Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 5: Through the Looking Glass

 

Description: The Guardians of the Galaxy are caught in the pull of the Black Vortex! With the Slaughter Squad hot on their tails, the X-Men and the Guardians have to find somewhere to stash their precious cargo...but will the temptation of the Vortex's unknown power be too much for this band of misfits? Rocket leaps into action! Gamora goes on the offensive! Ronan is deposed! Star-Lord is defiant! This story has it all...but does it seem like the Guardians have forgotten something in all the cosmic craziness? Oh, that's right, Peter got elected President of Spartax! Wait, what?!
Collects: Guardians of the Galaxy(2013) #24-27, Annual #1
Authors: Brian Michael Bendis
Artists: Frank Cho, Valerio Schiti
Published By: Marvel
Published When: April 5 2016
Parental Rating: Teen

Review:

If you are looking to have the complete set of Guardians of the Galaxy (2013) comics on your shelf in TPB format, you'll want this book.

If you are looking for a compelling, coherent story, steer clear. This is a cross-over event, minus all the important parts that happen in other comics. The result is almost unreadable.

The book opens with Annual #1, a fine standalone story of the Guardians of the Galaxy encountering a never-ending running battle between Skrull warriors and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Things get a bit weird, but Frank Cho's art is a delight. I especially loved the bookending of Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel trying to send a message home despite repeated photo-bombing by the other Guardians. Told in straight-up 8-panel layout, it's an excellent example of how a choice in panel layout can drive a story.

Then we move to the four chapters from Guardians of the Galaxy #24-27, and things quickly fall apart, narratively.

The fault does not lie with author Brian Michael Bendis; for all I know he wove together a superb story across multiple titles over months of publication dates.

No, it's caused by the poor selection of the contents of this book. The Black Vortex cross-over event lasted for thirteen chapters, and stretched across nine different Marvel titles. This TPB includes chapters 2 and 7 of the thirteen, as issues #24 and 25 of this Guardians of the Galaxy series. By #26 clearly things have changed but all we get is a brief "Previously" paragraph.

If you need to read the Black Vortex story on its own, this is not the TPB for you. Instead you should check out "Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex" a 312-page volume that brings the whole story together (see ISBN 978-0785197706).

Since this TPB has so much happening off-panel, between each issue, I recommend it only for collectors of the entire print run of Guardians of the Galaxy. Or if you love the characters so much that you can ignore feeling lost in a larger plot, you may also find this one interesting. I did not.

Score: 1 cape out of 5

ISBN-10: 0785197389
ISBN-13: 978-0785197386
Language: English
Pages: 136 pages