Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers, Vol. 1

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers #1

by Steve Gerber, Roger Stern, Chris Claremont

Captain America, Doctor Strange, the Thing, the Hulk and other familiar faces join the star-spanning heroes in the greatest war the future ever saw! Then, as the Guardians help a planet in turmoil rebuild, threats rise from two other worlds: one of them living, the other gone mad! It's cosmic action as you like it, as the Avengers of tomorrow face their baptism of fire! Featuring the introduction of Nikki and the origin of Starhawk! Guest-starring the Silver Surfer! COLLECTING: Marvel Super Heroes (1967) 18, Marvel Two -In-One (1974) 4-5, Giant -Size Defenders 5, Defenders (1972) 26-29, Marvel Presents 3-12

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Superheroes, Time Travel, Marvel, Fiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 9, 2013

About the author

Steve Gerber graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in communications and took a job in advertising. To keep himself sane, he wrote bizarre short stories such as "Elves Against Hitler," "Conversion in a Terminal Subway," and "...And the Birds Hummed Dirges!" He noticed acquaintance Roy Thomas working at Marvel, and Thomas sent him Marvel's standard writing test, dialoguing Daredevil art. He was soon made a regular on Daredevil and Sub-Mariner, and the newly created Man-Thing, the latter of which pegged him as having a strong personal style--intellectual, introspective, and literary. In one issue, he introduced an anthropomorphic duck into a horror fantasy, because he wanted something weird and incongruous, and Thomas made the character, named for Gerber's childhood friend Howard, fall to his apparent death in the following issue. Fans were outraged, and the character was revived in a new and deeply personal series. Gerber said in interview that the joke of Howard the Duck is that "there is no joke." The series was existential and dealt with the necessities of life, such as finding employment to pay the rent. Such unusual fare for comicbooks also informed his writing on The Defenders. Other works included Morbius, the Lving Vampire, The Son of Satan, Tales of the Zombie, The Living Mummy, Marvel Two-in-One, Guardians of the Galaxy, Shanna the She-Devil, and Crazy Magazine for Marvel, and Mister Miracle, Metal Men, The Phantom Zone , and The Immortal Doctor Fate for DC. Gerber eventually lost a lawsuit for control of Howard the Duck when he was defending artist Gene Colan's claim of delayed paychecks for the series, which was less important to him personally because he had a staff job and Colan did not.

He left comics for animation in the early 1980s, working mainly with Ruby-Spears, creating Thundarr the Barbarian with Alex Toth and Jack Kirby and episodes of The Puppy's Further Adventures, and Marvel Productions, where he was story editor on multiple Marvel series including Dungeons & Dragons, G.I. Joe, and The Transformers. He continued to dabble in comics, mainly for Eclipse, including the graphic novel Stewart the Rat, the two-part horror story "Role Model: Caring, Sharing, and Helping Others," and the seven-issue Destroyer Duck with Jack Kirby, which began as a fundraiser for Gerber's lawsuit.

In the early 1990s, he returned to Marvel with Foolkiller, a ten-issue limited series featuring a new version of a villain he had used in The Man-Thing and Omega the Unknown, who communicated with a previous version of the character through internet bulletin boards. An early internet adopter himself, he wrote two chapters of BBSs for Dummies with Beth Woods Slick, with whom he also wrote the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Contagion." During this period, he also wrote The Sensational She-Hulk and Cloak and Dagger for Marvel, Cybernary and WildC.A.T.s for Image, and Sludge and Exiles for the writer-driven Malibu Ultraverse, and Nevada for DC's mature readers Vertigo line.

In 2002, he returned to the Howard the Duck character for Marvel's mature readers MAX line, and for DC created Hard Time with Mary Skrenes, with whom he had co-created the cult hit Omega the Unknown for Marvel. Their ending for Omega the Unknown remains a secret that Skrenes plans to take to the grave if Marvel refuses to publish it. Suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ("idiopathic" meaning of unknown origin despite having been a heavy smoker much of his life), he was on a waiting list for a double lung transplant. His final work was the Doctor Fate story arc, "More Pain Comics," for DC Comics'

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marvel in the 1970s had, to me, a lot of cool SiFi influences in their stories. The original Guardians are a great example, genetically modified humans that were used to colonize Earth's solar system in the future. Very different than the current Guardians they were a combination Superhero story, war story and SiFi story all rolled into one in the Mighty Marvel Manner. Great classic art and story. Recommended

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right, I decided to have a fortnight off reviewing to coincide with my fortnight off work and, because I've been so busy at work since I got back, two weeks without reviewing has turned into nearly three, so I have twenty five reviews to write now and I daren't put it off any longer so here we have:

Twenty Five 'Reviews' in One Day: Book 1!

This volume collects the first appearances of the original Guardians of the Galaxy (aka the ones that confuse the heck out of MCU newbies). This includes their debut in Marvel Super Heroes #18, their headlining run in Marvel Presents and their guest appearances Marvel Two-In-One and The Defenders.

All-in-all, the quality isn't great. Mediocre artwork and storylines like a bad episode of Star Trek leaves you with a book that's just OK. As much as I wish I could champion the original Guardians I have to admit that... well, I prefer the newer version of the team.

My next book: Mr. Rush

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvel Super-Heroes (18). It's great to see this first appearance of the Guardians. Mind you, it's kind of flawed: the artwork is very primitive and blocky, the writing is mediocre, and Yondu gets a somewhat racist depiction. But it's still full of original and innovative ideas, particularly for the time [7/10].

Marvel Two-In-One (4-5). The Guardians' return five years later is a sloppy story, primarily because Gerber likes his continuing stories, rather unusually for the time period. Thus we get lots of what was going on at the time in Marvel Two-in-One and very little of the actual Guardians, and what we see is mostly fighting -- which isn't that unusual for the time period. It's good to see the Guardians' new costumes and also to see a pretty epic storyline, but it's not particularly great [5/10].

Defenders (GS5, 26-29). This arc really doesn't start off very encouragingly, with a battle against Eelar, the mutated electric eel (seriously!), but from there it becomes an epic battle for Earth itself. There are also a lot of innovative introductions here, like the young Vance Astro, the Sisterhood of the Badoon, and Starhawk. So, there's a lot to love in what's the Guardians' first really major story [7+/10].

The Gerber Marvel Presents (3-7, 9). After Gerber rather suddenly closes off the Badoon storyline, he moves on to the wacky, psychedelic, drugged-out stories that were more typical of his run on Defenders. They're kind of delightful to see in the outer space setting, but also not as great as more the epic and sensible Badoon stories. The highlight is surely Gerber's last regular issue, which manages to convey exactly the big-picture ideas that he was trying to convey -- though I'm quite happy that he was able to come back and detail part of Starhawk's origin, which was quite interesting too [7/10].

Silver Surfer (8). Ick! Pretty much the definition of a fill-in. Not only does this story not fit into continuity, but as far as I can tell, it's mostly a reprint of an old Silver Surfer story -- and one that wasn't that interesting. I would have preferred they just include the Silver Surfer story back in its appropriate place, and skip this silly frame [4/10].

The Stern Marvel Presents (10-12). Unfortunately, Stern doesn't really keep the strip up to the standards of wackiness and thoughtfulness that Gerber set. The plots aren't nearly as interesting, and often read more like Star Wars than Guardians. I also really didn't like some of the elements: the finale to the origin of Starhawk didn't make much sense; and the conclusion of the kids' storyline felt very disrespectful of what Gerber had set up. I came close to skimming some of these final issues. Nonetheless, it was good to have the conclusion [4/10].

Overall, this is great space adventure of a sort that was likely totally unprecedented at the time. It still holds up well, and Marvel did a really good job of collecting together this storyline from its several major sources.

[Harold Ogle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommendation: A compilation of the 1967-1974 origin of the Guardians of the Galaxy, an interesting blend of bog-standard comics tropes with over-the-top space opera elements. It's fun to see how the science and the characters themselves change even during such a short period.

Critique: As with a lot of comics, the characters in Guardians of the Galaxy morph and change over time. That the change is often made for no other reason than because a new writer and/or artist comes along is abundantly made clear in this volume. Charlie-27 is a Jovian, and in the initial issue he is portrayed as a burly blob: a massive man whose body and even skeleton have been squashed vertically due to the extreme gravity of Jupiter. His head is the size and shape of a manhole cover; he looks more compact than a Sontaran from Doctor Who. In every other issue, that character design is abandoned; Charlie-27 is portrayed as a stocky Earthman, a bald Ben Grimm. I like how alien the Guardians are, so I lament that change.

But there are other inconsistencies that I regret less. Yondu is initially presented as a stereotypical savage (poorly coded, racist depiction of a Native American), speaking with poor grammar and also rather dimwitted. This improves somewhat over the course of the story. In the first issue, Charlie-27 lands on Jupiter's surface and walks around, which I find hilarious; in a later issue (when Jupiter's composition was better understood by astronomers and writers) that is retconned into being one of Jupiter's moons. It's fun to see how this changes.

The dialogue in the book is standard 60s and 70s-era Marvel comics: pretty terrible, with everything not a question being an exclamation, and a whole lot of those exclamations being explanatory ("All I've got to do is reverse my psychic energy from the soldes of my shoes...and...pow!" or "Light energy, concentrated by my crystal-tissue, delivers extreme heat through my right hand! So much for your gun sight, no?")

The Starhawk stuff is pretty kooky, but it also feels inconsistent. Starhawk is made up of two people, and the face (s)he shows to the Guardians is that of Stakar, the husband, and Aleta, who is his wife. But in the first few issues, Aleta keeps showing up in visions and on vid screens as communicating commands to Starhawk, which he obeys like she's the one with authority rather than an equal partner. That would be fine, except that she doesn't do that ever again after their secret is revealed. It's distressingly like the authors couldn't conceive of a partnership on equal footing, so made Aleta - a woman with power - a bossy nag. Which is also disappointing when contrasted with Valkyrie's story from the previous Defenders story arc, in which she keeps aggrievedly asserting her independence from her clingy normie husand, who keeps trying to get her to behave like a "good, meek wife should." Like I said, different writers make a world of difference.

Like the problem with Jupiter (is it solid? Is it gas? Is it liquid? Can people walk on the surface, or not?), there is also inconsistency with the Topographical Man. This is a giant figure far larger than a single solar system, as its body bridges the interstellar space between two neighboring stars. Its body is literal light years across! But when they are traversing his body on foot, it seems like it's actually only the size of, say, the Death Star (a small moon), because on foot they can see the shape of different facial features. That's already ridiculous with Unicron in "Transformers: the Movie," and Unicron was only the size of a large rocky planet like Earth! The scale is completely out of whack. But that's on the artist (and possibly the writer, if the writer described panels as "You can see the peak of his nose in the background"); it's inconsistent within the same issue!

Like most Marvel characters, the Guardians began as a one-shot experiment. Marvel produced a lot of marquee titles (Spider-man, X-Men, Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc), but they also produced grab-bag titles like "Marvel Super-Heroes" that weren't tied to any particular hero or group, which they then used to test run ideas for new series. If they sold well and they got positive feedback from the readers, they'd be inclined to revisit those characters in a future story. Well, in MSH #18, Marvel debuted "The Guardians of the Galaxy." Either they got enough positive feedback or the set-up intrigued one of the writers, who requested to include the Guardians in their stories. So the plot of this book - the storyline of the first Guardians of the Galaxy - is a bit disjointed and the focus jumps around quite a bit. After appearing in MSH, the Guardians guest-starred in Marvel Two-in-One and the Defenders for several issues. The story is disjointed and weird, because there wasn't a sense that there needed to be an ongoing through-line for the Guardians. As guest stars, they would show up where the writers wanted them to be. So they started in the 29th century and the Thing and Captain America traveled through time to adventure with them in one arc, then in the next they are crashing their spaceship in 20th century Central Park. Then they time travel back to the future with Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and the Hulk in tow, the group gets split up across a bunch of different worlds, and have to fight their way back together to defeat the Badoon once more. Then the Defenders return to the Earth and it's just the Guardians trying to deal with the drama of Starhawk being two people, male and female, while the galaxy is being devoured by energivores and Vance Astro suddenly exhibits a bunch of neuroses. And last but not least, Nikki the Mercurian saves the universe with some galactic sex (nothing is shown, but the narration is pretty definite that there's cosmic lovemaking). The plot is completely bananas, and more than a little racy for a Marvel title. It's not executed all that well, but the amount of gonzo, over-the-top space opera elements elevated this title for me.

Review: Charlie-27, a Jovian human, returns to Jupiter after a deep-space journey (in this first issue, Jupiter is solid, and people can walk on the surface), only to discover that all the inhabitants enslaved by an invading force of reptilian bipeds, the Badoon. Charlie-27, monumentally strong due to his being a supersoldier trained in the heaviest gravity of the solar system, escapes capture by jumping into a transmat terminal. After hours of travel as radio waves, Charlie-27 rematerializes all the way out on Pluto, where he meets the last Pluvian, a crystalline human named Martinex who can absorb light and convert it into heat rays (his right hand) or freeze rays (his left hand). Since Pluto has also been conquered, they jump into a Transmat for Earth, in the hopes that the homeworld hasn't been fully conquered yet. Most of it has. Charlie-27 and Martinex arrive in time to rescue Vance Astro (a 20th-century astronaut who was preserved for a centuries-long journey to another star system and developed telekinetic powers during his 1000-year sleep) and Yondu (an alien warrior native to the world where Vance finally landed). The four of them team up with some resistance fighters and enjoy a small victory, swearing that they will continue the fight until humanity is liberated from the Badoon overlords.

Next, the Thing, Sharon Carter, and Captain America gets Reed Richards and Medusa to help them travel forward in time 1000 years to help a resistance fighter who mysteriously materialized inside the Baxter Building. They are overwhelmed by the Badoon forces: a giant Badoon ogre and hundreds of mind-controlled humans (unimaginatively called "Zoms"). But the resistance fighter escapes to contact the Guardians while the Badoon leader mind probes the 20th century heroes. They are able to rally and fight back, escaping long enough for the Guardians to arrive, turn the tide, and introduce themselves. Together they are able to liberate the city that was New York. Then the Earth heroes' time warp expired, and they are returned to their home time.

Next, the Defenders (Nighthawk, Hulk, Valkyrie, Doctor Strange) deal with a strange animal-human hybrid creature called Eelar, interspersed with scenes of a young boy sneaking out to look at the stars and dream of being a hero. We also discover that the Guardians have landed their spaceship (named the "Captain America") in Central Park, pursuing a Badoon brain recorder which they hope contains Badoon strategic information or other secrets. It turns out that the recorder mutated an eel in the Hudson River, turning into the supervillain Eelar. Doctor Strange is very concerned about this, and the Defenders confer with the Guardians. Vance tells the 1000-year history of Earth, and they discover that the young boy is Vance himself (who, in 20 years, will be an astronaut who gets preserved for his interstellar journey). Strange erases young Vance's memory and sends him back home, then mystically transports the spaceship and all the heroes in orbit and 1000 years into the future. They prepare to transmat the first group - Hulk, Valkyrie, Vance, and Yondu - down to the surface, but the Badoon scramble the beams and the four are split into two pairs, each going to a different random location. Vance and Valkyrie end up on the Badoon home world, which is populated only by the females of the species. They are rescued by the One who Knows, Starhawk, who escorts them to the capitol. The females there are civilized, and explain that every few years the male Badoon come down in a fleet and rape the women, abandon any girls that had hatched since the last visit, and carry the fertilized eggs away.

Meanwhile, the primitive world Hulk and Yondu were transported to turns out to be a hedonist's paradise, with everyone drunk, high, getting it on, and trashing public property: basically every carnal instinct except physically harming another. Huge battle robots show up and punish any transgressions. Hulk and Yondu are pretty good at fighting robots, so their destruction of some basic bruiser bots grabs the attention of the emperor, who subdues them with a swarm of huge battle robots. They are fitted with will-nullifying helmets and pressed into service into a bloodsport arena, which is the only outlet for acceptable physical violence available in their society. There's plenty of emotional violence, though, as they find out when the emperor's concubine gets the hots for the Hulk, makes lustful noises at him, and the emperor banishes them both to an icy, remote part of the planet populated by super-tough giant ant robots. Free of his mind control, Hulk defends the pretty lady and they survive long enough to be teleported back to the capitol. There they are set up for public execution...

When Starhawk, Valkyrie, and Vance Astro appear and rescue them. Using a combination of Starhawk and Doctor Strange's powers, they are able to teleport back to Earth, where they are able to defeat the local Badoon forces' headquarters, giving the resistance the boost to start to turn the tide. Satisfied that Earth will be liberated, the Defenders return to the 20th century and the Guardians - now joined by Starhawk - take off in the Captain America to pursue the Badoon threat outside of their solar system.

In the Marvel Presents: Guardians of the Galaxy storyline, the Captain America is leaving the Sol system when they find/rescue Nikki, a Mercurian girl, adrift in an abandoned spaceship. As they travel the galaxy, tracking down Badoon to fight, they are attacked by a huge fleet, the Reavers of Arcturus. While they're dealing with that menace, a number of things develop: Starhawk (who is from Arcturus) gets more and more cryptic, eventually revealing that he is both male and female, when the ancient Starhawk armor that gave Stakar cosmic powers merged his body and soul with that of his dying wife, Aleta. They had three kids, which were thought killed, but were actually rescued by Aleta's evil, power-mad father, the leaders of the Reavers. Obsessed with exacting revenge on Starhawk, the Reavers have brainwashed Starhawk's children (who have many of the same cosmic powers as Starhawk) to become amoral gods of destruction, energy vampires. The kids are eventually defeated by their own powers, as their powers cause them to accelerate time in their bodies.

The Guardians continue on. Vance has been brooding for some time; he has a complex about never being able to touch another person (he's encased in a copper suit to protect his body, which, because of his 1000-year stasis, would crumble to dust if ever it was exposed to regular air, so he can never feel skin-on-skin contact) and is overcome with loneliness. This results in him mad crushing on every girl he sees. He stumbles across Aleta one time when she has asserted control of the Starhawk body, transforming it from Stakar's likeness to that of her former busty blonde babe form. Vance is sweating his sexual attraction to his usually-male teammate, so when Nikki joins the team, he becomes as awkward and hormonal as a fourteen-year-old boy: stammering and stuttering when she's around, prone to temper tantrums around the others. He's a pill. But then a completely different group of energy vampires appear: vast, vaguely frog-looking creatures the size of planets streaming out from the galactic core to devour all life, all energy. The Guardians take turns chasing and being chased by one of these frog gods, and they end up in/on the "Topographical Man," a giant humanoid mass that magically has not compressed down into a supermassive black hole, because in each hand it holds a star in a neighboring star system. Which means it is almost unimaginably huge: light years across, by far the largest physical object ever to appear in any comic or other work of fiction, with possibly the mass of a MILLION SUNS. They manage to land on this thing, trying to track down the energy monsters (which for some reason have set this up as their lair) and a way to overload the Topographical Man. Niki gets loaded onto a throne that sets her on fire, igniting her into incandescence. Her soul leaves her body and grows to titanic proportions. Somehow Vance's consciousness inhabits the topographical man, which is apparently anatomically correct, because he and the spirit Nikki colossus assert the primacy of Life over Nothingness by engaging in some really Cosmic Sex. The energy monsters utterly defeated, the Guardians continue their journey in the Captain America, with Nikki unfazed by her sexual awakening and Vance completely mortified.

[Zack! Empire · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really nice collection. I've actually become a fan of the original, and seemingly less popular, versions of the Guardians. This book also made me want to have a nice Marvel Two in One color collection, read more of The Defenders, and I'm definitely a fan of Steve Gerber now. There's also two text peices at the end where Steve Gerber and Roger Stern, who comes on to write the last few issues after Steve, talk about working on Guardians. I really like those glimpses into the old Marvel Bullpen. I can definitely see myself picking up the second volume of this.

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has nothing in common with the Guardians of the MCU but that’s ok because I’m here for the Steve Gerber nuttiness.

[Andy Goldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s been quite a while since my last graphic novel review. Partly this is because I tore through a bunch of new Valiant graphic novels (reviews to come later), but it was also because I’ve been reading this dense collection of the original Guardian of the Galaxy comics. Well, I’m finally done, so here are my thoughts on it.

I was first introduced to the Guardians of the Galaxy in 1990 with Jim Valentino’s version of the comic. I bought three copies of issue #1 and I got them signed, thus assuring my financial future! But much like this version of the Guardians, the future in which I got rich from collecting comics was only a possible future. Alas, it was not meant to be. But I digress. After collecting the Valentino run for a while, I worked on collecting earlier appearances of the Guardians, but never got them all. That’s where this handy volume comes in. The 18 issues it compiles bring the Guardians from guest star status alongside the Thing and the Defenders, to their own run in Marvel Presents.

So who are these original Guardians, in case you’re only familiar with the new team? They start off with Major Vance Astro, an Earth native sent on a 1000-year voyage in stasis. The only problem is that hyperdrive is developed while he’s on his voyage, so humans from Earth have already populated the galaxy when he arrives at his destination. Plus, he is somehow damaged by the stasis and has to be encased in a full body suit lest he disintegrate. But his eyes and mouth can be uncovered. And he has psychic powers. And he’s kind of a whiny teenager in a grown-up’s body, and … what was he going to do at the end of his 1000 year voyage if people hadn’t developed hyperdrive while he was asleep, anyway? It’s best not too think too deeply about him. He’s old, he’s pissed, and he’s kind of an ass. ‘Nuff said.

Charlie-27 is the last survivor of the genetically-modified humans who lived on Jupiter. Same with Martinex, except he’s the last survivor of Pluto. Charlie-27 is big and strong, and Martinex can create and manipulate fire and ice, because Pluto. The last member of the team is Yondu, a version of which became Michael Rooker’s character in the recent movie.

Later on, the team grows to include Starhawk, a character who is “One Who Knows,” which means he gets to move the plot along and act mysterious. He also turns into a woman sometimes, which gets explained toward the end of this volume. Nikki, the last Mercurian, also joins the team. Her power is… she’s got spunk? In an essay in the back of this volume, Stever Gerber says “she was our token female and our token Mercurian.” Way to kill two birds with one stone.

Okay, so that’s who the Guardians are, but what do they do? Well, they don’t get to guarding the galaxy for a while. The first half of this volume involves them kicking the alien Badoon off of Earth, where they have turned the remaining human population into slaves. The Badoon, a race of lizard-like humanoids, are also the reason why so many of the team are the last of their kind. To get rid of these vile creatures requires help from the past in the form of Captain America, the Thing, Doctor Strange, and the Hulk, to name a few guest stars.

The second half of the volume takes the Guardians off Earth and out into the galaxy. There’s some inventive ideas in here, a lot of silly ones, and more than a few batshit crazy ones, like a giant (we’re talking light-years-long) humanoid being whose existence is anti-life itself.

I mentioned before that there’s an essay in the back from Steve Gerber. There’s also one by Roger Stern. Reading them puts a new light on some of the strangeness in the preceding comics, as it makes clear how much of the comic was a seat-of-the-pants affair. Here’s Roger Stern on taking over from Steve Gerber:

[It] was basically my first title for Marvel. I picked it up under circumstances that have since become a trademark for Marvel–it was already late, and not only that, but my first issue was to be the conclusion of a two-part tale about the origin of Starhawk. When Steve brought in the pages of the preceding issue, I said, ‘Gee, this is really bizarre, Steve! How does it end?’ And Steve revealed that he hadn’t really figured that out yet. I was thunderstruck.”

Given that sort of planning, it’s no surprise that these stories meander a bit, but there’s some fun and powerful stuff in there along with the filler. Especially toward the end of this volume, there are stories that pack more of an emotional wallop than I expected from the stories that came before.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read much of this as individual comics when they came out in the mid-70s when I was in junior high. Revisiting it all these years later, it hasn't aged well for me. Steve Gerber's writing really irritates me, especially the character development. I don't believe any of these people would stay together as a team once their primary, shared enemy is dispatched. And, with the addition of Starhawk, the constant infighting really goes into overdrive. It's hinted that Vance Astro is building up to a major breakdown, then it's never brought up again. Gerber always comes up with conflicts that have some deep, psychological basis that seem like they're intended to be a guided LSD trip for the recipient to learn about their inner selves. Mmmmm...Fun for awhile, but I was glad to see the writer credit change to Roger Stern towards the end. In an included interview, Stern says, "My approach to Guardians was very different to Steve's. His stories were very psychological, and mine were more space-opera." The art is very inconsistent and probably why I didn't buy every issue, back then, as much as being underwhelmed by pretty convoluted stories. In the end, it's good, but not compelling. People coming to GOTG via the films may pass these early days by and be okay.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this would be the new take on the Guardians of the Galaxy when I first got it on interlibrary loan. It turned out to be the original appearances explaining how the group got to together and letting us get to know it's original members and where they came from. I liked the book. I know to some people it probably comes off as cheesy but I kind of like the light straightforward story sometimes so it totally worked for me. Although I thought of this as a superhero book when I first got it after reading it all I definitely felt like it had more of a science fiction space exploration story. Still working on quantifying why that is.

[Blythe Penland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this volume was an interesting start to a group of supposed future Avengers. I hadn't realized that the Guardians were as old as 1967. I mainly started reading the Guardians from the beginning because I wanted to read all the history and how these Guardians became the Guardians that I met and unreasonably attached myself to in the MCU back in 2014. The character of Yondu Udonta makes a lot more sense as basically a Native American from an Earth interstellar colony. I find it intriguing that the first and only issue of the Guardians didn't receive a second appearance, on even their own series, until years later. The transformation of some of said characters is also a nice change. Charlie-27 no longer wears that odd jumpsuit with squarish helmet. And Vance Astro was never meant to be purple. I was already somewhat familiar with these specific Guardians due to the Guardians 3000 comic, but I find that it's strange they repeated the same story line with the added bonus of Geena Drake. I was glad to see the Brotherhood of the Badoon defeated yet again, with the help of the Dynamic Defenders. I don't know much about the Defenders, but I was awfully confused to see that Valkyrie inhabited the body of a Midgardian and stole Barbara Norris' body from her. And poor Jack Norris lost his wife in the process (though, he was a bit sexist and he didn't believe in people with super powers at all). I think I liked Nikki better in this version than in Guardians 3000. Her backstory is much more clearly defined, but she is just as badass as I remember her. Though she can fend for herself, I get lost trying to keep track of her relationships. Charlie-27 seemed to be quite offended any time someone even looked wrongly in Nikki's direction. That didn't seem to mean anything since Nikki's spirit cosmically consummated with the Planetary (Topographic) Man who was possibly hosting Vance's spirit? That part was exceptionally weird and baffling. I think that scene was the reason the whole volume was rated T. That was some effed-up sugar honey iced tea. Starhawk might be a bit more of an anomaly than anything else in the series, though. He is a mutant from a planet that the Arcturians invaded and stole him from, mistakenly believing him to be of their own race. He was adopted by Ogord, one of the invaders, and became brother to Aleta. At some point later in life, he found the Hawk God's underground chamber with his adoptive sister and her psyche was trapped with the Hawk God. In order to save her, Stakar fused their conscious together and they share the same body through Starhawk's power. As if that's not hard enough to follow, they're from a thousand years ago, but a few years ago, Stakar and Aleta decided to have test-tube made children. John, Sita, and Tara were killed due to their grandfather's lust for absolute power. That is some messed-up stuff. And other than the fact that Starhawk banded the Guardians together after the human revolution against the Badoon because none of them seemed to fit in with Earthers anymore, Vance Astro seems to be the leader. Unfortunately, he's just as unhinged. His metal cage that keeps him from turning to 1,000-year-old dust has driven him to the brink of madness because he can never touch another living being or change outfits or see his own face again. All in all, I got sucked into the additiveness of this madness and I need more to read. I recommend this book to those seeking high adventure of sci-fi adventure.

[Bob Wolniak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important backstory to the team including its original appearances and unique cast of characters which is not the same as today's movies (except Yondu). I bought this volume because it included the Defenders #26-29 Baddon revolution story I remembered so well from childhood. Most of the early stories were about how each member is the last of their race from human colonies on other planets banded together to fight the galaxy-spanning Badoon empire. The later stories introduce Nikki and give more of the origin of Starhawk. Unfortunately, much of this volume has very uneven illustration that would not be appealing to this generation.

[Surly Gliffs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gary lent me this book. Hey comics! Probably the star of the show is Milgrom, whose penciling is above average for era, and Gerber occasionally strives for high space opera. Otherwise a fairly typical specimen of the era, largely patterned on the familiar Fantastic 4 tropes: Vance Astro as the id (a 1000-year-old man at the emotional level of a 12-year-old); Charlie-27 as the ego (hey, look, muscles!); and Martinex as the superego (can't we be rational about this?). And look, there's a girl or two in this book! Girls are pretty but don't have much agency. With those caveats, diverting but not stellar.

[Ashley Stanton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some parts were really good but for the most part, I was just really confused. I actually didnt know the original guardians and disliked the majority of them. I dont generally like when a story tells you to care about someone and doesnt give you a reason. That being said, I liked when they teamed up with other known teams or stuck to a main storyline. The worst parts were when they veered off on random adventures with no real reason to be doing so and not giving the reader a reason to care about the story. I'll probably continue to read the classic guardians just to see how they got to the more modern group.

[Mr. Stick · Rating 2 out of 5]

"IT WAS THE YEAR 1988! EARTHMEN NOW HAD A SMALL MOON COLONY OPERATING, AND THE FIRST LANDINGS ON MARS HAD TAKEN PLACE -- BUT NOW WE WERE STRIKING FOR THE STARS THEMSELVES...!"
- Major Vance Astro

That first issue (written by Stan Lee in 1969) was corny and awesome. Like a 50's sci-fi radio show... but, God help me, I really enjoyed it.
How can Stan write so much cheesy stuff, and yet own the $#!+ out of it?
Marvel Two-In-One #'s 4-5, with Thing and Cap, were likewise not bad.
I particularly enjoyed the Silver Surfer story toward the end.
Most of this was a painful slog. The few bright points made this readable.
Two-and-a-half stars.

[Your_Average_Magical_Girls_Fan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring story, rampant sexism and racism, panels cluttered by useless and redundant captions, this is the "genius" Steve Gerber? really? this could be named "The Great Darkness Saga Part II" and nobody would see any difference between the two. Crap, plain and simple. Also, I don't get why people thinks these are different from the current Guardians of The Galaxy since here too there are jokes about smelly people that aren't funny in the slightest.
If I were you, I wouldn't bother with this at all.

[aCupcakeBlonde · Rating 1 out of 5]

I kept waiting for the Guardians to show up. I did not know this was the original Guardians comic so I was disappointed when none of the characters I enjoy were in them. Also, Xandu the one character I did recognize, was really a racist charicature of himself.

[Victor · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Brent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A zany and madcap little romp through space with the original Guardians of the Galaxy. Pretty fun stuff.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this book was about as much fun as chewing chalk. Mediocre is the kindest word I use when describing these stories. This book is for masochists and completists only.

[Gary Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Great Marvel Readthrough, pt 308

[Adam Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book collects the early appearances of the original Guardians of the Galaxy Team that feature Major Vance Astro from Earth, Charlie-27 from Jupiter, Yondu from Centauri IV and Martinex, the Crystal Man from Pluto. Later Starhawk and Nikki, a Mercurian Girl were added later. The book features the Guardian's pilot story in 1969's Marvel Superheroes #18, their Guest Appearance with the Thing and Captain America in Marvel Two-in-One #4 and 5 and with the Defenders in Giant Sized Defenders #5 and Issues 26-29 before they took over Marvel Presents for Issues #3-12.

The stories are okay. The pilot issue by Arnold Drake introduces but doesn't give them a lot of definition. Writer Steve Gerber's obsession with them, even to the point of bringing modern Marvel Characters to the future in these crossover stories explains why the Guardians survived, even though the actual stars really dominated the stories. I liked the idea in Marvel Two-in-One #5 that Captain America's legend inspires people fighting for freedom even a millennia later and the Guardians' big focus is on freeing the Earth which both the Defenders and Captain America and the Thing gave them a hand towards.

In Marvel Presents #3, this plot was dispense summarily so that our heroes could enjoy the freedom of the Stars with Starhawk joining the series and Nikki coming along to be the "token woman" to quote an interview with Gerber published in the back of this volume. Such brilliant character development led to some flat characters. He worked in one dimension to each character, with Vance he chose to make him unbalanced. A dubious creative choice given that as someone originally from the 20th Century was actually the character readers could relate to. Gerber focused on social commentary including the idea that the apocalypse was brought about in the 1980s as a result of not banning aerosol spray cans.

However, as often happened at Marvel in the 1970s, Gerber became over-tasked as evidenced by Issue 8 which mostly reprints a Silver Surfer story with a half hearted Guardians frame around it. Gerber started Part One of the origin of Starhawk but ended up handing the storyline off halfway completed to Roger Stern without actually knowing how it ends. Stern actually does a pretty good job with the hand he was dealt and finishes the series off with style.

This is a very choppy and uneven series of comics. This answers the question of the origins of the original Guardians of the Galaxy Team and provides some average comics (through Issue 8) and then the book gets a bit better.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who was introduced to the Guardians of the Galaxy through the movie, but they actually had a different line-up before that. That is, the comics came out before, but took place after, as this team primarily operated in the thirty-first century. This is a time when the galaxy has been conquered by lizard-people known as the Badoon, and they've wiped out Earth's colonies on the other planets in our solar system. The Guardians consisted of Vance Astro, a twentieth-century astronaut kept alive by his suit; Charlie-27, a giant-sized militiaman from Jupiter; the crystalline Martinex T'Naga from Pluto; the flame-haired Nikki Gold from Mercury; the weapons master Yondu Udonta from Centauri IV (okay, he WAS in the movie, but his personality was pretty different); and Starhawk, a mysterious being with the powers of an ancient hawk-god. Since team-ups are a staple of superhero franchises, several stories either involve the Guardians going back in time or heroes from the present journeying into the future. The stories collected in this book have Captain America, the Thing, the Hulk, and Dr. Strange fighting alongside the Guardians. Since many of the Marvel heroes have their home bases in New York City, it's not surprising they'd run into each other pretty often, but that becomes a bit less likely when other planets and thousand-year time gaps come into play. The stories are kind of silly, but the characters are fun and have interesting designs. Although it ended up being destroyed, I liked Starhawk's rustic cabin on an asteroid, a clever mix of the futuristic and archaic. By the way, if Starhawk's children consider Stakar their father and Aleta their mother, and the two of them are adopted siblings who share the same body, how did they reproduce?

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a kid the individual comics that are collected in this compilation charged my imagination in ways that only a few others comics did. There was the Fantastic Four and Kamandi (and maybe OMAC), but the Guardians of the Galaxy had something those others didn't, they didn't have a regular comic series. There was nothing like not having a regular diet of something to fuel the hunger for more.
These stories created a future history for the Marvel Universe that loosely tied together the cybernetic nightmares of Astonishing Tales and the Amazing Adventures of revolutionaries fighting off Martian invaders and only left me wanting more and more. Whether it was a visit from the Thing, Captain America and SHIELD agent Sharon Carter or the help of the entire non-team of the Defenders, the Guardians of the Galaxy were going to free their future earth from the evil Badoon or die trying. But the biggest threat would come only after the succeeded!
Today's readers might be disappointed that their is no Starlord, Rocket Raccoon or Groot in these pages, but this was the original version of the Guardians of the Galaxy and those cinematic characters wouldn't be created for decades after these original Guardians had appeared and saved their future galaxy from the Badoon, the Topographical Man and Arcturian Reavers.

[Mike Clooney · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume reprints the Guardians' mid-1970s series in its entirety, as well as all of their prior appearances. It's steeply priced for a moderate-length paperback at 40 bucks, and there's a second volume which reprints the remainder of the Guardians' Bronze Age appearances at the same price. These two volumes could easily have been combined into one $20.00 black-and-white Essentials book. I don't know that there's much of an audience for high-end color reprints of these mostly-mediocre yarns.

The majority of issues contained here are written by Steve Gerber, but don't come close to approaching the quality of his classic runs on MAN-THING and HOWARD THE DUCK. It reads something like a second-rate mash-up between Star Trek and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Gerber himself admits (in an included text piece) that science fiction isn't a genre for which he has a particular affinity, and his lack of interest shows. The characterization is muddled, the plots are aimless, and Gerber's take on the future setting is anything but visionary (Martinex needs a transistor to repair the Guardians' starship, for example). The art by a novice Al Milgrom is uneven, but is strengthened in the issues inked by Terry Austin and Bob Wiacek.

For die-hard enthusiasts of 70s comics only... but even they will probably be put off by the price-tag.

[Budd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun if somewhat corny book. Corny, mostly because it is so dated. It was a huge mistake of having a character from the 70's/80's era in the far future as a member of the team. This original version of the team has several members, most are post human inhabitants of other planets in our solar system. While it is fun imagining what these people would be like, it really makes the invasion look implausible. These few guys that are so tough are the exact genetic makeup of everyone else on their respective planets. Yet the Badoon march in and take over only to be forced out by a very small group. Doesn't make sense. Not to mention that they fly around in a mock up of the Enterprise that they have named the Captain America.

This book is wordy. It is about 20 issues of some of the wordiest comics you will read. not that this is either good or bad, it is and you should just be expecting it. Not great, but not horrible either. There is some good writing tucked away in several issues and some interesting ideas that seldom ever seem to get fully explored. The art is on par with other titles of the time and some of it is rather striking.

[Jason Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The clearest appeal of this book is the artwork. Art from Sal Buscema and Al Milgrom, with bright coloring on top of it, makes the stories largely set in space and with people shooting power beams very appealing to look at.

And the stories themselves are very interesting. The stories of the Guardians are able to build a lot of suspense. For one thing, the Guardians are trying to save the world from worldwide subjugation in the 30th century. And then a lot of stories involve flying a spaceship across space, so you don't know where you're going, what forces are at play.

Steve Gerber's run on the characters is the best. He's able to build a lot of psychological things for the different aliens in the group, as well as place them in distressing situations that build up tension.

A lot of cool looking/poweful characters blasting through weird looking things, and the art is great. This is the cosmic Marvel stuff in the mid-late 70s that is usually very entertaining and impressive (considering it's comic books).

5/5

[Blake Petit · Rating 4 out of 5]

The earliest tales of the original Guardians of the Galaxy are still a fun read. Superhero stories set in the far future incorporate tons of sci-fi and space opera tropes: the man frozen in time, new strains of humanity evolving super powers based on what planet they're on, an alien invasion force and, of course via time-travel, appearances by the likes of Captain America, the Thing, and the Defenders. The early Guardians stories do go a bit further, with innovative ideas like the bizarre relationship between the two genders of the Badoon and the tragic fate of Vance Astro. I was a fan of these Guardians long before there was a movie, but I admit, it's the movie that gave me the urge to revisit them.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first thing that I can recall reading by Steve Gerber. He seems to have written number of weird superhero comics in the 70s. The Guardians of the Galaxy were one of his many creations. There were heroes from the 30th century, but really there didn't seem to be anything that marked them as being from another millenium. The one exception is that there each were from different genetically altered human species. The storytelling of Gerber, or perhaps of the 70s seems less complex or developed than current comic books. Though Roger Stern took over the writing towards the end, and he's one of my favorites.

[Mike McDevitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Moments of creativity in this text-dense downbeat seventies SF tale. The story of a handful of PTSD space adventurers, each of whom is the "last" of his people, fighting to free a post-apocalyptic Earth from the enslavement of the space-lizard Badoons.

I can only assume, like Solaris, that the tedium could be relived by ingesting seventies-era chemicals. Which, in fairness, I do not recommend.

Try DC's Legion of Super-Heroes instead. Or the modern group (in name only) Guardians of the Galaxy.

[Mhorg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the first story in here that introduces the original Guardians, but the later stories are just paint by numbers and I found them less than interesting. Forcing the Guardians into the past to join the modern ,Marvel universe was a bad idea, and I found the starhawk storyline totally convoluted and uninteresting. A curiosity at best.