Guardians Of The Galaxy By Donny Cates

This collection was previously published in two paperback volumes, reviewed separately below -Guardians of the Galaxy – The Final Gauntlet“What ABOUT Rocket?”Iissues #1-6..This is another ‘what happened next’ story following the recent Infinity Wars – see Wolverine – Infinity Watch for another 5-star story.So, following the recent/latest death of Thanos, Starfox/Eros (“I was an Avenger once, you know”) has called all the cosmic characters and representatives of the surviving space-faring empires to the reading of the will of Thanos.Apparently, Thanos has made a download of his consciousness and he’s made arrangements to have it downloaded into s suitable candidate.Everyone’s first thought is “Gamora” (though not mine, my first thought was, as it turned out, the right one), followed (mostly) by “We must kill her before it is too late!”; fortunately, before anyone can act on this, the Black Watch arrive to steal Thanos’s body and drop everyone into a black hole. Well. That sorted that you might think.Cue 1970s music.Meanwhile, on a spaceship not a million miles from the above, Peter Quill and Groot.I.Am are moping around after whatever it was happened at the end of Infinity Wars (or afterwards, and we haven’t been told what it was yet – I’m going to have to go back and check how it ended, just in case), when Stormbreaker comes flying out of Knowhere dragging some survivors of the above catastrophe, carrying some former and some new Guardians, and suddenly we gave a new team and mission.And that was just the first issue.Then we have another five issues of top-grade cosmicy shenanigans (“We don’t mention Rocket”) with a Guardians’ story that hasn’t been this good since before Mr Bendis and the films got hold of them. We’re back to Abnett & Lanning levels of quality, and all in six issues.The artwork is excellent too.Guardians of the Galaxy – FaithlessIssues #7-12, but opening with Annual (2019) #1, which reintroduces a number of missing characters and sets up the main story for the rest of the volume.This is another superb volume from an A-list writer and an artist who is able to make an epic storyline look like an epic storyline.There isn’t really much more to be said than that, but this story eventually reunites the Guardians and puts them back, without losing their humorous aspects, on the A-list of cosmic characters/teams, ready for the next A-list writer (Al Ewing) who picks up the baton next.