoval’s artistic portrayals of our iconic Guardians.  Ross’ cover art is simply outstanding.

In sum, Abnett in five issue has managed to outshine the entirety of the efforts of Bendis, Duggan, Humphries, and Young.  Sadly, the zombies prefer pablum over true quality – so this book is probably doomed.  I urge all true Cosmic fans to get behind this book and do all you can to promote it to your friends, since Marvel is pretty much ignoring it and pouring all their marketing efforts into the pablum.  This book is Marvel’s only true Cosmic book.  Enjoy it while you can.