Guardians of the Galaxy #5: He’s Back! (The Man Behind the Mask)

The best issue yet of Donny Cates GOTG series I can’t say the reveal surprised me but it’s better to have a solvable mystery rather than the nonsense going on in Detective Comics. I was overjoyed to see Lockjaw, who displayed this same bond with BrB in Death of the Inhumans (also by Cates) which was kind of a neat callback. I appreciate the sense of continuity this series provides in this era of endless relaunches. I really loved the chewie speak way that Bill seemed to have a conversation with him it was perfect.

I’ve been a bit down on this series due to an overabundance of characters and this issue improves on that front a bit with almost every character having at least 1 or 2 lines and a couple things being spelled out. Rocket still hasn’t shown up, but he is mentioned so maybe we’ll get there soon. There are still a couple characters that we haven’t seen much from like Quasar (or is it Pulsar?) and Moondragon.

The cliffhanger resolution held over from last issue felt like something out of an old cop show, which made me laugh. I also really liked Hela attacking the Dark Guardians, she owned them as a god should, Asgardians hardly get enough credit these days.

The art by Geoff Shaw and David Curiel is fantastic, it’s very detailed and I love the way Shaw portrays expression and emotion in even the most inconsequential scenes. Curiel’s colors are especially great in a splash page of Lockjaw entering and another page where Hela and Cosmic Ghost Rider meet, so cool. Great.

Sorry about the lack of pics there are a lot of big panels I didn’t want to spoil for folks.