Guardians of the Galaxy and Thanos Rising

I've never been a big fan of cosmic/outer space comics, for some reason I have always had a hard time staying with any given series for long. That does not mean that I dislike cosmic characters by any means. The first "cosmic" characters that I knew of came from watching reruns of Space Ghost and Fantastic Four from the '60's and Green Lantern would soon follow.

March saw the launch of a new Guardians of the Galaxy series from Marvel, a team that originated in 1969 as a team of galactic heroes from the 31st century of an alternate timeline. Since then the team has had some changes in roster and a team forming in the mainstream Marvel timeline/continuity also known as the 616.

I was looking forward to getting into the cosmic side of Marvel when the news of this series was released, but when word came that Iron Man was going to be on this team I lost nearly all interest. With hopes that Tony Stark would only be around for the first arc and with the news of Angela appearing in #5 I decided to stick with it.

I missed out on issue #0.1 which was an origin story of Peter Quill aka Star-Lord and how he became the leader of this team of cosmic defenders. Issue #1 has Star-Lord being told by his father, the King of Spartex, that Earth has been declared off limits by the galactic super-powers, which leads an argument. We then find Iron Man checking out a ship in orbit and turns out to be a Badoon invasion. Enter Star-Lord and his team of Gamora, Drax, Groot and Rocket Raccoon.  It's a decent first issue with a good set up. Still hoping that Iron Man is gone after the first arc.

The Thanos Rising mini-series is a story set in Thanos' childhood, a glimpse into what makes the Mad-Titan into the death loving tyrant and cosmic conqueror that he is today. I understand that because of the scene at the end of the Avengers movie and due to the upcoming Infinity event and future movies, there needs to be some Thanos love on the racks. After having read it, I don't want or need to know any details of Thanos' early life. Just let this living embodiment of Death be who he is, villains don't always need an explanation especially when they are of a threat level of this magnitude. The writing and art are fine, there is nothing wrong with this book at all. If you need to have more insight into Thanos, then by all means get on this series.