Guardians 3000 #3 - Marvel Comics

GUARDIANS 3000 No. 3, February 2015

It is quite easy to see why any fan of Star-Lord of Spartax would be downright disappointed with this particular edition of “Guardians 3000”. For not only does the issue sport a stunningly colourful and dynamic Alex Ross cover featuring the definitive version of the interplanetary policeman swooping into action with his element gun firing. But internally it boldly declares that the month’s story title is “Lord Of Stars”. Yet in reality, the character of King Peter only actually makes an appearance, albeit a highly dramatic one, within the last few of pages of the comic book.

However, any lasting sense of disillusionment over this ‘no-show’ will almost certainly be ‘swamped’ by broad bewilderment, as writer Dan Abnett begins feeding the reader with his somewhat implausible and incomprehensible explanation as to why the Peace Summit at the Hideaway Parliament was previously attacked and why the mysterious A-Sentience want the Guardians Of The Galaxy dead.

 

To be succinct the tech constructs, also known as the (Anthony) Stark, and heavily influenced by the outward appearance of the playboy inventor’s Iron Man armour, are afraid of the death of reality. The synthetic constructs are therefore hunting Geena Drake because they perceive the Human to be “part of the problem and part of the solution” due to her awareness of the progressive erosion of time. To make matters even more baffling a Stark Body Unit befriends Yondu Udonta, Charlie-27 and Drake, when it is informed that the Guardians have fought alongside the robot’s Progenitor a thousand years earlier.

 

Bearing in mind the destructive chaos and murderous slaughter the mind-controlled Badoon have wrought upon the galaxy in order to try and achieve the A-Sentience’s goal of destroying the space-faring superhero team, this seems an incredibly weak justification for the killer robot to suddenly just ‘swap sides’. It also does not explain, bearing in mind the machine forms part of the Stark ‘collective mind’ so therefore it now knows of the Guardians history with Iron Man, why the rest of the techno-organic species are still determined for the heroes to “Submit to A-Sentience”? As Drake would say Abnett is “freaking me the flark out.”

Unfortunately Gerardo Sandoval would appear equally as bemused and bewildered by the plot’s proceedings as his artwork is both inconsistent and at times dishearteningly poor. Admittedly the Mexican graphics designer provides a very strong cohesive visual image for the Stark Body Unit and the rest of the A-Sentience. But a number of his panels featuring Charlie-27 and Geena in particular, suffer from such pitiful pencilling that each character is endowed with some quite grotesque facial expressions.

The variant cover art of "GUARDIANS 3000" No. 3 by Gerardo Sandoval