Guardians of the Galaxy’s latest ongoing series had a solid start a few weeks ago. Gerry Duggan and Aaron Kuder established All-New Guardians of the Galaxy as a fun series in comparison to everything else going on in the Marvel Universe. Though the team is the same as the one we saw in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Duggan is not shying away from the crazier aspects of Marvel’s cosmic corner with the Grandmaster and Collector playing a big role in this first story arc. Now with the Guardians of the Galaxy given a mission to steal from the Collector things should only get crazier. Let’s find out if that is the case with All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #2.
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Aaron Kuder
Colorist: Ive Svorcina
Story Rating: 8 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 7.5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: In the Guardians of the Galaxy’s ship Rocket goes over the Collector’s history with the team and explains how his place is surrounded by various security measures including mines, sentries and extra-dimensional guards to name a few.
While brainstorming plans Gamora suggest they sneak in with their own version of a Trojan Horse. Star Lord agrees as he sees no other way and thinks of what their Trojan Horse will be.
Sometime later, inside the Collector’s place some guards accept a giant creature that is said to be extinct into the collection. After the guards leave, the Guardians come out of the beast’s crap and break through the glass case. The beast smashes the broken case, causing enough noise to alert the guards to the Guardians’ location.
Gamora acts quickly and uses her skills to quickly eliminate the guards, who turn out to be robots.
Meanwhile Drax runs into one of Collector’s workers while looking for the Hijahdarian Monarch Egg. The worker fires on Drax, forcing Drax to throw him off the stairs.
Star Lord and Drax eventually find the Hijahdarian Monarch Egg that the Grandmaster wanted. At the same time Gamora looks for something else in the Collectors’ collection. Rocket notices this and asks what she is after.
Before Gamora can say anything the extra-dimensional beings that Collector has working for him cause the Guardians’ to see their worst fears. Drax is initially unaffected and dares the beings to go deeper into his head. The beings get scared off by what they see inside Drax’s head.
As the Guardians try to walk out of the Collector’s place they realize the room they are in has suddenly changed. Something massive heads towards them.
The Collector suddenly appears and reveals that the Guardians are walking on one of his fingers. The Collector reveals that he allowed the Guardians into his place to see what the Grandmaster wanted them to steal. The Guardians try to explain themselves but the Collector quickly shuts them up.
Elsewhere, in another part of the galaxy, someone brings the newly born Groots food. The person notices that not all the Groots are strong and says every garden needs to be carefully cultivated. One of the bigger Groots grabs a small one and rips it in half. End of issue.
The Good: All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #2 continues the fun established by the first issue of the new series. This time around we get to see the Guardians of the Galaxy cause their own brand of hijinks inside the Collector’s place to great results.
Gerry Duggan does not hold back in how ridiculous the team is when they are interacting with one another throughout All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #2. Duggan almost treats the team like they are siblings as they all find different ways to get under each other’s skin. At the same time things like Rocket noticing Gamora being up to something shows how much of a family the team is as they know each other so well now.
Duggan adds further depth to the fun of seeing the Guardians of the Galaxy running around the Collector’s place by giving each member of the team their own specific stories. From Drax trying but failing to keep up his new lifestyle to Gamora sneaking around looking for something other than the egg Grandmaster wanted, there are plenty of character sub-plots to follow. All these things happening at the same time help show how each character is their own distinct person within all the silliness of their adventures.
It was especially enjoyable how the Guardians decided to enter the Collector’s place in the worst way possible, inside the crap of an extinct beast. The visual of this drove home how nothing is out of the question when it comes to Star Lord leading his team to a successful mission. The “creativity” of this plan was the action of Gamora being an absolute badass with how she destroyed the Collector’s robot guards.
Through all Guardians hijinks in the Collector’s place it was a great hook ending to show that the Collector set the team up the entire time. It did seem odd that through everything the Guardians did inside his place that the Collector never showed he was watching. Revealing that the Collector was actually hanging back to learn what the Grandmaster wanted the Guardians to steal from him was a cool character moment for the Collector. It makes you wonder where exactly Duggan will go after what the Guardians have been through so far.
Aaron Kuder does a very good job complimenting how much fun Duggan is having with writing the Guardians of the Galaxy with his cartoon-esque artwork. Kuder is able to make sure character reactions match with what Duggan is writing, especially any time Drax goes from living up to his new lifestyle then suddenly breaking it. The way Kuder drew the short Gamora action sequence has me hoping Duggan gives him more action scenes to draw in future issues.
The Bad: The short scene that capped off All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #2 with someone raising evil versions of Groots was not as compelling as I hoped it would be. I can see how this sub-plot will play a bigger role in future issue but right now it feels to unrelated to all the interesting things going on with the current story arc. Hopefully with more time dedicated to this evil Groot story we are able to get a sub-plot as interesting as the main story of this arc.
Overall: All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #2 delivered on the fun that fans come to expect from the franchise. Gerry Duggan and Aaron Kuder are clearly having fun writing and drawing, respectively, the ongoing adventures of the Guardians of the Galaxy and it shows throughout this second issue. With how serious things are with the rest of the Marvel Universe, it is refreshing to have a comic book that is all about fun like All-New Guardians of the Galaxy to look forward to now.
