Arnold Drake (1924–2007)

I have an ongoing frustration with the Guardians of the Galaxy. I love the idea of them, but for the most part, I have not truly enjoyed the actual stories that have been written for them.

I should also say that, while the world knows the GotG as Star Lord, Drax, Gamora, Groot, and Rocket, that's never been my GotG line up. Mine was always Major Vance Astro, Martinex, Charlie-27, Yondu, Nikki, and Starhawk.

Which brings me to this collection. Unfortunately, while there was some brilliant stuff coming out of Marvel in the mid-to-late 70s, there was also an awful lot of crap. And unfortunately Steve Gerber produced more than his fair share of it. The storyline presented here is...well, it's a hot mess. Gerber does a trial run of his Omega the Unknown character with Starhawk who constantly says something along the lines of "Take the word...of One Who Knows!" but never explains how one happens to know. And when it came to providing the origin of the One Who Knows, he started it, then handed the entire mess over to Roger Stern with the admission that he really didn't know where he was going with it.

Which is the central problem, right? Someone who doesn't know what he's doing is writing a character who's defining characteristic is to be the One Who Knows.

Gerber's other problem is, despite having an entire universe as his sandbox, he rarely plays with anything that doesn't seem to tie back tightly to NYC. The imagination just wasn't there.

Roger Stern fairs a little better, steering the storyline away from hamfisted social commentary and Really! Deep! Stories! about very little toward more of a space opera.

I do think, had Stern had more time, he probably could have turned this iteration of the GotG into something fantastic. Unfortunately, he'd taken over a ship that Gerber had purposefully and wantonly kicked holes in.

I'll never understand why Marvel thought their Steves...Gerber or Englehart...were good at cosmic, galaxy spanning stories. They weren't.… (mehr)