Guardians of Knowhere #4 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Bendis crams an unbelievable amount of developments into this issue, but, as he's often done in similar situations, he somehow makes it work.

The mysterious warrior woman that appeared at the end of last issue -- let's call her Blue -- towers over Angela and Gamora, prompting a (hilarious) discussion of how they should proceed.  Gamora suggests that they lay down their weapons so that she understands that they're not a threat.  Angela isn't convinced.  She tries to get Blue to surrender, and Blue promptly attacks.  Oopsie.  The Nova Corps arrives due to the strange energy signature, and Blue tells Adam Warlock that the Kree will not die.  She then proceeds to kill Venom, Warlock, Iron Man, and Captain Marvel in short order.  Angela and Gamora team together to stop her, and Angela tells Gamora that she'll overlook her transgression given the valor that she showed in combat.  But, Gamora tells her that she can't forget the name "Quill" or the image of a "Thanos," and it drives her to continue to search the "missing pieces" of Battleworld.  Before Angela can do anything, a revived Blue slays her.  At that point, the Guardians arrive (Mantis lives!) and help Gamora stop Blue for good.  Sitting among the scene of devastation, Gamora wonders what a Quill is and, on cue, Peter arrives.  He gathers up the Guardians, tells them that Doom's a "sham," and announces that they're going to do something about it.

I don't know how he does it, but Bendis really managed to fit in all the feels despite the non-stop action.  Gamora is really the emotional center here, and Bendis makes her pain over feeling unmoored in this universe obvious.  Her friendship with Angela is built quickly but firmly, so that we feel her pain when Blue unexpectedly kills her.  Beyond just the emotions, it's the revelation that, as implied in "Korvac Saga" #4, Doom isn't the savior that he appears to be that piqued my interest.  My guess is that we're going to see that revelation in the delayed "Secret Wars" #6, particularly given Peter's reference to the group of heroes assembled ready to overthrow him.  (Maybe they'll even tell us how Peter found the Guardians, since Bendis doesn't establish that here.)

Overall, this series was a weird one.  We spent more time on Yotat than we really did on anything else, even though he had virtually no impact on the final outcome.  But, Bendis ends on a high note with this issue.  As you'd expect from the Guardians, it might not be the most coherent of stories, but it's at the very least a fun one.

**** (four of five stars)

Guardians of Knowhere #3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Um...OK?  Bendis tacks sharply in this issue, with Angela and Drax dispatching Yotat in the issue's first few pages and the focus almost immediately shifting to Angela's confrontation with Gamora over her lack of faith.  Given that Yotat got his own origin issue in this series, I thought that he was going to be the overarching villain throughout it.  As such, it's weird to see him dismissed by the sixth page.  Is he going to return at the end?  It seems doubtful, since Bendis seems to be doubling-down on Angela's fight with Gamora.  But, then, why introduce him in the first place?  It feels vaguely like old Bendis, where plots get changed willy-nilly.  The good news is that the conversation between Angela and Gamora is really well done, with Bendis and Deodato beautifully conveying Gamora's sense of isolation over her belief that Doom isn't god.  For that, it earns three stars.

*** (three of five stars)

Guardians of Knowhere #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Honestly, I don't have much to say about this issue, because Bendis tells a pretty straight-forward story here.  Yotat is a former small-time hood that got transformed into the hulking giant that we see here through an accident.  Said accident involved a bomb that looks a lot like the thermal-nuclear detonator from "Return of the Jedi."  (Bendis doesn't really go into details about how the transformation happened, but I'm just going to go with it, since stranger things have literally happened in the Marvel Universe.)  Said bomb was detonated on top of him by the big-time hood whose organization Yotat was trying to join.  Said hood didn't like that Yotat was trying to leave his current employer; he values loyalty, apparently.  Yotat sought out the guy later for revenge, but he came across Rocket and Drax in the process.  Rocket tries to stop Yotat, Drax arrives in the nick of time to save Rocket's tail, the Nova Corps appear on the scene, they take Yotat into custody, and Rocket and Drax abscond.  In the present, Yotat returns for revenge against Drax and, well, he pretty much gets it:  in the last scene, everyone other than Rocket appears dead.  Needless to say, I'm intrigued by how Bendis is going to start the next issue.

*** (three of five stars)

Guardians of Knowhere #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Of all the "Secret Wars" tie-in issues, this one was the one that probably intrigued me the most.  After all, the residents of Battleworld think that they are the sole planet in the universe.  If they believe that, it makes it hard to believe in the Guardians of the Galaxy as anything beyond the Guardians of, well, Battleworld.

The good news is that Bendis has a clever answer that gets us on stable ground pretty quickly.  In this revised history, Doom was the one to slice off the head of the Celestial that would come to house Knowhere.  It's now Earth's moon, and the Guardians protect it and its residents.  That said, this answer doesn't really resolve all outstanding issues.  For example, an unseen narrator tells us that only conspiracy theorists on Battleworld believe that aliens live there.  However, didn't anyone question from where the Celestial itself came?  If a creature like a Celestial could appear from the Void, then doesn't it stand to reason other aliens could exist?  Plus, if they do exist, then doesn't it prove that the Void isn't as empty as Doom says that it is?  Given that everyone in "Captain Marvel & the Carol Corps" also suffers from this lack of curiosity, I have to wonder if something other than the liberal definition of blasphemy on Battleworld keeps everyone this lobotomized. 

Moreover, it leaves us with the small questions of what the aliens living on Battleworld themselves believe.  Clearly they know that they're aliens, so they've got to know that they come from somewhere.  I wonder if the answer is that they do know that they're not alone in the universe, but Doom's ban on traveling between domains at least keeps that truth isolated on Knowhere.  After all, it would confirm why it's such a big deal to the Thors that Gamora has been breaking this rule.  We don't yet learn why she's doing so, though she utters Thanos' name, implying that her cosmic powers might be leading her to the truth.  (That said, she doesn't believe that Doom exists, so I'm not sure how reliable said powers are.)  However, before we got any conclusions, someone called Yotat attacks because he's got some sort of vendetta against Drax.

All in all, it's an OK issue.  The cosmology of "Secret Wars" weighs down the action, but that's more or less to be expected, given the nature of the series.  It makes me wonder, though, if this issue isn't going to be one of the ones that spells doom (heh) for Doom's iron-fisted control over Battleworld.

** (two of five stars)