Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers volume 1


By Arnold Drake, Steve Gerber, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Don Heck, Al Milgrom, John Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6687-0

With more Marvel Cinematic movies doing bonanza summer business around the world, here’s a timely trade paperback collection designed to perfectly augment cinematic exposure and cater to film fans wanting to follow up with a comics experience. If you want you can look at this on screen, too, through its digital edition…

This treasury of torrid tales gathers landmarks and key moments from Marvel Super Heroes #18, Marvel Two-In-One #4-5, Giant-Size Defenders #5, Defenders #26-29 and the time-busting team’s first solo series as it originally appeared in Marvel Presents #3-12, all monumentally spanning January 1969 to August 1977: a radically different set-up than that of the silver screen stars, but grand comicbook sci fi fare all the same…

One thing to recall at all times though is that there are two distinct and separate iterations of the team. The films concentrate on the second, but there are inescapable connections between them so pay close attention here…

Although heralded since its genesis in the early 1960s with making superheroes more realistic, The House of Ideas also always maintained a close connection with outlandish and outrageous cosmic calamity (as best exemplified in their pre-superhero “monsters-in-furry-underpants” days), and this pantheon of much-travelled space stalwarts maintain that delightful “Anything Goes” attitude in all of their many and varied iterations.

This titanic tome’s blistering battle-fest begins with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Earth Shall Overcome!’: first seen in combination new-concept try-out/Golden Age reprint vehicle Marvel Super Heroes #18 (cover-dated January 1969).

The terse, grittily engaging episode introduces a disparate band of freedom fighters united to save Earth from occupation and humanity from extinction at the scaly hands of the sinister, reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon.

It all starts when Jovian militia-man Charlie-27 returns home from a six-month tour of scout duty to find his entire colony subjugated by invading aliens. Fighting free, he jumps into a randomly programmed teleporter and emerges on Pluto, just in time to scotch the escape of crystalline scientist Martinex.

Both are examples of radical human genetic engineering: subspecies carefully designed to populate and colonise Sol system’s outer planets but now possibly the last of their kinds. After helping the mineral man complete his mission of sabotage – blowing up potentially useful material before the Badoon can get their hands on it – the odd couple set the teleporter for Earth and jump…

Unfortunately, the invaders have already taken the homeworld…

The Supreme Badoon Elite are there, busily mocking the oldest Earthman alive. Major Vance Astro had been humanity’s first intersolar astronaut; solo flying in cold sleep to Alpha Centauri at a plodding fraction of the speed of light.

When he got there 1000 years later, humanity was waiting for him, having cracked trans-luminal speeds a mere two centuries after he took off. Now he and Centauri aborigine Yondu are a comedy exhibit for the cruel reptilian conquerors actively eradicating both of their races…

The smug invaders are utterly overwhelmed when Astro breaks free, utilising psionic powers he developed in hibernation, before Yondu butchers them with the sound-controlled energy arrows he carries.

In their pell-mell flight, the pair stumble across incoming Martinex and Charlie-27 and a new legend of valiant resistance was born…

The eccentric team, as originally envisioned by Arnold Drake, Gene Colan & Mike Esposito in 1968, were presented to an audience undergoing immense social change, with dissent in the air, riot in the streets and with the Vietnam War on their TV screens every night.

Perhaps the jingoistic militaristic overtones were off-putting or maybe the tenor of the times were against the Guardians, since costumed hero titles were entering a temporary downturn, but whatever the reason the feature was a rare “Miss” for Early Marvel and the futuristic freedom fighters were not seen again for years.

They floated in limbo until 1974 when Steve Gerber incorporated them into some of his assigned titles (Marvel Two-In-One and The Defenders), wherein assorted 20th century champions travelled a millennium into the future to ensure humanity’s survival…

From MTIO #4, ‘Doomsday 3014!’ (Gerber, Sal Buscema & Frank Giacoia) finds Ben Grimm and Captain America catapulted into the 31st century to save Earth from enslavement by the reptilian Badoon, concluding an issue later as the Guardians of the Galaxy climb aboard the Freedom Rocket to help the time-lost heroes liberate occupied New York before returning home.

The fabulous Future Force repaid that visit in Giant Sized Defenders #5: a diverse-hands production with the story ‘Eelar Moves in Mysterious Ways’ credited to Gerber, Gerry Conway, Roger Slifer, Len Wein, Chris Claremont & Scott Edelman.

Dependable Don Heck & Mike Esposito drew the surprisingly satisfying cohesive results: how the Defenders met with future heroes Guardians of the Galaxy in a time-twisting disaster yarn where their very presence seemed to cause nature to run wild, which only set up the next continued epic arc for the monthly comicbook…

‘Savage Time’ (Defenders #26 August, by Gerber, Buscema & Colletta) saw Hulk, Doctor Strange, Nighthawk and Valkyrie accompany the Guardians back to 3015AD in a bold bid to liberate the last survivors of mankind from the all-conquering and genocidal Badoon: a mission which continued with ‘Three Worlds to Conquer!’, then became infinitely more complicated when ‘My Mother, The Badoon!’ revealed the sex-based divisions that so compellingly motivated the marauding lizard-men, before triumphantly climaxing in the rousingly impassioned ‘Let My Planet Go!’ Along the way they had picked up – or been unwillingly allied with – an enigmatic stellar powerhouse dubbed Starhawk: a glib and unfriendly type who called himself “one who knows” and infuriatingly usually did, even if he never shared any useful intel…

Rejuvenated by exposure the squad rededicated themselves to liberating star-scattered Mankind and having adventures, eventually winning a short-lived series in Marvel Presents (#3-12, February 1976-August 1977) before cancellation left them roaming the Marvel Universe as perennial guest-stars in such cosmically-tinged titles as Thor and the Avengers.

That run began with ‘Just Another Planet Story!’ by Gerber, Al Milgrom & Pablo Marcos with the Badoon removed from a triumphantly exultant Earth and the now purposeless Guardians realising that peace and freedom were not for them…

Unable to adapt to civilian life the team reassembled, stole their old starship The Captain America and rocketed off into the void…

Those episodes were augmented by text features ‘Readers Space’ episodically delineating the future history of Marvel Universe Mankind – using various company sci fi series as mile markers, way stations and signposts – and firmly establishing a timeline which would endure for decades.

Gerber & Milgrom descended ‘Into the Maw of Madness!’ in Marvel Presents #4 as the noble nomads picked up Nikki, a feisty teenage Mercurian survivor of the Badoon invasion, and detected the first inklings that something vast, alien and inimical was coming from “out there” to consume our galaxy…

They also met cosmic enigma Starhawk’s better half Aleta, a glamorous woman and mother of his three children, who just happened to be sharing his body…

When the intrepid star-farers and their ship are swallowed by the systems-wide monster Karanada they find a universe inside the undead beast and end up stranded on the ‘Planet of the Absurd’ (Gerber, Milgrom & Howard Chaykin) allowing the author to indulge his taste for political and social satire as our heroes seek to escape a society of vast species variety somehow mimicking 20th century Earth…

Escape achieved the fantastic fantasy escalates into high gear when the crash into the heart of the invading force and on a galaxy-sized planet in humanoid form. ‘The Topographical Man’ (Gerber, Milgrom & Terry Austin) holds all the answers they seek in a bizarre sidereal nunnery where Nikki is asked to make a supreme sacrifice that changes Vance’s life forever in ways he never imagined as they spiritually unite to ‘Embrace the Void!’ in a metaphysical rollercoaster (inked by Bob Wiacek) which finally ends the menace of the soul-sucking galactic devourer.

At this time deadlines were a critical problem and Marvel Presents #8 adapted a story from Silver Surfer #2 (1968) as the team picked up an old Badoon data-log and learned ‘Once Upon a Time… the Silver Surfer!’ saved Earth from alien predators in two-layered yarn correctly attributed to Gerber, Milgrom, Wiacek, Stan Lee, John Buscema & Joe Sinnott…

Back on track for MP #9, Gerber & Milgrom revealed that ‘Breaking Up is Death to Do!’ as the Guardians’ ship is ambushed by the predatory Reivers of Arcturus, leading into the long-awaited and shocking origins of Starhawk and Aleta and setting the assembled heroes on a doomed quest to save the bonded couple’s children from brainwashing, mutation and murder by their own grandfather in ‘Death-Bird Rising!’ and the concluding ‘At War with Arcturus!’ (both inked by Wiacek).

The series abruptly concluded just as new scripter Roger Stern signed on with ‘The Shipyard of Deep Space!’ as the bruised and battered team escape Arcturus and stumble onto a lost Earth vessel missing ever since the beginning of the Badoon invasion. Drydock is a mobile space station the size of a small moon, designed to maintain and repair Terran starships. However, what initially seems to be a moving reunion with lost comrades and actual survivors of the many genegineered human sub-species eradicated by the reptilian ravagers is quickly found to be just one more deadly snare for the Guardians of the Galaxy to overcome or escape…

This spectacular slice of riotous star-roving is a non-stop feast of tense suspense, surreal fun, swingeing satire and blockbuster action: another well-tailored, on-target tool to turn curious movie-goers into fans of the comic incarnation and another solid sampling to entice newcomers and charm even the most jaded interstellar Fights ‘n’ Tights fanatic.
© 1968, 1974, 1976, 1977, 2014 Marvel Characters Inc. All rights reserved.