Jan-Ken-Pon – Guardians of the Galaxy #14 review

    
Interesting quandary presented to me in this issue. In my review of the previous issue I talked about how any lumps Warlock takes tends to be transferred to me as I’m just a huge fan of the character. In many ways he’s really (at the very least) one the half dozen or so central characters in the Cosmic corner of the Marvel landscape, and probably top 3 with people my age who started reading with books like The Infinity Gauntlet by Starlin and Perez. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that he and Thanos have been both the direct and meta sigificant players of Marvel Cosmic over the last 20 years or so. They have been both its chief combatants and conscious. Part of the deStarlization of Marvel Cosmic did away with this, and Thanos was given a beautiful, dramatic, and best of all apropos adieu. Warlock was out of the picture almost entirely, but still used in his absence in some sense as an answer to a hanging, unsaid ”when?”. The key to such storytelling is that Abnett and Lanning know the value of such moments and are able to pay them off without impeding new readers.

In this issue of Guardians of the Galaxy – this chapter of War of Kings – we see another message. The would-be messiah is beaten by Vulcan, the would be King, and twerp Summers’ boy. It’s a personal blow to all fans of the moorcockian-Warlock, but it sends us a message. Our boy is in this fight, but he won’t be the closer of this game. On the surface, for the completely uninitiated and for perhaps even those that know Warlock only through Guardians of the Galaxy, Vulcan asks the two rather pertinent questions.

First, who are you supposed to be?

And second . . .or you’ll do what?

    
Beneath, they also spoke to those of us who thought we knew both answers. In the issue prior, Abnett and Lanning showed us the massive extent of Warlock’s power. In this issue they show us it’s not enough against Vulcan.

While Warlock is separated from the half of the team that he accompanied to confront the Shi’ar, the other group is where we left them in the last issue– in the throne room of Kree being brushed off by Blackbolt and the Inhumans. The scene may be a bit overextended, but does offer the chance to show Phyla-Vell’s (now ominously called Martyr) showing off the new attitude that being the avatar of Oblivion comes with (from Guardians of the Galaxy#1). It also continues what we’ve seen in the War of Kings miniseries where Crystal is evolving to be more than just the people’s (Kree) princess; she has become representative of humanity in the midst of a universal shit storm. In the end the Guardians do succeed in getting between the two factions, though probably in much more literal sense than they desired. The War of Kings has arrived at their home and circumvented the doorstep in doing so.

The title retains this affable quality, and its success is to keep the book – and not in a negative manner – chummy in the largest of moments and circumstance. In many ways, it’s similar to Agents of Atlas in that we don’t read this title for one character or the novelty of integration of the already well defined, iconic, mainstream entity. We pick this title up for the team – the adventures of the Guardians of the Galaxy. At one moment confronting warlords whose decisions come with causalities counts only possible when reading a Marvel Cosmic event, this team is delightfully able to just seem in place in these epic moments. In place, but not too comfortably so, as Jack Flagg’s words could very well prove to be prophetic, and even embody the thematic basis of the team in general:

When this done we are going to be to busy saying “how the ****did we survive that?”

It’s a story I can’t wait to flip through myself.

    
- Jay Tomio

_{Jan-ken-pon is the time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column of Jay Tomio, owner of 1/3 of everything you see currently on screen, and the editor of Heliotrope. Some call him the Bodhisattva.}

About Jay Tomio

...Jay Tomio is the co-owner of BSCreview and BSCkids--check out Jan-ken-pon, his time traveling, force-walking, multiverse crossing column. More fun awaits at the Vogue Immunity