The Good

The Guardians make it to the Planet of the Symbiotes... finally.

Let's get the obvious right out of the way. Venom's new look is awesome and completely fitting for a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. What's the best thing about it? There's a Guardians logo on his shoulder. Ok, that's not the best thing, but it may be my favorite thing. What is really cool about it is that it fits the team he's on and the fact he's in space. He's wearing a symbiote spacesuit, and it's awesome.

Valerio Schiti and colorist Jason Keith do an awesome job in this issue. They give the reader bits and pieces of what this world looks like, in an uncharted part of space and it's very alien, even for all the things we've seen in the cosmic part of the Marvel Universe. The art provides this fun, yet dark tone to this book and Keith is doing a wonderful job with colors and shading, especially here. The art is easily the best part of this book, followed closely by the way Brian Michael Bendis writes these characters interacting with each other, which is fun and very enjoyable.

The Bad

In the three-part Planet of the Symbiotes story, the Guardians get to said planet during the third part and man, does it feel rushed. Conceptually, this was something that needed to be explored within all of Marvel's lore and it feels completely like a throw-away moment.

From there, the issue tries to completely change everything everyone knows about the Symbiotes within three pages of backstory about what the symbiotes are and the Guardians just come to accept it all, and the reader is also expected to as well. The issue rushes the reader through all of this so it can move forward into The Black Vortex, next month. By the end of the issue, the reader will be completely unsatisfied with everything about this story, except for the fact that Flash Thompson, as Venom, somehow looks even cooler, which I didn't think would be possible.

All-in-all, we still don't know much about the inhabitants of this planet. Sure, they lay out their mission in a large information dump, which is a tad aggravating in itself, but this is a completely underwhelming story and it shouldn't be. This should be a cool, stand-out moment for this book and Marvel, not just a story that gives a dude a new costume.

The Verdict

As The Planet of the Symbiotes closes up, it was easily one of the stories I was most excited for this year and one of the biggest let downs of the year. We get some great art and Venom in a cool, new costume which actually makes him fit on the team a whole lot better, but that's about it. This issue is a rushed information dump of everything Symbiote in order to progress to the next issue. This was a story that I wanted to be great, and it wasn't. If it weren't for the art, this would be rated a bit lower. Disappointment aside, if you want to see how Venom gets his new suit, saddle up. Otherwise, skip out on this one.

23 issues in and Bendis still can't write Drax.

Although I still kinda liked this issue.

Nope. First time I read the issue I was like "oh, this is a 3. not great, but decent."

On my second read-through, I just got annoyed/angry with how getting to the Planet of the Symbiotes was just so brushed off and fans are expected to be fine with 3 pages of info-dump.

Bendis needs to get things of his plate...

He has got too much on his plate and is severely affecting the quality of his stories...

I completely agree with your review Mat. Too much time was spent on seeing the symbiote control the members of GotG. The planet and it's inhabitants looked awesome and it's a shame the story didn't focus more on that.

So much potential there! Completely wasted. This story felt like a bad Marvel teaser poster.

@inferiorego: Yeah I can see that, I haven't liked most of Bendis's run (Guardians 3000 is much much better) I just liked seeing Venom going full cosmic really.

Damn

I actually liked this issue and the story behind the symbiote planet. But your right, they should have spent more time there.

Naww! I remember reading about this idea months ago and was hoping to pick it up in trade, sad to read of its suckage.

Ouch

I saw the writing on the wall with this title with that whole Nova/Thanos ending. Dumped it for G3K and haven't regretted it one bit.

I knew this would be rushed almost from the day they announced Black vortex and noted that there were "only" 4 or 5 issues to get the story through, had the writer been anyone but Bendis I wouldn't have worried.

Bendis however has proven himself pretty incapable of brevity when its needed. It has become his 'signature' with GOTG to start the storylines well and then start lagging the story at the middle until he finally scrambles all-hands-on-deck at the last issue to get the storyline finished.

Bendis has sucked on this book since Original Sin. Shame this is a huge disappointment

@bigl: Yeah the first issues seemed promising... I just really hope this kind of peter-out wont happen with Black vortex as well.

Man I stopped buying this book several issues ago in order to catch up on my backlog, and it's looking like I won't resub. I agree with the sentiment that Bendis should stop writing so many books and just focus on a couple.

Bendis needs to go! Bendis needs to go!

Bendis is ruining this book. He really needs to leave.

One GOTG book Bendis can't even write good story, imagine he will write another GOTG book (cough cough GOTG Team Up)

This Venom looks like something from Ben 10. this is BenVenom.Thanks Marvel..... I'm officially done with you.

Bendis...

lmao

This series makes me glad a reboot is happening to Marvel, just so that the new Guardians book post reboot will have a new writer hopefully.

@zoddguts: It's not a reb...... (Sigh) never mind. -_-

Bendis, he is determined to kill this series.

THIS!

"...it feels completely like a throw-away moment."

Pretty much sums up everything that's happened in the book. Look at how he handled what happened to Rider. He doesn't care about the title or any of its characters, not even the ones he's shoehorning into the team, and that makes it pretty much impossible for his readers too. Thank the Maker for Guardians 3000.

Did anyone really expect a good story from Bendis? Another thing can please get Captain Marvel away from him a part from the GOTG annual he really doesn’t use her that much in the book and even then Bendis doesn’t write Carol all that well and just tries to find ways to use her to prop up Jessica Jones.

The cover for this issue is super sweet but I feel it has nothing to do with the story and is kind of waste here.

Why don't you just read Guardians 3000?

@jonny_anonymous: In my case its because the current GOTG team is my favourite despite Bender's best attempts at sabotaging them. Though I'll probably start reading Guardians 3K soon, heard nothing but good about the series so far I'm just not a fan of the art in those issues.

It feels like Bendis has been spread to thin across all these books. I admit I am not a long time GotG fan and have enjoyed this, but as of recent things seem rushed. All the recent events haven't helped, but it was so cool seeing the symbiot homeworld but it just felt like "Oh here it is bye now..." I wonder if this coming Secret Wars has a factor in some recent books feeling rushed so they can tie up story lines before May.

I knew it was going to be terrible as soon as it was announced.

@xwraith: Tbh you could see the signs of this as far back as Issues 14-17 it started in similar fashion and then was just rushed back to status quo like nothing happened and what I can tell nothing about those issues has been revisited since unless we count what happened in the last issues last pages.

Two stars? Really? Come on, ComicVine! That's not fair at all as this issue was marvelously... awful. They really should give it one star.

And that new suit is stupid. Period.

Although I haven't been enjoying his Uncanny Avengers or Captain America I wouldn't mind if Rick Remender took over GotG.

@cyberwarrior: I think they gave it two because the art was good and the writing wasn't complete bore.

@sinikettu: Well alright, the art of Schiti is quite solid, I'll give him that. However, I stil believe they should give this one star due to the plot that is Shity.

Does Bendis think he will be the next G.R.R. Martin and the Powers TV show will be his Game of Thrones? His massive ego is getting in way ability to write decent stories IMO.

The folks on the X-Men forums have also been screaming how bad his All New X-men has gotten lately.

i think this book is suffering from bendis taking on too many projects at once.

@starbrand1: Yeh, his been hoarding work like magpies in a jewellery shop.

I agree with everything said but I also really like the changes made to the symbiote's origin...it explains a lot about the symbiote and the previous users....like the symbiote was already kind of screwed up because of it's time in isolation before Peter found it...then it found Peter and he was perfect and Peter rejected it which screwed it even more...then it found Eddie who was bat shit crazy so that resulted in Venom...then Mac Gargan who was eating people and what not....then it found Flash who was perfect and it was finally able to start getting itself back to normal

@danhimself: It's a good idea. This entire storyline...good ideas. Rushed execution, though.

I liked this. I think part of the problem though was the title of the arc, Planet of the Symbiotes. When you have a title like that, all people are going to care about is the actual planet, which apparently wasn't the focus. If the arc had had a different title and the actual planet was a surprise I think it would've been a lot more positive. It's the same kind of thing with Uncanny X-Men right now. The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier hasn't really been about the will for a long time.

@spacemanspiff85: Yeah, something like Flash forward would have been closer to the truth I think.

@spacemanspiff85: I finally got my hands on the issue properly, well its not quite as bad as the stars say but it assuredly isn't above 3 stars. I think the biggest problem, once again, was the fact that it really does feel like two issues worth of stuff just crammed and concentrated into one. So everything just sort of 'happens' and that's it.

@sinikettu:

I like Bendis, but I think he often has a problem with pacing. He tends to spend a lot of time on dialogue and bickering, so when the plot development actually happens there's not much space left for it.

@spacemanspiff85: Yeah he really needs to learn set-up. I hope his stint with writing for TV will aid him realising its importance.