Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1- Cosmic Avengers

Quick Summary

Pros: The main storyline has great moments from the Guardians and also has plenty of action. Compelling mysteries are introduced and make the reading experience more interesting. Star-Lord gets some great character development. The artwork looks nice from start to finish.

Cons: Character development for the members of the Guardians, besides Star-Lord, is rather weak.

Overall: The new generation of the Guardians of the Galaxy’s history is off to a good start. This collection manages to combine charming characters with a solid storyline in a way that proves to be very satisfying. It also manages to dash in a little action and mystery here and there to further up the quality of the reading experience. This is a great place to start reading about the Guardians of the Galaxy, for fans both new and old.

Story

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1: Cosmic Avengers, by Brian Michael Bendis, is an optimistic and highly enjoyable start to a new series. It reintroduces readers to the Guardians of the Galaxy, a charming team with an equally charming rapport among them. Though Star-Lord dominates the collection, each character has a chance to contribute positives to the storytelling or to the action. Plus, there are hints toward a greater mystery that keep the entire volume interesting. Overall, this is a solid beginning to a series that has plenty of potential.

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Cosmic Avengers primarily works as an introductory volume by reacquainting readers with the members of the Guardians of the Galaxy and showing the potential problems they may end up facing. Each character gets a quick moment in the spotlight, which allows readers to connect with and learn about them. These moments also help set up intriguing future storylines, such as the potential that there is another member of Rocket’s species somewhere. The only problem here is that character development for every character, besides Star-Lord, is a bit lacking and does not provide as much as I’m sure most readers would have liked.

Luckily, the character development around Star-Lord is robust enough that it distracts from this flaw. His revamped origin story is gripping and emotional, combining some of the best elements from Steve Englehart and Chris Claremont’s original takes on the character. This origin story then goes on to form the basis behind Star-Lord’s antagonistic relationship with his father, a centerpiece of this volume’s conflict.

This contentious relationship leads into one of Cosmic Avengers‘s other major positives, the cosmic mystery behind J’son’s actions. Right from the start, the assembling of outer space rulers is an interesting concept that directly ties the Guardians to the cosmic side of the Marvel universe. Yet this gets even better as it is revealed that each of these rulers has some sort of political agenda that they plan on executing. Discovering these secret agendas, specifically the one put in play by J’son, makes reading this collection more enjoyable overall.

In addition to all of this, Cosmic Avengers also contains a number of well-written and entertaining action sequences. The Guardians are constantly at odds with some sort of space villains, forcing them into a number of battles. This gives readers time to watch Rocket blast away bad guys or see Groot unexpectedly rescue all of his teammates. These moments are fun and fill the volume with excitement.

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Art

The artwork in Cosmic Avengers is positive throughout and helps contribute to the volume’s overall success. Steve McNiven and Sara Pichelli do a great job in providing crisp and well detailed characters that look great in and out of combat. This allows characters to show emotion when confronting other characters about personal issues or to show off their physical prowess when it comes to fighting enemies out on the battlefield.

This collection also contains a few quick stories by a variety of different artists. The highlight here is the Gamora chapter, drawn by Michael Del Mundo. This almost completely silent chapter relies heavily on the artwork to show off Gamora as a character, a goal that Del Mundo is able to accomplish. Each of these quick stories looks good in their own way and contribute a bit of visual diversity to the collection as a whole.

Continuity

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1: Cosmic Avengers continues some story elements from Avengers Assemble (Review). However, this volume stands well on its own and is effectively the beginning of a new storyline.

The story here continues in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Angela (Review).

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• J’son mentions Star-Lord’s fight with Thanos and the existence of the Cancerverse. This is a reference to the events of The Thanos Imperative (Review). Iron Man left Earth at the conclusion of Iron Man Vol. 1: Believe (Review).
• The destruction of the Phoenix Force is mentioned. This happened in Avengers vs. X-Men.
• Former members of the Guardians of the Galaxy are referenced in this collection. These include
  • Bug, a Kaliklakian who was last seen with the Guardians in Avengers Assemble (Review).
  • Cosmo, a talking dog who was last seen with the Guardians in The Thanos Imperative (Review).
• Some of Drax’s past experiences are mentioned. These include:
  • Killing Thanos, which happened in Annihilation #4, now collected in Annihilation: The Complete Collection Vol. 2.
  • Surviving Annihilus’s attack on the Kyln, which happened in Annihilation: Prologue, now collected in Annihilation: The Complete Collection Vol. 1.