A Night at the Space Opera

I think this is going to be the last of my Marvel Now review column. There are a few more new titles coming out, but I'm getting tired of reading them. They did motivate me to keep reviews coming, so I'll try to keep up with that. I'll try to mention less corporate type books in the upcoming months. That's mostly the stuff I really enjoy anyway.

On to these two books. I'll preface by stating I'm a huge fan of space operas and loved these two books when they were relaunched eight years ago. Keith Giffen brought back some pretty obscure 70s characters and Abnett and Lanning later perfected them. I bought most of all those cosmic titles until they were cancelled a couple years ago. Now that the movies were announced, Marvel has brought them back to the forefront. I was interested when these books were first announced but was skeptical about the creative teams.

After reading, these books aren't that bad but still are thoroughly disappointing. And they're kind of the same book. I will right now simultaneously describe the plot of both books: Some douchey teenager with father issues (in Nova he's a drunk loser, in Guardians he's absent) discovers that their his father really was the space adventurer that he (or in Starlord's case, his mother) claimed to be. The kid gets injured in a fight and ends up in a hospital. Rocket Raccoon also obligatorily shows up in a couple panels.

Since both of these books take place 95% on earth, it really isn't much of a space opera. With the upcoming films, Marvel really seems to be trying to push these as Avengers books. They're even putting Iron Man on the Guardians. Which is cool. They're a business. It's not art. They need to attract young kids. I'm not going to argue the fact that Marvel and DC books are for kids anymore than I'll argue that Star Wars is for kids. And if they weren't for kids, then why did we love them so much when we were kids? I wasn't watching Midnight Cowboy every day when I was six.

Showing Nova and Starlord as kids reminds me of Patton Oswalt's Star Wars routine (which I was coincidentally listening to a couple days ago). I don't care what the characters I love were like as kids. I just want to see them flying around with the helmets and shooting things.