What do you think?
Rate this book
Guardians of the Galaxy: Road to Annihilation #1
Guardians of the Galaxy Road to Annihilation 1
She's the deadliest woman in the galaxy. He's the ultimate destroyer. Together they're two of the Guardians' heaviest hitters. Now find out what Gamora and Drax got up to in the years before the Annihilation events united the team! Adam Warlock's latest resurrection brings his Infinity Watch allies back together - but will Gamora or Drax become an enemy? The Destroyer's battle with a new Captain Marvel will plunge them into the Microverse! When Thanos seeks to send all reality spinning into the abyss, Gamora joins an assemblage of heroes including Warlock, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange to stand in the Titan's way! COLLECTING: WARLOCK (1998) 1-4; CAPTAIN MARVEL (2000) 4-6, 15-16; INFINITY ABYSS 1-6; SHE-HULK (2004) 7-8
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 24, 2017
4 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Tom Lyle
273 books4 followersThomas Stanford Lyle was an American comics artist who was best known for his work on Starman and Robin for DC Comics as well as Spider-Man for Marvel Comics.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 19, 2021
This is a huge TPB with over 400 pages of classic Marvel stories. Taking place shortly after "The Death of Captain Mar-Vel", this TPB includes Warlock (1998) 1-4, Captain Marvel (2000) 4-6 & 15-16, Infinity Abyss 1-6 and She-Hulk (2004) 7-8.
Filled with plenty of action, the story telling is what won me over. Reading this was a wonderful blast from the past and exactly what I remember comics being and why I loved them so.
The artwork is great, colorful and expressive, it added so much to the story line.
Filled with plenty of action, the story telling is what won me over. Reading this was a wonderful blast from the past and exactly what I remember comics being and why I loved them so.
The artwork is great, colorful and expressive, it added so much to the story line.
November 7, 2021
Less Guardians of the Galaxy on the road to Annihilation and more like the Infinity Watch rides again (!), the contents of this cosmic compilation trace some adventures of the members of the erstwhile Watch (which I suppose in some ways kinda sorta resembles a proto-Guardians of the Galaxy, mebbe...well, if you squint, and look! there's Gamora and Drax!) prior to the events of the Annihilation Wave which then causes Peter Quill to reboot or pre-boot the group we know as the Guardians of the Galaxy today, which doesn't happen until a good ten years later in Dan Abnett's "Somebody's Got to Do It" Guardians of the Galaxy #1. So, let me be clear: despite the title, you won't find Starlord here. Or Rocket. Or Groot. Or even Yondu or Charlie-27 and those original Guardians from the 31st Century. And Drax still wears his cape in these stories, looks nothing like the Drax on the cover, and is still sooper stoopid. So be forewarned if you pick up this volume looking for the folks you've come to know and love courtesy of the MCU. They ain’t here.
And just in case that makes you think the title's a tad misleading, well, there's really nothing here in this volume about "Annihilation," either, if you've come looking for that. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot here being annihilated--Adam Warlock's sanity, the Langunn's farmhouse, Thanos's base of operations, Drax's tiny brain, law and order in the subatomic kingdom of K'ai, and much more--but if you think you are going to get in on the early stages of Annihilation Wave or Annihilation Conquest in this volume, then think again, and be prepared for disappointment. I suppose the closest you get to any of those future Annihilation events in this volume is in the first story where some annoying minor figure in the Negative Zone named Syphonn somehow becomes a major player and enlists Annihilus and Blastaar to aid him in his destruction of the our side of the universe...I guess in a way this prefigures Annihilation Wave...mebbe Syphonn planted the seed of conquering the Postive Zone in Annihilus here--but for the most part this whole storyline sucks, especially the part where the re-animated corpse of Mar-vell is corrupted by Syphonn to do his dirty work. And I don't want to sound like a puss here, but that idea just strikes me as blasphemous and wrong all over.
Anyway, I don't mean to piss all over this volume. I'm a sucker for cosmic comics and I enjoyed it despite my complaints. Here are just a few highlights: 1) Drax is sucked into the microverse (or the atomic realm or the quantumverse or whatever the hell it's being called these days, where he is mistaken for the Hulk and becomes the big green boytoy of its new ruler, Visalia, who is supposedly Jarella's sexy younger sister. 2) Psycho-Man shows up--I know you really weren't expecting him, were you? 3) Bug gets punched in the face many times, something that’s always a joy to behold, and come to think of it, isn't he an early member of Peter Quill's Guardians, too? Why isn’t he on the cover? Tik! and 4) Thanos, we discover, has been cloning himself and splicing in the DNA of various members of the Marvel-verse, and so we get to see our heroes in epic battle against a cadre of oblivion-loving Thanos clones, a Professor X Thanos, a Dr. Strange Thanos, an Iron Man Thanos, a Gladiator Thanos, and (gasp!) a Galactus Thanos. I know that may sound dumb as hell, but it's the Infinity Abyss storyline by Jim Starlin himself, and my favorite part of this big compilation volume. Plus, it introduces readers to Atleza Langunn, the most powerful two-year-old in the entire multiverse!
And just in case that makes you think the title's a tad misleading, well, there's really nothing here in this volume about "Annihilation," either, if you've come looking for that. Don't get me wrong; there's a lot here being annihilated--Adam Warlock's sanity, the Langunn's farmhouse, Thanos's base of operations, Drax's tiny brain, law and order in the subatomic kingdom of K'ai, and much more--but if you think you are going to get in on the early stages of Annihilation Wave or Annihilation Conquest in this volume, then think again, and be prepared for disappointment. I suppose the closest you get to any of those future Annihilation events in this volume is in the first story where some annoying minor figure in the Negative Zone named Syphonn somehow becomes a major player and enlists Annihilus and Blastaar to aid him in his destruction of the our side of the universe...I guess in a way this prefigures Annihilation Wave...mebbe Syphonn planted the seed of conquering the Postive Zone in Annihilus here--but for the most part this whole storyline sucks, especially the part where the re-animated corpse of Mar-vell is corrupted by Syphonn to do his dirty work. And I don't want to sound like a puss here, but that idea just strikes me as blasphemous and wrong all over.
Anyway, I don't mean to piss all over this volume. I'm a sucker for cosmic comics and I enjoyed it despite my complaints. Here are just a few highlights: 1) Drax is sucked into the microverse (or the atomic realm or the quantumverse or whatever the hell it's being called these days, where he is mistaken for the Hulk and becomes the big green boytoy of its new ruler, Visalia, who is supposedly Jarella's sexy younger sister. 2) Psycho-Man shows up--I know you really weren't expecting him, were you? 3) Bug gets punched in the face many times, something that’s always a joy to behold, and come to think of it, isn't he an early member of Peter Quill's Guardians, too? Why isn’t he on the cover? Tik! and 4) Thanos, we discover, has been cloning himself and splicing in the DNA of various members of the Marvel-verse, and so we get to see our heroes in epic battle against a cadre of oblivion-loving Thanos clones, a Professor X Thanos, a Dr. Strange Thanos, an Iron Man Thanos, a Gladiator Thanos, and (gasp!) a Galactus Thanos. I know that may sound dumb as hell, but it's the Infinity Abyss storyline by Jim Starlin himself, and my favorite part of this big compilation volume. Plus, it introduces readers to Atleza Langunn, the most powerful two-year-old in the entire multiverse!
February 22, 2018
Sometimes I wish you could give half stars because this really deserved a 2.5. This was an interesting read but probably not what fans of the movies are looking for.
As the subtitle states, this volume collects a number of Marvel issues from the late 90's, all cosmically themed, and leading towards the big multi-volume Annhilation event. The Guardians don't appear, just Drax and Gamora, looking VERY different from their later appearances. This book collects a 4-issue series about Adam Warlock appropriately titled "Warlock", a strange clutch of issues of Captain Marvel (the Marvel cosmic character, not the SHAZAAM! character), a brief series called Infinity Abyss and a couple issues of She-Hulk.
None of these disparate comics series have much to do with each other besides some of the setting and the characters so it makes for a bit of a disjointed read. I felt the Warlock series was a little dry to slog through. Captain Marvel read like an episode of "Friends"...if "Friends" had superheroes, pan dimensional warps and a story-line that crosses 2 universes. The Infinity Abyss story was probably the best as it was for the most part self-contained (though too short to warrant it's own graphic novel, I'd imagine) and dealt with a few more recognizable characters like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Thanos. But the plot, in which a bunch of evil clones of Thanos have decided to specialize and tray to destroy the universe was a page turner and the most enjoyable part of the book. The last She-Hulk story just dealt with a cosmic legal loophole that she needed to confront. Aside from knowing in a general way who the character was, I had never actually read an issue of She-Hulk so cross that one off my bucket list. Otherwise it was kind of dull.
So to all you GotG fans out there, unless you must read everything about this group, I'd give this one a pass for the Abnett books and the original Guardians.
As the subtitle states, this volume collects a number of Marvel issues from the late 90's, all cosmically themed, and leading towards the big multi-volume Annhilation event. The Guardians don't appear, just Drax and Gamora, looking VERY different from their later appearances. This book collects a 4-issue series about Adam Warlock appropriately titled "Warlock", a strange clutch of issues of Captain Marvel (the Marvel cosmic character, not the SHAZAAM! character), a brief series called Infinity Abyss and a couple issues of She-Hulk.
None of these disparate comics series have much to do with each other besides some of the setting and the characters so it makes for a bit of a disjointed read. I felt the Warlock series was a little dry to slog through. Captain Marvel read like an episode of "Friends"...if "Friends" had superheroes, pan dimensional warps and a story-line that crosses 2 universes. The Infinity Abyss story was probably the best as it was for the most part self-contained (though too short to warrant it's own graphic novel, I'd imagine) and dealt with a few more recognizable characters like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Thanos. But the plot, in which a bunch of evil clones of Thanos have decided to specialize and tray to destroy the universe was a page turner and the most enjoyable part of the book. The last She-Hulk story just dealt with a cosmic legal loophole that she needed to confront. Aside from knowing in a general way who the character was, I had never actually read an issue of She-Hulk so cross that one off my bucket list. Otherwise it was kind of dull.
So to all you GotG fans out there, unless you must read everything about this group, I'd give this one a pass for the Abnett books and the original Guardians.
February 5, 2017
Public library copy.
An old mix of various cosmic titled comic books published into an enormous book for the sake of selling based on the success of Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The cover is misleading, Drax looks nothing like that inside the book. The stories are a mix bag. I didn't care for the Adam Warlock stuff. The Jim Stsrkin work is nice to look at, but it seems like he tells the same Thanos story over and over. I'd already previously read Peter David's Captain Marvel and Dan Scott's She-Hulk, to me, those were the highlights within this collection.
An old mix of various cosmic titled comic books published into an enormous book for the sake of selling based on the success of Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The cover is misleading, Drax looks nothing like that inside the book. The stories are a mix bag. I didn't care for the Adam Warlock stuff. The Jim Stsrkin work is nice to look at, but it seems like he tells the same Thanos story over and over. I'd already previously read Peter David's Captain Marvel and Dan Scott's She-Hulk, to me, those were the highlights within this collection.
June 9, 2017
This was HUGE. 17 comics plus some snippets from a couple other issues. The first part of the title didn't lie. Every issue had the Guardians of the Galaxy involved. The second part of the title is where we may be stretch the truth a bit to garner sales. I haven't read all of the Annihilation comics, but I am failing to see any connection with the ones I have read so far.
Either way though it was a fun romp through the Marvel Cosmic. The Infinity Aybss was good, it was interesting reading about Thanos trying to SAVE the universe, Fredd was hilarious in Captain Marvel, She-Hulk was fun, really Warlock was probably the least entertaining, written in a very serious, overly wordy 90's style. My favorite part of the whole thing was probably that they included the Micronauts in the Captain Marvel issues, though the team wasn't complete because of licensing issues.
Overall probably a good graphic novel to read if you're not all that familiar with the Marvel Cosmic universe.
Either way though it was a fun romp through the Marvel Cosmic. The Infinity Aybss was good, it was interesting reading about Thanos trying to SAVE the universe, Fredd was hilarious in Captain Marvel, She-Hulk was fun, really Warlock was probably the least entertaining, written in a very serious, overly wordy 90's style. My favorite part of the whole thing was probably that they included the Micronauts in the Captain Marvel issues, though the team wasn't complete because of licensing issues.
Overall probably a good graphic novel to read if you're not all that familiar with the Marvel Cosmic universe.
February 26, 2018
3 stars is higher then it deserves, I'm glad that Marvel eventually handed these characters over to someone who had a vision beyond cheap laughs and recycled plots.
Starlin's infinity abyss story is the worst he did, its included to tie some threads together although we'd be better off without it.
the art throughout is pretty good, its the writing that drags the rating down.
Starlin's infinity abyss story is the worst he did, its included to tie some threads together although we'd be better off without it.
the art throughout is pretty good, its the writing that drags the rating down.
June 25, 2018
Not so much essential reads as preludes to thr Annihilation event, but the Adam Warlock storylines contained are worth reading. The Captain Marvel ones are pretty weak.
November 18, 2018
It was just a little too old school for me but overall it was good. It’s good to know who Adam finally is!! And to see the guardians before they were the guardians.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews