Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate Guide to the Cosmic Outlaws

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Ultimate Guide to the Cosmic Outlaws

By Nick Jones

DK Publishing
Hardcover, 200 pages

One of my earliest and fondest comic books from my youth is a battered copy of Astonishing Tales #29, which reprinted the first Guardians of the Galaxy story from Marvel Super Heroes #18. In those pre-comic book store days, it was difficult to track down their adventures as they appeared sporadically through Marvel titles, so they drifted by my short attention span.

I caught up a dozen years later with the 1990s Jim Valentino reboot, which was fun, but again the Guardians faded away into B-List Limbo. However, the 2008 cosmic reboot by Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett was a different story. Although this new iteration wasn’t quite my Guardians of the Galaxy, they successfully put together a ragtag team with the spirit of the old.

Okay, so all of that so far was a long-winded build up to my review of DK new book (which was kindly supplied to me for the purposes of a review). I was impressed as it would have been easy to stick to the current incarnation and leverage the 2014 film and it’s 2017 sequel, but author Nick Jones really did his home work. He spends a considerable time not only on the film version of the team, but on the 1970s and 1990s versions. His work also covers the post-2014 film expanded cosmic universe that the comic book heroes have been exploring and adventuring within.

In the typical and reliable DK fashion, the book presents all this information in an impressive and sometimes dizzying visual fashion with a lot of great art clips, covers, timelines, friends, villains, equipment, and character bios. Once you start reading, it's pretty hard not to flip through the whole book!

This hardcover is an impressive refresher on the legacy of the Guardians of the Galaxy and a great primer for the upcoming sequel.