STORY
Guardians 9 gets us up to speed with a Previously paragraph informing the read that the Universal Church of Truth (formerly led by the Goddess) and is now headed by Star Lord’s father the Patriarch. They have a mission to kill death itself by raising their messiah but its not one person, its an army.
The stakes are quite high with this issue. Star Lord is given a vision of the future, the end of the universe, the end of Earth by his father. In order to subvert this end the Church plans to siphon off the life energy of Earth to bring their death slaying army to life, an army incubating in cocoons similar to the one the birthed Adam Warlock. Quite an interesting thing and being a long time comic reader this sort of detail gets my juices flowing because I know Donny Cates knows his Marvel history and continuity and knows how to build completely new an exciting ideas on the bones of older stories.
In addition Moondragon and Groot have to team up with a dying Rocket Racoon whose life is being barely preserved by a mech suit that kinda looks like G1 Star Scream from Transformers. Its a but absurd but it fits a character whose original solo series had him fighting homicidal robot, space clowns and I’m sure Cates is fully aware of this.
There’s lots of great stuff here calling back to the work of Starlin with things like the universal Church, the appearance of the Magus, the clearly mad cosmic plan of Quill’s father the Patriarch and the reveal of who exactly is to be born from these cocoons to Destroy Death itself. The plot is layered and fun, hitting all the right notes with action, intrigue and nods to previous works. Its a story bound to satisfy anyone who has ever enjoyed the cosmic side of Marvel adventures.
ART
I’ve got nothing bad at all to say about the art in this issue. All the players involved did a great job. The pencils convey the story with ease, leading the eye around the age with skill. Characters and background both are will rendered and everything looks fantastic. The inks are sharp and crisp, enhancing and defining what I would guess were already tight pencils. The colors really pop, adding to the mood, drama or action of each panel in the best possible way. Characters are defined, popping off the background and nothing is muddy, its all clear and precise.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I honestly couldn’t even nit pick this book. Donny Cates continues to justify himself to me as my favorite Marvel writer of the past two years and this art team just adds to the experience exponentially.
SCORE 5 out of 5!
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #9
Writer:Â Donny Cates
Art:Â Cory Smith
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colors:Â David Curiel
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