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Who let the talking raccoon on the team?  He kind of creeps me out.

When you get to the third page of Guardians of the Galaxy #2 and see the talking raccoon saying "Talking pets give me the willies," you've got to realize that this isn't going to be your standard team comic book.  And when you realize that the talking raccoon is referring to a talking Soviet dog, things may begin to get a little strange.  Marvel has tried to spin the Guardians of the Galaxy as the Avengers of space- a team of heroes gathered together when the universe is threatened by something that none of them could handle individually.  For the Avengers, it was Loki; for this group, it was Ultron in Annihilation Conquest.  This issue continues to draw out the similarities between both teams as the Guardians (actually, they're still unnamed at the start of the book) find a time-lost hero with a familiar looking shield floating in a chunk of ice in space.  Even to the characters themselves, this seems eerily familiar.

After the two Annihilation events, Marvel's cosmic heroes function  as soldiers in space rather than the philosopher fighters they were back in the 70s.  Cold, hard war replaced the metaphysical and moral conundrums that faced Adam Warlock and Captain Marvel.  Guardians of the Galaxy takes the war story approach and spins the team into something that more resembles Kelly's Heroes or The Dirty Dozen more than comics The Avengers or JLA.  Adam Warlock, Starlord, Rocket Raccoon, Drax, Gamorra and the new Quasar are thrown together not because they make a good team or anything but more just because they were drawn together by two wars and don't want to be caught unprepared for a third.

I've been a fan of the Starlin-influenced cosmic Marvel since I first discovered his Warlock series back when I was a kid.  What he did in the 70s was still brilliant in the 80s but started to wear out in the 90s after three Infinity series (Gauntlet, War & Crusade.)  Over three decades though, the ideas which formed the basis of the cosmic side of Marvel grew stale and didn't translate well into the 21st Century Marvel.  Coming out on the other side of two wars, the cosmic characters have shed their navel gazing and become real warriors-- direct, blunt, powerful, funny and not just a little a little scary.  This is a team made up of loners and outcasts.  How can they really be expected to save the universe?

Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's dialogue is light-hearted and even breezy.  Rocket Raccoon is a great character as he is the one who has real team spirit, trying to find just the right name for the team.  Starlord is the guy trying to actually build a team and he does seem to be a good leader but the question is can he be the leader of this team.  Adam Warlock is still the resident philosopher warrior but the emphasis here is more on warrior.  Even as they're working to establish this team, they reach into the future and begin pulling in the old Guardians of the Galaxy with the introduction of time lost hero with the familiar looking shield.

Guardians of the Galaxy is off to a great start, combining fun dialogue with solid action that feels ominous enough to pull the reader back month after month.

Guardians of the Galaxy #2
"Legacy"
Written by: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning
Penciled by: Paul Pelletier
Inked by: Rick Magyar
Colored by: Nathan Fairbairn
Lettered by: VC's Joe Caramagna
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