Guardians of the Galaxy #148
Marvel Comics
Written by Gerry Duggan
Art by Marcus To
Colors by Ian Herring
Letters by Cory Petit
The Infinity Quest continues as Peter Quill and Rich Rider find themselves face to face with the power stone. Unfortunately, getting the stone will be next to impossible as it is the size of a small office building and generating its own gravitational field. It turns out the Eve and the other Corpsman that went missing are trying to protect the Infinity stone from anyone who would try and steal it and that leads Quill and Rider to come up with a creative solution for concealing the location of the stone and the whereabouts of the missing corpsman. Rocket, meanwhile, continues to thrive in his role as a member of the Nova Corps and his determination and attitude lead him to get a promotion to Denarian.
Drax has his own set of problems as he confronts the detail tasked with delivering Thanos to the Kiln. He wants answers and the ones that he’s getting make little to no sense. When the Nova’s show him a woman and her children who are infected with the Ultron disease, the Nova’s attempt to murder them, thinking that Drax will not intervene. They are wrong. When the disease gives the refugees powers, Drax takes it on himself to protect them from the corrupt corpsmen and he finds out some interesting news about Thanos as well. As the team reunites at the Nova Corps base, Peter confronts Gamora about keeping from him that Rich was alive, Drax ignores any attempts to engage with Peter about the mission he just completed and a new and potentially weird new threat is emerging and only the Guardians will be able to stop it.
The issue of Guardians does a decent juggling act of keeping all of the pending threats that are coming in perspective. Duggan doesn’t dwell too long on The Fraternity of Raptors, Thanos or the traitors in the corps and the story allows for the characters to not only deal with the external threats they face, but also examine their roles on the team and in their shared quest. The writing is pitch perfect for the characters with great emphasis on the stakes of the story and moments of humor that work in context with the characters. To’s art also stands out with some great panel angles as well as details in character expressions that stay with you.