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Guardians of the Galaxy: Road to Annihilation #2
Guardians of the Galaxy Road to Annihilation 2
In the wake of the two Annihilation events, Star-Lord recruited Rocket and Groot to Guard the Galaxy - but what were the three unlikely heroes doing in the years before they came together? Find out in this catch-up on their pre-Annihilation adventures! When She-Hulk is caught in a cosmic caper, she fi nds Rocket Raccoon - transformed into a stone statue! What happened, and can Shulkie find a way to de-petrify him? Meanwhile, an imprisoned Peter Quill joins Adam Warlock, Pip the Troll and Gladiator as uneasy allies of...a redemption-seeking Thanos!
SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK 44-46; THANOS 7-12; MARVEL MONSTERS ON THE PROWL; NICK FURY'S HOWLING COMMANDOS 1-6, 1 DIRECTOR'S CUT
SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK 44-46; THANOS 7-12; MARVEL MONSTERS ON THE PROWL; NICK FURY'S HOWLING COMMANDOS 1-6, 1 DIRECTOR'S CUT
416 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2017
About the author
John Byrne
2,974 books366 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.
Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero.
Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 7, 2021
Wow, this is just a terribadly awful collection of stories from early in the Marvelverse careers of Rocket, Peter Quill, and Groot. And did I say “stories”? What I really mean is “fleeting cameos,” I guess.
Rocket appears briefly in a cornball storyline from She-Hulk on the planet of the Asparagus People. It’s a lot of fun and terribly politically incorrect, and I suppose if you’re a Rocket Raccoon completionist, then essential reading, but for most normal folks it’s prolly not time well spent. It is, however, light years better than the first six issues of Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos, which takes up more than a third of the volume and is, to put it mildly, an abortion of an idea that I never knew had been inflicted on comickind. (For those of you as unaware as I was, these are not the Howling Commandos you’re familiar with…this is a crew of monsterfolk recruited by Fury to fight bad juju, although Nick Fury never makes an appearance here. There’s Warwolf, Gorilla Man, a zombie or two, some vampires, and yes, toward the end, some version of Groot from Planet X who signs up. Jeezus but it’s bad.) Only slightly less terrible is Monsters on the Prowl, wherein Hulk, Ben Grimm, the Beast and Giant Man fight an all-star line up of creatures from the bad old days when big dumb monsters showed up every issue of Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish. Apparently they all escaped from the Collector’s monster museum and now it’s Good Monster v. Bad Monster in the streets of New York. Yeah, it’s dumb. And where’s Fin Fang Foom?!?
The best of the collection is the Thanos Samaritan storyline where Thanos goes to the Kyln and crosses paths with Peter Quill who is incarcerated there with the Gladiator, a version of the Beyonder called the Maker, and possibly the most annoying character in the Marvelverse, that naked Chaos Sprite who talks like she’s from West Virginia, Skreet. There are far, far better Thanos storylines, but Quill doesn’t pop into them, so I guess this is what we get. But considering the rest of what’s in this crappy collection…this cosmic tale is good reading in comparison!
So yeah, just like with Guardians of the Galaxy: Road to Annihilation Vol.1, you could say there’s a fair amount of false advertising at work here in the cover and title of the second volume. There’s no Annihilation and precious little of the Guardians of the Galaxy, but there are some bizarre moments from the over the years where Quill, Groot, and Rocket Raccoon have made some early odd cameos.
Rocket appears briefly in a cornball storyline from She-Hulk on the planet of the Asparagus People. It’s a lot of fun and terribly politically incorrect, and I suppose if you’re a Rocket Raccoon completionist, then essential reading, but for most normal folks it’s prolly not time well spent. It is, however, light years better than the first six issues of Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos, which takes up more than a third of the volume and is, to put it mildly, an abortion of an idea that I never knew had been inflicted on comickind. (For those of you as unaware as I was, these are not the Howling Commandos you’re familiar with…this is a crew of monsterfolk recruited by Fury to fight bad juju, although Nick Fury never makes an appearance here. There’s Warwolf, Gorilla Man, a zombie or two, some vampires, and yes, toward the end, some version of Groot from Planet X who signs up. Jeezus but it’s bad.) Only slightly less terrible is Monsters on the Prowl, wherein Hulk, Ben Grimm, the Beast and Giant Man fight an all-star line up of creatures from the bad old days when big dumb monsters showed up every issue of Strange Tales and Tales to Astonish. Apparently they all escaped from the Collector’s monster museum and now it’s Good Monster v. Bad Monster in the streets of New York. Yeah, it’s dumb. And where’s Fin Fang Foom?!?
The best of the collection is the Thanos Samaritan storyline where Thanos goes to the Kyln and crosses paths with Peter Quill who is incarcerated there with the Gladiator, a version of the Beyonder called the Maker, and possibly the most annoying character in the Marvelverse, that naked Chaos Sprite who talks like she’s from West Virginia, Skreet. There are far, far better Thanos storylines, but Quill doesn’t pop into them, so I guess this is what we get. But considering the rest of what’s in this crappy collection…this cosmic tale is good reading in comparison!
So yeah, just like with Guardians of the Galaxy: Road to Annihilation Vol.1, you could say there’s a fair amount of false advertising at work here in the cover and title of the second volume. There’s no Annihilation and precious little of the Guardians of the Galaxy, but there are some bizarre moments from the over the years where Quill, Groot, and Rocket Raccoon have made some early odd cameos.
February 22, 2022
This was not what I expected, but once I understood that the appearances of each character would be short I enjoyed it more.
Rocket gets the least amount of page time compared to Peter Quill and Groot, but it was still cool to see his original costume that gets referenced occasionally in his own comics. I am not a fan of the unnecessary She-Hulk pin-ups issue though. She-Hulk seems like an interesting character, but the pin-ups were not necessary to the story at all. These were obviously done for a very specific audience, and not necessarily those who are reading comics today.
Starlord working with Thanos was odd to see. He’s quite different (in both attitude and appearance) from GotG Peter Quill, but it’s cool to see where he originally appeared and how his character has been adapted.
Groot is….not the Groot I’m used to. But it makes sense that he would be a rampaging monster in earlier Marvel comics. I’m thankful for whoever decided to make Groot cuter and more sympathetic.
Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos (where Groot appears) was bizarre all around, but I still enjoyed it (aside from the art changing between issues and characters looking drastically different).
I don’t know a ton about Marvel comics before the 2010s, so this compilation was a good history lesson for me. I also enjoyed reading stories I would never have picked up on my own.
If you’re looking for comics staring any of the GotG characters, look elsewhere. But if you’re interested in origins of these characters, you will enjoy this!
Rocket gets the least amount of page time compared to Peter Quill and Groot, but it was still cool to see his original costume that gets referenced occasionally in his own comics. I am not a fan of the unnecessary She-Hulk pin-ups issue though. She-Hulk seems like an interesting character, but the pin-ups were not necessary to the story at all. These were obviously done for a very specific audience, and not necessarily those who are reading comics today.
Starlord working with Thanos was odd to see. He’s quite different (in both attitude and appearance) from GotG Peter Quill, but it’s cool to see where he originally appeared and how his character has been adapted.
Groot is….not the Groot I’m used to. But it makes sense that he would be a rampaging monster in earlier Marvel comics. I’m thankful for whoever decided to make Groot cuter and more sympathetic.
Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos (where Groot appears) was bizarre all around, but I still enjoyed it (aside from the art changing between issues and characters looking drastically different).
I don’t know a ton about Marvel comics before the 2010s, so this compilation was a good history lesson for me. I also enjoyed reading stories I would never have picked up on my own.
If you’re looking for comics staring any of the GotG characters, look elsewhere. But if you’re interested in origins of these characters, you will enjoy this!
March 31, 2023
3.5/5
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews