Twomorrow's Avengers - Part Two!

The second volume of the Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow's Avengers tells how the Guardians encounter Korvac and how that menace would develop into one of the Assemblers greatest epic struggles, one in which the Guardians were along for the ride.

After being featured early on, the Guardians take something of a back seat in what is called "The Korvac Saga" today, but their role is nonetheless pivotal.

In the collected Korvac Saga, a few extra pages were added by Mark Gruenwald to fashion a coda ending to the epic. Those extra pages are in this latest collection.

The Guardians are rejected from Avengers affiliation after the battle with Korvac, but they are still in the 20th Century. That leads to a number of guest appearances.

Major Astro meets Miss Marvel.

Most of the team encounters the ubiquitous Spider-Man.

Starhawk becomes involved with The Thing again and helps to deal with the aftermath of the death of Adam Warlock.

Finally the team shows up in an issue of Marvel-Two-In-One to deal with the offbeat consequences of their presence in the here and then, since Vance Astro exists in two forms. That conundrum is dealt with, but after that the Guardians are largley forgotten in the Marvel Universe, until many years later when Jim Valentino relaunches them in their fist self-titled run. But that is another story indeed.

These two collections reflect what made Marvel so fine back in the day. The story of the Guardians unfolded over time slowly and in a meandering way touching first one port of call then another over the years as we learned more and more about these fascinating characters. They became increasingly woven into the larger fabric that was the sprawling Marvel Universe, but in a manner which seemed natural and less contrived somehow that what we chance upon these days with persistent events dominating the flow of the storytelling. 

My affection for the original Guardians (not the gang soon to be featured yet again in a theater near you alas) is largely because of the large impression they made on me as a youngster of ten who had just happened across a copy of Marvel Super-Heroes #18 just before my folks headed on an impromptu trip to Georgia to help my Aunt and Uncle with something, and my siblings and I were dropped off at our grandparents' house for a week or so. I still remember clutching that cherished comic and reading it to literal shreds as this was that softly glowing time of innocent youth when I sucked out every mote of joy from any comic book I could get my grimy mitts on.

Great memories! A great team! Two great collections!

 NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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