Guardians of the Galaxy #19

The Good

Ever since THE THANOS IMPERATIVE #6in 2010, we've been left wondering what happened to Richard Rider. While it seemed he, Star-Lord, Drax, and Thanos all died in the Cancerverse, we later saw all return, except Nova. Last issue Gamora, tired of not having answers, tied up Star-Lord and is forcing him to final reveal what happened. Only last issue we only got the beginning. It turns out there's a bit that happened and Star-Lord is giving all the details.

What we see here is what they all went through. We could imagine that being in the Cancerverse wouldn't exactly be a vacation but now we discover that it was more brutal than we imagined. Not only did Star-Lord, Nova, and Drax have to deal with being stuck there, they also had a faulty Cosmic Cube about to consume whoever used it as well as Thanos to deal with. If that wasn't enough, we discover there were even more problems that come up.

What's fascinating is seeing Star-Lord in a more serious position. We know he's portrayed as a bit of a goof or scoundrel. Brian Michael Bendis conveys the dark times he went through. You can feel how somber his telling of the story is. There are some big massive scenes and some surprises as Ed McGuinness depicts the events with his usual flare. Jason Keith's colors enhance the scenes. There are a lot of shadows and dark areas throughout but the color really shines in all the right places.

The Bad

I actually thought we'd be getting all the answers here. We do get some. We do see more of what happened. If this is something big, we want to see all the details. It's still hard to read through this issue and reach the "To be continued..." part. That makes you think the story won't be concluded next issue but the solicit for #20 says it's the conclusion and issue #21 is the beginning of the three-part Planet Venom arc. The battles are nice here but it still feels like it's putting off actually getting the answer to the question we've been asking. But since we've been waiting since 2010, one more month won't kill us.

And wasn't Star-Lord's hair less blonde back in THANOS IMPERATIVE? I'm still trying to figure out what happened to his hair as well.

The Verdict

Brian Michael Bendis and Ed McGuinness are taking us back to the final (?) days of Richard Rider. It's been a fun trip seeing Nova, Star-Lord, and Drax fighting against and alongside Thanos after the moment we thought they all died (even though it's comic books and we knew they'd someday come back). We don't get all the answers here since there's still one more part to the story next issue, but we do see some great flashbacks to fill us in some of the gaps. Bendis' sets the tone nicely and McGuinness' art and Jason Keith's colors make it all look great. We still have to wait one more month to discover Nova's fate but Bendis and McGuinness are cranking up the action.

I almost feel like they retconned Star Lord's hair, lol.

Forget Richard Rider, it's Star Lord's hair that needs to be investigated.

i feel like bendis didn't read any of the thanos imperative, there were so many tiny continuity niggles that made my inner nerd rage quietly.

for example

@dathomiesilversurfer: I could be wrong but they mentioned that because they weren't from the Cancerverse, that meant it applied differently to them.

So... what happened to Richard Rider?

I didn't like the pacing of this book. It seemed like they were discussing the findings that beings that were not from the Cancerverse couldn't die in the Cancerverse for too many pages. It could have been explained in two pages tops but it felt most of the book was just about the discovery(which I know is one answer we got, but feels we could have gotten that last book when Drax came back to life).

Don't click spoiler alert.

This build up on waiting for what happen to one my favorite heroes,and of course why the change of star lords hair and attire altogether,I just want to know where Bendis is taking this team ,where are moondragon,mantis and yes!! where the hell is Quasar?!!

I just feel like before venom or even before Angela he was trying to make the team more like the cinematic universe team(i'm not bashing the movie at all!! that team works!!) I just want the team to have more members

the issue had a great build up fight I can honestly say,I guess I will have my answers in issue 20

@humanrocket: its Bendis, what did you expect. His pacing is horrible. Hes doing the same thing in Uncanny X Men

UAAAHHGG I have to wait till 5 to get this....I've been waiting for this story for so long it's seriously making me crazy. I hope Nova isn't dead... however if he dies a good death I'll be happy.

I have a question, wasn’t Cancerverse destroyed when Death unleashed her power. That’s what Thanos Imperative showed. I thought the whole idea was the universe being deathless, only Death herself could truly kill them, and she did.

How are they back again?

@cheesesticks: OH I KNOW IT"S BENDIS BELIEVE ME. I wasn't too thrilled when I heard he was going to explain what happened to Nova you can go back and look at my comments when the news first broke on this site. But the last book wasn't bad at all so I was disappointed in this last one.

I know this is a Guardians book and that Quill is the leader and everything, but I don't like how he's getting all of the spotlight and Rich is left out as a character in the background just shouting out "Go the Hell Thanos". I feel the Bendis is disrespecting Nova after everything the character went through in his own book and in Annihiliation to gain the respect of the entire cosmos, just to be used as a background character in this book especially since there is a good chance he's not making out of the Cancerverse alive.

@humanrocket: Agreed I love Star-Lord , but Isn't this about Rich? It's prob his last comic....

What the hell was that...? Looks loke the many-angled part of Imperative where erased form timeline.

If it is his last go around he better get more face time in GOTG 20.

Death did kill the Revengers. According to Thanos in this book, he stats that beings that are not from the Cancerverse universe cannot die. But in Thanos Imperative issue 6, Lord Mar-vell and the Revengers died. The Revengers are back, but not Lord Mar-vell. Again...I find it hard to believe that Bendis did his research.

@drthanos91: My theory is that he was trying to make the team made up more of the types of characters he likes to write. You know... the one kind of character that he likes to write... over, and over, and over again.

@humanrocket:

Couple of pages after that, the whole cancerverse is also destroyed. We see Thanos there in front of Lady Death, who even states "I just killed the universe for you."

Even earlier in Thanos Imperative #2 Thanos actually explains that he, thanks to his connection to death, was actually capable of killing the Cancerverse heroes/ villains permanently "But it would appear that I am capable of delivering permanent death"

Given what was shown on Thanos Imperative #6, no one should actually be alive in Cancerverse. But seems like that is being ignored for the story.

And that's Bendis for you.

Gee, Bendis didn't do his research? How shocking! It's not like his entire run on this book has been like that, right?

@meatwadf: yeah..you have a point there

He needs to stop that

Like, I want to like the guy. He seems nice enough and writes snarky street level characters real well, but the problem is that is all he seems to know how to write. His characters all seem to speak with the same voice, even characters that have never acted that way before he started writing them. I guarantee, if he wrote a book with Odin, Silver Surfer, and (oh... let's say) Hulk, they would all sound like Spiderman or Luke Cage. Even when he doesn't write characters out of character, he cherry picks characters (like my suspicions with GotG) that fit his style, ignoring all others.

Of course, that's my opinion. I could be wrong.

It's quite simple, really... Bendis just doesn't give a sh!t about other writers' work.

Yeah; the fact that there's living organisms in the Cancerverse still is bugging me.

Unless, of course, they throw a twist of "Quill is lying through his teeth to hide what REALLY happened".

@meatwadf: I know what you mean,I don't despise Bendis,I just don't know if this is cup of tea ya know? ,Maybe New warriors would be a perfect way for him to flesh the characters or even the new captain america and the mighty avengers possibly

I honestly think Jonathan Hickman is right for this team,I mean I completely love the way man writes out his universal(multiversal) concepts and expand on the way time travel flows and how each future or universe is fleshed out

I vote hickman,but its my personal opinion

You have the same mindset as I do. Someone asked me who should be writing the comic stories for Marvel, and Hickman first came to mind.

Bendis isn't that bad of writer, the problem is when he takes over works that other writers have already established before. New Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man are two of Bendis series because they were clean slates, Bendis was the first to touch on those series. But when it comes to stories like Guardians, that have been written before, he tends to ignore their work.

Yup.Same with Alias.Daredevil was different because he was already a fan of DD and he read a lot of his stuff already before he started his run

Yeah, I'm dropping this series now. I'm done with Bendis, his retcons, and his extremely average stories. I want to see this series burn.

@daredevil21134: I agree with you about that,which is why I think he should stick with earth based heroes like the mighty avengers,but with the cosmic aspect,I think he's not quite grasped the feel and characters altogether,I think he's only good with star lord because of his personality(not the outfit or the hair,I mean blonde wtf kinda retcon is that?) and the answers are being overlooked

I think Hickman can pull off a better cancerverse concept,his work with the multiverse makes him my first choice

Yeah,he's really good with Street Levelers

@g_man: When you said "And wasn't Star-Lord's hair less blonde back in THANOS IMPERATIVE? I'm still trying to figure out what happened to his hair as well." I was thinking about that from the beginning I saw the 1st look of this issue.

Apparently Bendis seems to be just adding his own flare constantly in this book without giving due respect to Abnett's previous work. Can Marvel just put Abnett back in this pls!!!

Is it just me or does revenger captain America's shield change its shape?! He has the triangle shield for two panels and then throws the current disc shape one to disarm nova! Which is highly unlikely since nova is moving super fast and is wearing armor and has the the nova force protecting him.

Ugh I just want to know if he's coming back dammit!

Interesting

Writing,,,,is going to slow and getting on my nerves now...But the art....the Art has been top notch so far!

@daredevil21134: true,Im just afraid he may change someone's hair color and attire again, or make someone dead come back with no good reason haha

I almost wish, and when I say almost wish I mean my idea is better than theirs, that Peter was shown with his brown hair in the flash backs and then when Thanos killed him the first time, he was revived with blonde hair. Then when they show him blonde, and they're like 'WTF?', we find out that all this time Peter had been dying his hair brown. That would have been hilarious and made a lot more sense than the unexplained retcon of blondness.

Also, as much as I love Bendis, I do agree that he tends to completely disrespect other writers past work just to make the story HE wants to tell. With Abnett working with Marvel again on Guardians3000, I can't imagine him being 100% okay with this unless he secretly worked with Bendis to tell this story.

YES!!! Whoever edited this book needs to be beat with a wet noodle. How could they not notice the shape of the shield changing.

I've stayed away from this run of Guardians, and have only read the last two issues to find out what happened to Nova. After having read them, I'm even more secure in my decision not to waste my money on these books. The Marvel cosmic universe used to be so rich and engaging. What the hell happened?!?

As far as your last sentence...I think it's pretty clear Rich is dead. Personally, unlike the Comic Vine reviewer, I'm on the fence as to whether I'll shell out another 4 bucks (for a comic that, like the last two issues, contains 4 pages of actual story and 16 pages of incongruent and meaningless fight scenes) for the drawn out explanation of how it happened. Jeez Marvel...Nova deserved so much better than this!

But why now? Why tell the story of Richard rider after the success of the movie? The timing hints at a possible comeback for nova prime, when the brand is at an all time high, why tell a story no new fan should care about?

Placing mcGuinness on the arc also shows that marvel is putting a top artist to tell this story! Unfortunately future solicitations show nothing of our beloved nova prime.

I'm not giving up hope! Still a really enjoyable story

@thorboy: "...why tell a story no new fan should care about..."

I think you answered your own question :) Namely "new fans", or the lack there of. This current run of Guardians is not doing so great (the last 2 issues have been the only ones to break the top 5 on Comixology's best seller list). The pre-MarvelNOW cosmic titles (Nova, Guardians, Silver Surfer, Inhumans, etc.) all had pretty dedicated followings that had no where to go when MarvelNOW launched. I don't think Guardians is getting any "carryover" from the success of the movie, so the next best thing would be to try and lure old fans back.

I'm glad you're holding out hope (someone should). But given Bendis' interviews leading up this storyline (he pretty plainly states that Rich Rider fans are not going to like the way this story ends) I think the days are numbered for Nova.

Lots of good points about the lack of continuity with Thanos Imperative.

The review says that the Cube is defective, not just that they don't know how to use it. Is this the case? I don't remember it being defective in Imperative but I haven't gone back to check. Otherwise it does seem like a lot of emphasis is being put on how they don't know how to use it, or they're too physically weak to use it (a la the gem in the Guardians movie), whereas back in the day all kinds of humans used the Cubes reasonably effectively.

I looked it up and the last several issues have all been selling in the 50-60,000 range, that's actually pretty good. It's pretty impressive for any comic to break the top 5, so having 2 get in there seems like a pretty solid record, actually. How is it not doing so great?

Art = incredible. Story = Incredibly slow. Just the fact that GOTG, Nova and Thanos are sharing the same pages will keep me coming back...but I would like a little something more now. Still, I'll be back next issue.

Well I'm enjoying it. Mcguiness art is amazing and draws a great Thanos. I found it really funny how they just kept killing each other. Ending was good and can't wait to see how it wraps up

Just got to read it...another horrible issue by Bendis...

Just leave ''Thanos Imperative'' alone...it's as if he tries his best to ruin a good event....Bring back Dan Abnett so we can have good cosmic stories again...

@dathomiesilversurfer: Maybe their durability is nerfed in the Cancerverse? Thanos was tanking multiple cosmic cube blasts before they entered the cancer verse and inside the cancer verse he was getting vaporized easily.

it seems like death is more torturous in the universe because it happens all the time and its painful.

You guys are all silly. I like that Bendis is a writer that wants to tell his story and do it his way. Nobody is forced to read any of these comics, so maybe try something else. If you want to try and make sense of continuity in comics it will always be impossible. If you enjoy reading a book, then read it. If you don't, then put it down. The pacing is slower than I would like right now, but I expect that. You guys are so silly.

@derf_jenkins: I know this late, but come on, if your going to return to someone else event, the least you can do is write like you actually read it.