Review by Frank Plowright

If ever there was a graphic novel leaving itself open to legal action over description it’s this entirely mis-titled exercise in barrel scraping. The collection was compiled to coincide with the first Guardians movie.

We head all the way back to the late 1970s for a five page Thanos story originally published, in, of all places, the back pages of Marvel’s adaptation of the Logan’s Run film. There’s a 1980s Thor story in which Drax appears, and we stop off in 1993 for another Thanos solo, this guest starring a young Gamora. None were prime material the first time they saw print.

That’s all in the back of the book, preceded by the four short stories about individual Guardians already packaged in Cosmic Avengers. The best of them remains Rocket Raccoon discovering he’s not the last of his race, well illustrated by Ming Doyle, while further art by Mike Del Mundo (Gamora) and Michael Avon Oeming (Drax) elevates the quality of the entire book. There’s another Rocket solo, this time drawn in ugly cartoon style by Adam Archer, and a team-up with Groot as ‘The Galaxy’s Most Wanted’. That’s not great either, but again there’s decent art, this time from Andrea Di Vito.

If your favourite Guardian is Star-Lord, you’re out of luck as he’s only seen in the opening, and title, tale where he and Rocket are in jail and each trying to out-brag the other over their participation in a previous case. The idea of differing versions of the same story is novel, but not particularly well delivered.

You’d have to be the world’s most easily pleased Guardians of the Galaxy fan to come anywhere near this.