317. Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 #9 ... Marvel ...

Well, well, well, this had to happen. To ensure the popularity of the newly relaunched GOTG (prior to it becoming a hit movie), the creators tie it to the then yearly cosmic Marvel event and this is War of Kings where the Kings involved and featured in GOTG is Blastaar, a creature from the Negative Zone who used to lose out to an insectoid called Annihilus but with Anni gone, the more bestial Blastaar whose main power is his (get this) blasting hands, decided to take the throne and not satisfied with this, he wants to get out of the Zone into our reality

So how does he do this?

Why by breaking down the prison for super humans that was created during the previous event, Civil War. And so as they come barging in, only villains and a couple of lame ass heroes are left to defend the gates from falling

Meanwhile, 2 of the Guardians are tracking down the fate of Moondragon on Titan with Mentor ... when they are ambushed and left ... supposedly dead (?)

And still meanwhile, the final gang of Guardians are trying to trace where their missing leader, Peter has gone to. And though they were not sure exactly where but when they do, they jumped there at once ... and landed into ... issue 10 next! Hehehe!

Ratings: 7/10 (would have given it an 8 if the artwork was more to my taste)

291. Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 #8 (2008) ... Marvel ...

One more day to Valentine's and you may be wondering if this has anything to do with love ... and you are right to wonder because ... F it all this has nothing to do with Valentine's ... hahaha

So what does this comic have? Well coming off our last review you may think we will not enjoy it but this issue definitely has picked up a wee bit more. We kick off with Starlord kicking some Krees (imagine him defeating life-long trained soldiers ... yes please suspend the incredulity for a moment) ... and then we found out how he ended up in the negative zone and now the zone is controlled by ex-Fantastic Four foe, Blastaar who apparently has finally declared himself king after Annihilus has disappeared ...

What about the rest of the GOTG? We get snatches of Mantis, Dog and the Roccoon along with folks like Groot giving a hard time to others while screaming and fighting away but by far the most interesting is Warlock in his new guise of almost emotionless statue like look ... him going after the Universal Church of Truth and their "Believe" power ... and finding out what the F is going on after all with so many players and so many possibilities

But finally this ending? Awesome. You see back in main Marvel U ... thanks to Civil War, there is a prison called 42 and it has its claws from our regular universe to the negative zone ... so in order to breach and conquer our universe ... all the negative zone denizens require is a way into this 42 ... and BANG they will be on Earth ... so will Peter do as he is told or will he ...??? Read and find out

Ratings: 7/10

290. Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 #7 ... Marvel ... (2008) ...

Okay enough Wolvs and Spiders. Let's look to the stars and the surprising hit movie of last year from Marvel - GOTG. I will be honest here. I am a huge fan of the first comic series of which the only person to make an appearance is Yondu. Now Yondu in the comic is a mystic zen type of priest and the Yaka arrow that he controlled by whistling is equally special. However, even though I am reading and collecting comics for 30 years, I am not a purist and am open minded enough because when I go to a movie, I want the movie to be entertaining and not just following the comic blindly ... and of course for the movie to succeed because if it does, there will be more movies and comics to come ... and what a relief that the actual movie was even better than the comic!

But hey this is not a review about the movie

So the first arc of this launch was good. In issue 7, we first have a switchover of artist and while I have nothing against this new chap but opening arc artist was just plain awesome. So suddenly the series felt like it dropped. However, for those of you reading this on a back issue basis or trade, please note that this version of GOTG was running when Marvel was trying to resuscitate its space/ cosmic corner of the comic-verse. So in short almost every arc is either a part or side players for whichever series was running and this is no difference

What is odd is the first few pages where we see the original GOTG and wondering WTF before we are shown that its memories from the female one-who-knows

 Naturally before this is developed further, it's time for fisticuffs. So cue next scene and we see some of the guardians kicking up a storm with the villains of the day some gigantic sized and not so giant sized aliens but it's all good ... cos they are more like grunts no matter how they look ...

Who then is the villain of the piece? It comes at the end ... and not so much of a shock as ... a part of the storyline ... somehow it felt kind of flat. Read it and see what we mean

Ratings: 5/10