Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3: Guardians Disassembled
In a realization that makes me feel old more than anything else, it’s been ten years since “Avengers Disassembled” was published. This was the story that saw Bendis take over writing the “Avengers” and turned them into Marvel’s new best-selling team, bringing them a relevance they hadn’t seen in decades. Whatever your feelings about that particular story, and the writer’s tenure on the various “Avengers” books he wrote, the fact is that “Disassembled” has a certain kind of cachet when used as the title for a story. If you’re harkening back to that story which signaled a sea change in Marvel’s publishing focus, then it should involve some significant events at the very least. What “Guardians Disassembled” offers is another example of Bendis plowing through another familiar superhero story — the one where all the members of a team are attacked and taken out — without finding anything new to do with it. This was fun at first, but now it’s starting to get kind of old.
After the “Free Comic Book Day” story that lets us know Flash Thompson/Venom is joining the team, the title story kicks off by showing us the dire straits each member of the Guardians has now found themselves in. Peter Quill is captured by his father, Rocket is now in the hands of the Kree Supreme Intelligence, Drax has been brought in by Gladiator and the Shi’Ar, Gamora is combat-interrogated by the Badoon, and Groot has to deal with the Brood. With the team disassembled on an individual level, the question becomes how they’re going to overcome their personal challenges and get the band back together.
The answer to that is: With a little help from their friends and fortunate circumstances. Expect special appearances from Captain Marvel and Angela, while some of the aliens find out that they’ve either bitten off more than they can chew or simply come to resent being part of the latest plan of J’son of Spartax — Peter’s father — to bring his errant son in line. The first issue in this arc sets up the individual threats quite well. There is a real sense that the Guardians are screwed with now way out. After that, the tension slowly dissipates as everything winds up working out for the team in one way or the other. At the end of the arc, the near-destruction of the team winds up feeling like it was no big deal after all.
Given that the arc was called “Guardians Disassembled,” one would expect more than that. One of the reasons that I enjoyed Bendis’ recent forays into the stock superhero plot book in “All-New X-Men” and “Uncanny X-Men” was that there wasn’t any expectations attached to them beyond what I was left to expect from their most recent volumes. In the case of “Guardians,” the name promised more than what the writer delivered here. Not helping matters is the fact that with Bendis’ use of these familiar superhero stories he hasn’t demonstrated any interesting twists in their execution beyond imposing his trademarked style on them. This story was the worst offender of the three in that regard, but the next volume is promising the long-awaited explanation as to how Starlord and Thanos escaped the Cancerverse so there’s that to look forward to.
This also volume marked “Wolverine & the X-Men” artist Nick Bradshaw’s debut and denouement on the title all at once. After some excellent work on several volumes of “Wolverine & the X-Men,” the artist’s cartoonish and detailed style should’ve been a perfect fit for this current incarnation of “Guardians.” And it is… for only half of each of the four issues collected here. For whatever reason, Bradshaw doesn’t illustrate a full issue in this collection and the likes of Mike Oeming, David Marquez, Jason Masters, and Todd Nauck have to fill in with varying degrees of stylistic compatibility. I don’t know how this happened as Bradshaw showed that he can get more than one issue done at a time on “W&tXM.” Maybe Bendis isn’t as good at getting scripts to the artist in a timely manner as Jason Aaron was? Whatever the answer is, the fact is that what work Bradshaw does here is pretty spectacular and it made me wish he could’ve illustrated all of the issues of the main series collected here.
We also get a number of other stories here: Two of which were part of the anniversary celebration from issue #14, while the other two were added to pad out the length of the volume as they feature Captain Marvel and Venom. Interestingly enough, the two stories from the anniversary issue were written by former “Guardians” writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning… separately. The two had a falling-out a while back and no longer work as a team. For this issue, they take on separate stories as Lanning teams up with Phil Jimenez for a look at why Groot left Planet X, and Abnett sets up his “Guardians 3000” series with Gerardo Sandoval.
They’re actually pretty good stories. Lanning and Jimenez work well together, wringing a surprising amount of tragedy from “Groot’s Tale” even as most of the conversation consists of variations on how “I am Groot” is phrased. “Fight For the Future” sets up a familiar “The only way to save the future is to go back to the past!” story as the Guardians from 3000 A.D. rescue a girl from a human slave camp on Earth who is going to be key to pulling this off. For all of the familiarity here, it’s still a fast-paced and energetic romp that sets up the story it wants to tell quite well.
As for the first issue of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s “Captain Marvel” run and the first appearance of Flash Thompson as Venom from “Amazing Spider-Man,” they’re not bad either. Well, the writing in “Marvel” is pretty good, but the art from Dexter Soy is a hideous over-rendered mess that I’m not sure even a decent coloring job could save. As for the “Venom” story by Dan Slott and Paolo Siquiera, it sets up the character’s new status quo as effectively as you could expect from the writer. Nothing exciting, but solid enough.
All in all “Guardians Disassembled” isn’t terrible, just disappointing. Had this arc been given another title, I could’ve adjusted my expectations accordingly. The witty dialogue and copious action make for a decent enough read, yet it’s a smooth enough experience that you’ll likely be hard-pressed to remember the specifics of what went down after the final page. Frankly, I expect better from the level of talent involved in this.