Comic Vine Review

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Guardians of the Galaxy #22

4

The Guardians try to play Whack-A-Symbiote as Venom jumps from crewmember-to-crewmember.

The Good

With event fatigue settling in on a few different titles, it’s nice to read something that feels really and truly modular, addressing only things relevant to it’s ongoing storyline and this issue does a great job with that. If it were just taking place on the Guardians’ ship, it would be good but not great and likely too limited in scope to feel like anything was truly getting done, but we also get a glance at some amusing interstellar politics and a visit from Carol Danvers (yaaaaay!) Brian Bendis juggles three storylines without under serving any one of them, making the issue feel more significant than it otherwise might. It’s a great character issue and the two storylines swirling around the main one are both interesting and actually fairly funny. With a massive power vacuum in the Spartax Empire, the people in charge turn to the only candidate that makes any kind of sense, and who has the political clout to mobilize the majority of people behind him. The only problem may be the candidate himself. Specifically that he’s unaware of his candidacy. The Guardians certainly have more immediate problems as the Venom symbiote begins the issue having possessed Groot (Voot? Grenom?...yeah, nailed it), but quickly leaves him in search of other, more articulate hosts. The interesting thing here is that the symbiote itself actually seems to have some kind of motivation other than attaching itself to someone, and it’s a motivation that requires control of the ship.

Valerio Schiti handles the majority of the art linework this issue, with David Lopez stepping on for Captain Marvel’s section, and nails the cartoonish, bizarre tone that this book strikes, alongside its more realistic and grounded character designs. This is a book that also strikes a lot of different, in some cases dissonant, tones, particularly on the Guardians’ ship where action scenes hard-hitting, kinetic intensity give way to some brief quieter moments more reminiscent of a horror movie, and both look fantastic. Lopez’s pages look good, giving the impression that not only is Captain Marvel back in this book, but it looks like her pages are actually crossing over with GUARDIANS. It’s a neat effect and Jason Keith’s colors across the entire issue help the unify the two looks and bring out the wild, colorful universe these characters inhabit.

The Bad

As much as I’m enjoying the storylines around it, the core story of this issue feels rote and by-the-numbers. The symbiote jumping from character to character makes for some interesting visuals and character designs, but it definitely feels like we’ve been here before, even if it’s with a different cast. It’s also yet another issue and they’re seemingly no closer to the symbiote planet itself, something teased several issues ago, and even in this most recent one (not to mention in the solicitation) and yet they aren't even on their way to it yet.

The Verdict

The meandering central plot is helped not only by the side stories, but by an extremely strong core cast of characters with some exceptionally talented creators. It’s a book that really illustrates how important having creators who not only know what they’re doing, but are passionate about the characters as it can elevate otherwise mediocre material into goodness if not greatness. Guardians of the Galaxy would be great as a “day-in-the-life” style book, but it also shines when it goes big, which we’ll hopefully be getting to soon enough.