REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy #2

Guardians of the Galaxy #2 Thanos is dead. The Black Order has his body, his head is missing, and he MAY have "uploaded and implanted" his consciousness into someone else. (Because, you know, comic books.) Most believe that "someone else" to be the woman who killed him, his daughter Gamora.

Of those that believe, some want to kill her. The rest want to save her.

Oh, and SHE'S missing, too.

Light on action, this book focuses on the characters' reactions to the events of issue #1. Tempers flare, new alliances are formed, plans are made, and additional characters are added to the mix. By the end, readers are left with the feeling that writer Donny Cates has huge plans for this series and several unexpected tricks up his sleeve.

As expected I enjoyed this issue, but this is in spite of a number of factors that frequently distracted me from the story.

The first, as mentioned in my review of issue #1, is that Geoff Shaw seems to have trouble with human faces. His alien characters (Groot, Beta Ray Bill, etc) look fantastic, but the more humanoid a character is, the more difficult he/she is to identify without assistance from the dialogue. I don't like changes to a creative team in the middle of the story, but if I found out Shaw was being replaced with someone like Old Man Quill artist Robert Gill I wouldn't be disappointed.

Second, and I preface this by saying I knew this title was rated T+ on Marvel's own rating system, but ten mild swear words, six uses of grawlixes, and one flarkin' replacement is too much for a twenty page comic. Used sparingly, obscenities (or substitutes) can be effective, but when used too %@#& often they lose their #$@%& effectiveness and they flarkin' detract from the #$@%& flarkin' story.

Finally, while Gamora is definitely the most likely candidate to be the new home of Thanos' consciousness (especially from a reader's perspective), everyone is behaving as if she's the ONLY possible candidate. Having the characters acknowledge that it may not be her, but that they believe she is the key to determining who is would have served the story well. And maybe I'm missing something, but my gut tells me that all is not as it seems.

Despite these issues I enjoyed this book and can't wait to see what's next.

RANT: Infinity Countdown 1-5, Adam Warlock, Prime - $35 Infinity Wars 1-6, Prime, Fallen Guardian, and ∞ - $50 THANOS LEGACY #1 - $5 Total: $90 Upcoming hardcover collection of the above? $50. Why SHOULDN'T I wait for the collected editions nowadays?