Prepping for the Movie: Guardians of the Galaxy #14

(writers) Brian Michael Bendis, Andy Lanning, Dan Abnett
(artists) Nick Bradshaw, Todd Nauck, Jason Masters, Phil Jimenez, Rafa Sandoval

The first thing that struck me about the cover of this issue was that Starlord, the lead GotG character, was no longer wearing his ridiculous blue and black space suit with the exposed face but an outfit strikingly similar to the leather jacket, pants, boots and full face mask that Chris Pratt has been sporting in promotional stills for the upcoming movie.

The second thing was Nick Bradshaw's art. Now, since I first laid eyes on Bradshaw's art I have believed him to be an Art Adams copycat, but I figured that, given the sheer number of books he's worked on, he is unlike Adams in that he is able to put books out on time. I was right on the first count, and wrong on the second. He is indeed an Art Adams copycat, with nearly nothing to distinguish his own style, and even less value-added but he is not at all more prolific; of the twenty pages of Brian Michael Bendis' story, Bradshaw only illustrates fourteen, with Todd Nauck and Jason Masters actually filling in for the remainder of the story.

The main story is pretty simple; J'Son of Spartax, Peter Quill/Starlord's dad, who has been chasing the Guardians since the very first story arc, has finally caught up with them, and things look grim for Starlord and his crew.

The first backup story, written by Andy Lanning and drawn by Phil Jimenez, is the origin of Groot, told completely without dialogue, save for Groot's trademark 'I am Groot' which he and everyone from his race utters, and the second, written by Dan Abnett and drawn by Rafa Sandoval, involves the 31st century Guardians, or at least some of them, like Vance Astro, Martinex T'Naga and Charlie-27, among others and may or may not tie into the main book at some point.

It's a nice meaty issue, the highlight of which, for me, is the Groot story, which boasts some fantastic art by Jimenez, but the weakness of the main story, which, really, is nothing more than a continuation of the story that began well over a year ago, basically undermines everything else, especially with Bradshaw's copycat art. Still, perhaps things will pick up with the next issue, given the appearance of a fairly prominent Avenger on the very last page.

6.5/10