Only 1 issue in (1 and a half if you count the 2017 Free Comic Book Day edition), and already I’m thinking that the latest Marvel launch of Guardians of the Galaxy is worth a mention.
Three reasons come to mind:
- Synergy with the movies: there have been some obvious and dramatic shifts in design and tone bringing this comic closer to the ultra-successful Marvel Studios franchise. Groot is in his twiglet ‘Baby-Groot’ form, the Guardians now fly about in the hot-rod Milano ship, and Peter Quill is more of a wise-cracking man-child than ever. Indeed, Quill now has his Walk-man and ‘awesome mix’ cassette tapes, which don’t fit his comics origin in any way. Sounds like corporate interference, but the last time Marvel did it quite this obviously was in 2008 when the original Iron-Man movie came out. The Invincible Iron-Man comic was relaunched by writer Matt Fraction and artist Salvador Larocca with tone, characters and storytelling devices skewing much closer to the movie, and what followed was one of the best super-hero runs of the decade.
- A cracking creative team: this launch of GoTG is helmed by writer Gerry Duggan, who has most recently scribed some brilliantly goofy, action-packed and poignant adventures in the Deadpool comic for Marvel. Similarly, artist Aaron Kuder produced some spectacular work on a recent run of Superman for DC comics. Although both creators are relatively early on in their comics careers, they have the potential to be a dream-team for this iteration of The Guardians.
- This:
