True Believers: Guardians of the Galaxy: Galaxy's Most Wanted #1

I picked this one up at the Shanghai Comic Con.

Title: True Believers: Guardians of the Galaxy: Galaxy's Most Wanted
Issue: 1
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: September 2016
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Valerio Schiti
Colorist: Richard Isanove
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Cover: Arthur Adams, Jason Keith
Editor: Kathleen Wisneski, Jake Thomas, Nick Lowe

After Peter Quill's brief tenure as the ruler of a planet came to a bad end, he finds himself on the run, along with Kitty Pryde (no, I didn't know she was in the Guardians either) on a prison planet with alien soldiers trying to kill them.

At which point they have an extended discussion about Kitty Pryde's fashion sense.

The idea here is that Quill has been left hopeless after recent events, and Kitty is trying to distract him enough for him to get his will to live back. I get what they were going for here, but it just didn't work for me. For one thing, there really wasn't any actual discussion of fashion. Nothing that substantive, anyway. And while this may seem like an odd complaint to make, the whole effect just came off as hollow, with no authenticity. It all felt like a big space-filler where little was actually accomplished.

Things picked up a bit when the action intensified, but the bad guys were generic, and the additional bad guys introduced at the end looked just as generic (if perhaps a bit more menacing) than the previous ones.

Kitty's rage as she describes the prison planet as a concentration camp packed some emotional punch, but would need more emphasis as the stories continues for it to really have an impact.

Rating: 4.5/10

X-Men Vs. Avengers Program Guide

This is a freebie that I picked up with this week's new comics.

Title: X-Men Vs. Avengers Program Guide
Date: 2012
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Jason Aaron, Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman
Artist: John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna, Frank Cho
Letterer: VC's Chris Eliopaulas
Cover: Jason Keith
Editor: Alex Alonso

Preview freebie for the upcoming X-Men vs. Avengers mega-crossover.

There are two actual story segments in here, along with a lot of filler.

First up, Cyclops takes Hope to task for, well, for acting like a super-hero, basically. Scott is being the overprotective father-figure, and he's not exactly thrilled with Hope jetpacking into the city to do the masked vigilante thing (well, technically she's doing it without a mask). What Hope really wants is to know the whole truth about the Phoenix, which is apparently going to be at the core of the upcoming schmozz. It's actually a pretty reasonable request. Scott clams up. Jerk. But we knew that about Scott, didn't we?

Scott ends the scene by admitting it could have gone better. Yeah, that's the problem when your idiotic insistence on not telling the truth to your kid becomes a useful plot device.

Choose your side, huh? Definitely rooting for the Avengers after that nonsense.

Second segment is the announcement that the Phoenix is heading for Earth. The Avengers are going to attack it in space, but they are so convinced that that plan is hopeless that I was left wondering why they would even bother. Meanwhile, Cap decided to go chat with the X-Men. First stop is the current version of Xavier's School, run by Wolverine. Cap wants to know if he can "count on" Logan. Logan replies with the silent sulking of deep conflict. Then it's off to visit the regular X-Men team. For those keeping score, that's Cyclops, Hope, Magneto, Namor (really?!?), Colossus, and Emma Frost. And now Scott has moved away from the moron role he had in the first scene and is dropping hints of a full-on heel turn. Magneto is amused. Cap shows up on the scene, but we cut before anything of consequence happens.

Extras included a few sketches by John Romita Jr. of upcoming action. I didn't find any of them to be all that intriguing, although Cage landing a right hook on Namor in the water was a pretty gorgeous piece of art.

There is also an extended roster of the various people involved, each with a summary of powers, and a "role" presented somewhat in the style of MMORPG roles ("Leader", "Tank", "Striker", etc). Some of these designations get a bit goofy. I particularly liked the fact that Logan's role is listed as "The Best There Is".

Rest of the book is ads, essentially. Well, really, the whole book is an ad, of course, but the rest of the book is more obviously ads.

I'd never seen the character Hope, and this teaser succeeded in getting me interested in her as a character. I also liked the portrayals of Wolverine and Cap, but I still didn't feel there was enough here to hook me into wanting to read a massive crossover. The Dark Phoenix Saga has already suffered from too many sequels, and this did nothing to justify yet another one.

Rating: 4.5/10