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Guardians of the Galaxy: The Power of Starhawk
This is the 26th volume of Marvel Premiere Hardcover Classics, old Marvel tales that haven’t been printed in some time getting a nice hardcover treatment. This is the second time the Guardians have appeared in MPHC and I wonder why they weren’t worthy enough for the Marvel Masterworks collections? Anyway, The Guardians of the Galaxy wouldn’t die and they were given their own title. Well, not their own eponymous title. They took over the reigns of a comic called Marvel Presents with #3 and they would remain with that title until it ended with #12. And who was in #’s 1 and 2? If you guessed Bloodstone then you win today’s prize! Steve Gerber handled the majority of the writing duties, though the team of Roger Stern and Stan Lee did issue #8 and Stern finished up the Marvel Presents run by doing the final three issues. Al Milgrom drew all these issues and John Buscema chipped in by drawing the Stan Lee portions of #8. These issues spanned February 1976 to August of 1977 and were originally published bi-monthly.
-Marvel Presents #3- We are introduced to the members of the Guardians for those who purchased this issue and didn’t read earlier Guardian appearances. There’s Charlie-27, Yondu, Captain Astro, Martinex and Starhawk. Anyway, the Guardians clean up the rest of the Badoon on Earth and then find they don’t really belong there so they set off with Starhawk on an important mission. The letters page is reprinted here and since it was the first issue there are no letters. So Steve Gerber wrote a really cool essay about the world the Guardians live in.
-Marvel Presents #4- The Guardians learn that their mission is to stop some crazy energy-eating, star-destroying monster. There are some interesting things going on, too. Starhawk has some sort of female host that Astro finds out. Astro is also getting really bitchy with his teammates. A new Guardian is picked up. Her name is Nikki and she has a flaming head. The energy being comes and goes and it seems that Starhawk is consumed by it. Gerber tosses in a great essay on the history of the Guardians’ universe. Already Gerber had a very clear idea of what he was going to do with the Guardians and was executing it very well.
-Marvel Presents #5- The Guardians take a trip through Steve Gerber’s social commentary. On their way to saving Starhawk they end up on a planet full of strange goings on that looks like New York City in the 80’s (which was a terrible place to be). It turns out that this was a planet full of psycho’s and that was the environment that they built. Yeah, New York was run by crazies. I loved this issue.
-Marvel Presents #6-The Guardians find the energy creature and they get swallowed up by it! Astro is his usual ass-self and stays behind. He actually faces off against a mini-energy creature (called the Planetary Man) while the rest of the Guardians find Starhawk. This was a slower issue but really served the purpose of setting the table.
-Marvel Presents #7- Starhawk tells Nikki that she must undergo an ancient ritual to try and stop the energy being, which is now in the shape of a human and is holding two stars in his hand that he plans to destroy and thus start a domino effect that will destroy the universe. Astro and Nikki both become larger than life and together they are able to stop this creature and save the universe, which many credit to the first sexual act to make it past the Comics Code, although really it wasn’t anything too graphic. This was a really interesting conclusion to the entire shebang, and I wonder what direction this title would have gone in if Steve Gerber had stayed.
-Marvel Presents #8- This seems like a fill-in since the Guardian stuff was written by Roger Stern and the Silver Surfer portions were done by the team of John Buscema and Stan Lee. So the Guardians find a history box that showed the Badoon first showing up on Earth and encountering the Silver Surfer. This completely took the wind out of the sails that the book had coming off the epic start to this series.
-Marvel Presents #9- This is the last issue that Gerber worked on. I wonder if there is a story behind him leaving. There’s a great opening splash page and this issue was really the origin of Starhawk told while the Guardians are under attack by the Reavers of Arcturus. It seems that Starhawk is actually two beings, a brother and a sister, who are both Arcturians. By the end of the issue the Arcturians send some warriors onto the ship of the Guardians while Starhawk’s father plans on using Starhawk’s own children to kill him.
-Marvel Presents #10- Roger Stern takes over here and ends the series. The Guardians easily dispatch the warriors (who were robots). Starhawk is on his mission to stop the madness and we get more of the origin, showing how the two siblings were joined back many years ago. Their joining was because of a Hawk god that was part of ancient Arcturus.
-Marvel Presents #11- The Guardians board the Arcturus ship as their ship is destroyed. They rip their way through their forces to see the final showdown between Starhawk and his father. True to his words he uses Starhawk’s own kids against him to suck his lifeforce away, but they are stopped by the collective effort of the Guardians and perish. Starhawk couldn’t save them.
-Marvel Presents #12- The final issue features the Guardians finding a space station that is controlled by an evil computer. Charlie-27 shines in this issue as he basically saves the day. We’re told this is the end except for the Guardian’s upcoming appearance in the Thor annual.
-The Bottom Line- There weren’t any extras (except for two covers that were re-colored) included here, and there was no foreword either. This is a very interesting collection. I really liked what Steve Gerber was doing here but when he left the book really went down. Once we get to the Stern/Lee issue the tone had changed. Gerber did the one last issue to set up some things for Stern to clean up but all of the little plot threads (the Nikki/Astro relationship and Astro’s snarkiness are the most obvious) were completely forgotten. It’s a shame but I guess that is how things go sometimes and it’s no use crying over milk that spilled over 30 years ago. We have some great stories here and that’s enough for a recommendation. The huge space-faring epic that Gerber started (and was able to complete) was just great. Definitely recommended.
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