Friday, December 14, 2012

Discuss: The Guardians of the Galaxy


Doug:  All things Guardians today, kids -- comic appearances, your favorite character (Yondu's my guy), thoughts on the upcoming film and modern line-up, etc.


Don't forget about us...!

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17 comments:

dbutler16 said...

Wow, where to start. I love the original Guardians – one of the most visually interesting teams ever. They all look cool! Plus, I associate them with the Korvac Saga, which is probably my all time favorite Avengers story. It’s tough for me to name my favorite, but I’d probably have to go with either Yondu or Martinex. This is based as much on the fact that they look really cool as anything else. By the way, Vance Astro is one of the coolest, most manly, names ever. I wanted to name my son Vance but my wife wouldn’t buy it.

As far as the new Guardians, I love them, too. When I briefly (for about 10 months) started collecting comics again back in 2008, the Guradians of the Galaxy was my favorite Marvel title, maybe my favorite title period. My understanding is that the new movie will feature the newer Guardians team (how will they manage Rocket Raccoon?). Though I would prefer the original team, I’m still looking forward to the new movie, sice I liked the newer Guardians team as well.

December 14, 2012 at 7:10 AM
ZIRGAR said...

I love the original GotG. Great team. The Topographical Man storyline was quite interesting, but my favorite issue is #10; I love the Starhawk origin story. As a kid it both freaked me out a bit and filled me with a burgeoning awe knowing he was both a man and a woman--somehow it suited the character, who was so mysterious and powerful. Next to the Inhumans, the original GotG are my favorite Marvel hero team; great characters and chemistry, I feel.

December 14, 2012 at 7:44 AM
Edo Bosnar said...

Love the original Guardians as well: especially in those early Gerber-penned stories in Defenders and Marvel Presents. I liked their appearances in Marvel Team-up and Marvel 2-in-1 and, of course, in Avengers (which I actually read first; I only read the "classic" stuff later).
Can't really say I have a favorite, but if you pin me down I guess I would say Starhawk/Aleta, based on that great three-part story in Marvel 2-in-1, and maybe Charlie-27 - I love that scene in Avengers where he's holding Beast and conjecturing to Nikki that he might be some kind of monkey who can repeat words like a parrot.
Also, since you told us not to forget them, the Badoon are great villains: they're so wonderfully slimy and evil. Later, in Star Trek TNG, the Ferengi, when they were still mainly portrayed as bad guys, totally reminded me of the Badoon.
I can't say anything about the modern line-up, since I've read any of it, but I have to say, while I love the Guardians and I love Rocket Raccoon, I'm not sure they go together. As for the movie, I would prefer the original crew obviously, but I guess that's not going to happen. By the way dbutler, thanks to CGI, I don't think they'll have too much trouble with Rocket Raccoon...

December 14, 2012 at 8:43 AM
Anonymous said...

LOVED the Guardians of the Galaxy, from my first exposure to them in GS Defenders #5, through their appearances in the Defenders’ mag, then through the Avengers, right up to the current line-up! I even really enjoyed the Jim Valentino run in the 90s (although it got to feeling like every month featured a “future version of the current flavor of the month”, Punisher, Ghost Rider or Wolverine.

For some reason, I didn’t pick up their appearances in Marvel Presents until years after they were published. Those stories were awesome, too!

Vance Astro was always my favorite. A very tragic figure and a very capable leader.

The most recent series, by Abnett and Lanning, was terrific! It was one of the very best comics published in recent years. The Annihilation and Thanos Imperative storylines were great. Those of you that weren’t reading modern comics should consider checking them out!

Ric

December 14, 2012 at 8:56 AM
Bruce said...

My only exposure to these characters was when they guested in the Avengers during the Korvac saga and one issue of Marvel Team-Up. But they seem like a neat team with some great-looking characters.

A quick check of Amazon reveals that the Guardians of the Galaxy's Bronze Age stories are being collected in two TPBs. The first will be out in January and the second in April.

December 14, 2012 at 9:30 AM
Dougie said...

I was around for the Arnold Drake/ Gene Colan debut of the Guardians in the late Sixties.
The exotic images and the cruel irony of the shrink-wrapped and obviously unhinged hero Astro have always stuck with me.

The Gerber issues absorbed me in my early teens although as ever, due to terrible distribution, I never saw the somewhat controversial Topographical Man storyline.

I followed the Valentino series intermittently. I thought the tie-ins- Wolverine's descendant, aged Wonder Man, Space Ghost Rider-
were quite savvy.

Of the modern day team, the only member who leaves me cold is the current incarnation of Drax, who's too bland and generic for me. I wonder if the modern GotG are too quirky to support a mass-market movie.

December 14, 2012 at 11:39 AM
Anonymous said...

I never really got into the old Guardians stuff, since it was set in the future and had little impact on present continuity. The only stories I got into were the Avengers x-over (against Korvac) and the Defenders one.

I didn't read the 90s version and I haven't gotten around to reading the newer version yet, but I've heard good things about it; plus, who doesn't love Rocket Raccoon?

Mike W.

December 14, 2012 at 12:23 PM
Karen said...

I always liked Vance Astro the best. There was the time travel angle, and the tragedy of being trapped in that suit.

There was some daring stuff in the Gerber run - I still remember after the Earth was liberated, none of them being able to fit in. Astro was sitting in a dive bar and this dancing girl comes up to him and he basically tells her there's no future in it for either of them, and then some drunk starts in about how Astro is not a real man, and Astro just knocks him out with a mind blast. And the girl says something like, "A little touchy about that?" And he says, "Yeah, a little." It was way over my head but a few years later I really got it and enjoyed it.

I read the Valentino series for a while and enjoyed it to a point. I also liked the new team from a couple of years back, but I missed the old guys. The new team was much more of a hodge-podge of characters and seemed to have less of a reason to be together than the old one. Still, it was one of the few new comics I truly enjoyed.

December 14, 2012 at 12:26 PM
Inkstained Wretch said...

My first exposure to the Guardians was in Marvel Two-in-One #69. In that one Vance Astro goes rogue in an effort to prevent his younger self from suffering in the way he did -- in the process creating a problem the Thing and the rest of the Guardians have to fix.

It is a fun time-travel story with a great opening: Starhawk teleports into the Baxter Building, stepping on Ben Grimm's morning pancakes in the process...

I had no idea who these characters were before this story but they were definitely interesting. Martinex was the coolest, with his crystalline body. They rarely appeared after that in the Bronze Age though, if I am correct ...

December 14, 2012 at 12:27 PM
J.A. Morris said...

I like the original team, but I think they work best as guest stars in Avengers or Defenders stories. I was never crazy about them headlining their own title in Marvel Presents.

They're especially great in the Korvac Saga and the Thor Annual that preceded it.

December 14, 2012 at 2:13 PM
david_b said...

A lot like J.A., they were fine in the other team titles, the early Thing/Cap MTIO, and I'd like to read the original Colan story from the Silver Age.

Other than that, back in the day they didn't strike my interest, just seemed like another new Bronze team book, following the likes of Champions, Inhumans, Defenders, but with all 'unknowns' per se. Granted the team originally started in the Silver Age, but I didn't know that back then.

December 14, 2012 at 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...

The Defenders #29 1975 "Let my Planet Go!"
Pg 17 Yondu - "Are you all right, my friend?"
Hulk - "Hulk ... feels ... swell."

When I heard Marvel was planning to make a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, I was immediately overjoyed - but when I heard the prospective cast of characters like Groot and (gasp!) Rocket Raccoon, I said 'Hey, waitaminnit, this ain't the Guardians I read back in the 70s! What's up with that?'

I did some research and found out that the movie will be based on a more recent team incarnation from a 2008 comics storyline called Annihilation : Conquest. Being a Bronze Age purist, I would have preferred to see the original lineup with Major Vance Astro, Charlie-27, Martinex and (my favourite too, Doug!) Yondu.

I remember one of my friends saying years ago that Yondu appears to have been created as an alien version of an American Indian. Whoever created Yondu's character (Al Milgrom?) deserves a pat on the back for coming up with that unique head fin.

A few months ago I bought a copy of the Defenders #29 at my local comics store. It's the end of a storyline where the Defenders team up with the Guardians to battle the Badoon. The scene where Hulk and a slave girl (OK, mostly Hulk) battle a host of robotic ants is hilarious. I also remember reading a previous issue as a kid in this story arc where Yondu battled a robot armed with lances and decapitated it with a piece of chain left over from a mace! Reading this issue brought back fond memories.

As much as I wish the new Guardians movie is a success, I still pine for the original lineup to make it to the big screen one day.


- Mike 'does Martinex look at himself if he needs a mirror?' from Trinidad & Tobago.

December 14, 2012 at 9:25 PM
Rip Jagger said...

Arnold Drake's and Gene Colan's Guardians of the Galaxy is one of my all-time favorite comic books. That issue of Marvel Super-Heroes is a rock star in my collection.

I cannot choose but one hero from that quartet, but I will say these are all my favorite renditions of them.

Vance Astro became more complicated over the years but never more compelling than the man 1000 years out of his time who cast his life aside to plumb the stars but found it was for no real good reason ultimately. That's bitter.

Charlie-27, Martinex, and the somber Yondu are fantastic! When they returned they were more superhero than sci-fi and that stung, but those original renditions are awesome.

Rip Off

December 15, 2012 at 12:59 AM
Anonymous said...

is it martin x or mar teen ex? just curious

December 15, 2012 at 6:28 AM
Fred W. Hill said...

I loved the GotG as written by Gerber, in Marvel Two-in-One, Defenders and Marvel Presents. That scene with Vance you mentioned, Karen, was great -- I was just a green adolescent, but I totally got it. Also moving and hilarious was "the day Charlie told off his boss". Right off the bat, Gerber was taking the team on a totally different direction than may have been expected, distinguishing it from Killraven's band of revolutionaries fighting Martian overlords and their croneys. A pity the series came to an end too soon.

December 15, 2012 at 10:27 AM
dbutler16 said...

Edo Bosnar, when I said I don't know how they'll manage Rocket Raccoon, I was thinking more about the inherent silliness of a talking, tough guy raccoon, and filmakers' apparent need these days to keep superhero movies, grim, gritty, and "realistic".

December 15, 2012 at 12:02 PM
Karen said...

I think Rocket Raccoon and Groot will both be hard sells to movie audiences. I'm still very surprised that Marvel chose the GOTG for a movie project, since they have very little name recognition outside of comics geeks.

December 15, 2012 at 12:07 PM

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