Writer: Donny Cates
Art: Cory Smith, David Curiel, VC’s Cory Petit, Dean White, and David Marquez
Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 24th, 2019

Well, I’m not going to lie but the first story arc of this book was a bit of a rocky start for me. Sure, it may have started out great but, but coming from Donny Cates who killed it onCosmic Ghost Rider and Venom, I expected so much more!  The roster listed Cosmic Ghost Rider as part of the team, but the character didn’t get much play which was a real shame.  I remember quite a few of the Marvel books starting out lackluster,  but after their first story arc, a lot of them picked up and really hit their stride. Here’s to hoping ”Guardians of the Galaxy” will do the same. Let’s dig in and see what we have here…

We begin in a new 6 issue story arc with a mysterious spacecraft. We don’t really get much on the spacecraft, which is fine by me! A six-issue comic means plenty of time to tell the story and Donny Cates is a writer that I fully trust. If the craft is important, then we will know more about it soon. The only thing we know about the ship is that it is a beast of a weapon, especially after what it does to the Nova Corps!

But, it seems like the Nova Corps wasn’t the only victim. Readers see that someone close to Peter gets attacked, which unfortunately ruins his alone time with Gamora. There is some humor going on here, which is good, but even so. Groot is being underutilized in this book. I need more Groot!  Next time there is a brawl, Groot better be kickin’ butt or doing something.

The gang get a message from someone close to Peter, which after reading the Bendis run on the book, this character feels a bit off. His message is out of the blue and feels a bit shoved in here. It is basically only here to alert the team and should have been worded differently if he wanted Star Lord to stay away.

Raged at what is happening, Peter soars over to check it out. I love how the team is splitting up because that means more panel time for characters that I barely know from the last story arc. I will admit that when the team used psi-link comms, I did roll my eyes a bit. It seems like nowadays every team is doing the psi-link comms bit.

Peter’s team gets taken down easily by the same thing that took out the Nova Corps earlier in the book. While Moondragon could feel the pain from their attack, she and Groot hightailed it out of there to get some help. I could tell who the help was from by the dialogue and have to admit, I did have a smile when reading that part. However, I quickly got confused by the cliffhanger , but Donny Cates knows how to play the game and get you intrigued for the next issue.

Final Thoughts:

For being the first issue of a story arc, I am okay with being a bit confused because it only intrigues me to want to read more. But, that is all we got from this issue. I am intrigued about the enemy and the cliffhanger, which are the two big things in my opinion. The art was very good! The dialogue was good from what we got, even though it felt like we didn’t get much talking from a couple of our team members. Overall, we get a good jumping on point for those who skipped the first arc.

8/10