GUARDIANS 3000 No. 3, February 2015 |
It is quite easy to see why any fan of Star-Lord of Spartax
would be downright disappointed with this particular edition of “Guardians
3000”. For not only does the issue sport a stunningly colourful and dynamic
Alex Ross cover featuring the definitive version of the interplanetary
policeman swooping into action with his element gun firing. But internally it
boldly declares that the month’s story title is “Lord Of Stars”. Yet in
reality, the character of King Peter only actually makes an appearance, albeit
a highly dramatic one, within the last few of pages of the comic book.
However, any lasting sense of disillusionment over this ‘no-show’ will almost
certainly be ‘swamped’ by broad bewilderment, as writer Dan Abnett begins
feeding the reader with his somewhat implausible and incomprehensible
explanation as to why the Peace Summit at the Hideaway Parliament was previously attacked
and why the mysterious A-Sentience want the Guardians Of The Galaxy dead.
To be
succinct the tech constructs, also known as the (Anthony) Stark, and heavily
influenced by the outward appearance of the playboy inventor’s Iron Man armour,
are afraid of the death of reality. The synthetic constructs are therefore
hunting Geena Drake because they perceive the Human to be “part of the problem
and part of the solution” due to her awareness of the progressive erosion of
time. To make matters even more baffling a Stark Body Unit befriends Yondu
Udonta, Charlie-27 and Drake, when it is informed that the Guardians have
fought alongside the robot’s Progenitor a thousand years earlier.
Bearing in
mind the destructive chaos and murderous slaughter the mind-controlled Badoon
have wrought upon the galaxy in order to try and achieve the A-Sentience’s goal
of destroying the space-faring superhero team, this seems an incredibly weak
justification for the killer robot to suddenly just ‘swap sides’. It also
does not explain, bearing in mind the machine forms part of the Stark
‘collective mind’ so therefore it now knows of the Guardians history with Iron
Man, why the rest of the techno-organic species are still determined for the
heroes to “Submit to A-Sentience”? As Drake would say Abnett is “freaking me
the flark out.”
Unfortunately Gerardo Sandoval would appear equally as bemused
and bewildered by the plot’s proceedings as his artwork is both inconsistent
and at times dishearteningly poor. Admittedly the Mexican graphics designer
provides a very strong cohesive visual image for the Stark Body Unit and the
rest of the A-Sentience. But a number of his panels featuring Charlie-27 and
Geena in particular, suffer from such pitiful pencilling that each character is
endowed with some quite grotesque facial expressions.
No comments:
Post a Comment