The Marvelverse hits 10 with its winning streak. Will Avengers: Age of Ultron get them to 11? What’s next to get them to 12 in order to take the trophy away from Pixar. Being both Disney “hotels” on the Monopoly board, the Mouse just needs to move the trophy over to another shelf.
Back to number ten, Guardians.
Marvel seriously rolled the dice here by going with a C-list title I haven’t read since the Nineties. Even then, Guardians is a completely different comic book because the one I knew was Marvel’s competition with DC’s long-standing, often cancelled/rebooted Legion of Superheroes, their backdrop of the 31st century was all they had in common. During the Aughts, the Guardians title was kept while everything else was overhauled regardless of a movie adaptation…or maybe they had a movie in mind all along.
Guardians is set in outer space concurrently with the other Avengers-based characters, the appearance of the Collector confirms this; the Collector was the character shown at the end of the last Thor movie. Since Loki failed, Thanos now backs Ronan the Accuser to spread destruction. This isn’t a spoiler but Earth isn’t involved for once! Our planet is the main hero Star Lord’s former home is about it.
I’ll lead with what I didn’t like. The worn-out Sixties-Seventies compilation servers as Star Lord’s strongest memory of his deceased mother, nice. What I just hated was the real motivation; Hollywood teaming up with the dying Music Industry to squeeze a few more bucks out of songs we’ve heard to death on Oldies and AOR stations. Bradley Cooper’s performance as Rocket was tolerable. He’s an actor I could live without.
The great elements clobber the previous paragraph. Applause all around for Zoe Saldana for pursuing a third Sci-Fi/Space Opera franchise! She has earned the Nerd Hat Trick: Star Trek, Avatar and this. Michael Rooker as a good ol’ boy alien was amusing; Yondu in the my comics was usually a quiet sidekick you’d never miss if he died. Lastly, the tradition of sitting through all the ending credits pays off for the super diehard Marvel fans and/or comic historians.
Don’t take my word for it alone. Here are two endorsements from my nephews Cannon and Wyatt.
Cannon’s approval:
Wyatt’s opinion (caution, spoiler):
Alamo Extras: Marvel cartoons of the Guardians teaming up with Spider-Man and the Avengers; trailer for Starcrash and The Ice Pirates; some jokes with Chris Pratt getting monuments wrong; his appearance on Conan; tons of movies showing raccoons being cute and not crapping everywhere they go.