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Of Embassies and Origins - Justice League International Part 2 (Eaglemoss Collection v77)

  Review: Since we are doing a series of reviews focusing on Booster Gold over his nearly 40-year history, we include this one as a collection of some of his earliest appearances, dating to late 1987. That places the original publish date of these tales while his original solo series was still going strong.  This book is a beautiful, glossy hard-cover with smooth and heavy-stock paper inside, although the sometimes-low print reproduction quality leads to blurred and hard to read word balloons on occasion. It is also a rare book here in North America, as Eaglemoss Collections targeted UK fans with this series. At this point in the history of the 1987-rebooted Justice League, they have gained official United Nations recognition and sanction. To ensure their reach truly is global, they rebrand as Justice League International (as does the title of the series!) and they open new headquarters buildings around the world: New York, Paris and Moscow are included here. As this is a product of 19
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Guardians of the Galaxy: Guardians of Infinity

 


Description: In the infinite expanse of time and space, is there room for more than one group of Guardians of the Galaxy? You bet there is! Rocket, Groot and Drax are about to go on an adventure so big it will draw in counterparts from a thousand years away. Not just the Guardians 3000 you know and love but also...the Guardians 1000?! But who are these universal protectors from centuries ago? They're not the only newcomers on the scene, and the other arrivals are gearing up for something that can't mean anything good! The past is under attack, but is any time safe? Put your faith in the Guardians of three eras! Plus bonus tales featuring your favorite Guardians including Drax, Rocket, Groot and the Thing!

Collects: Guardians of Infinity 1-8 (A stories)
Authors: Dan Abnett, Jason Latour
Artists: Carlo Barberi, Jim Cheung
Published By: Marvel
Published When: Aug. 30 2016
Parental Rating: Teen

Review:

Guardians, Guardians everywhere.

This TPB collects the lead stories from the entire 8-issue run of the Guardians of Infinity comic book series. It features the Guardians of the Galaxy (Groot, Rocket Raccoon, Drax), joining forces with the Guardians 3000, and introducing the Guardians 1000, in an epic battle to stop Hermetikus from crossing a space-time portal and conquering the galaxy.

Well, this is still the Marvel comic universe. So the joining of forces only comes after the obligatory misunderstanding-fueled battle. Who are these approaching strangers? We don't know, they must be responsible for the anomaly, we'd better attack them! Standard Marvel cross-over fare.

These stories introduce the Guardians 1000, out of the year 1016 A.D. Between originally publishing this intro in 2015, and today, these remain the only stories we have about this team. Which is fine, as they are largely forgettable. After reading the book, I had to look up their names (leader Stella Nega, Skytower, Astrolabe, Aerolite and the Colonizer) for this review.

Stella Nega plays a starring role in the story, Aerolite has a unique and charmingly Grootian speech pattern. Astrolabe is intriguing with his mental state of barely controlling a sentient star in his mind (huh?). The others made no impression on me whatsoever.

It was also fascinating to see the surprisingly similar leadership patterns and structure between the different Guardians groups. Almost like some formula was being followed in crafting the teams.

How would the teams interact, when each has a similar, strong, centralized leadership pattern? Eh, it didn't matter, since one team leader, Stella Nega, gets separated from the action. A convenient narrative twist, a clever gloss, leading to less internal conflict. Don't want that to distract from the central good-guys-vs-bad-guys conflict, or risk confusing our readers!

Rocket and Groot are their usual charming selves, and there were a few memorable sequences. Sadly, however, the shocking twist at the story's climax was entirely predictable as early as chapter 4 of 8.

Overall, this book is a reasonably entertaining romp, with a few gems shining through the dross, but loses points for uninteresting characters, plot simplifications, and hewing too strongly to predictable formulas.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 capes

ISBN-10: 0785195874
ISBN-13: 978-0785195870
Language: English
Pages: 136 pages


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