Book: Read a book about an ending or a new start, where things go BOOM, with fireworks on the cover, set in medieval times, about the papacy, or where miracles of any sort are performed.

It felt a little too childish to be a five star, but it's understandable since this is intended for children.  I just wanted more Vision, and I got that.   When Thor takes Vision to Asgard to gain a better understanding of friendship, they're thrown for a loop when Ultron shows up - and commanders the Destroyer.   

Thor, Vision, and the rest of their friends in the Avengers have to band together to save the day.   

Still, yay, Vision.   

All in all, I liked the slow buildup, I liked the way the characters realistically try to figure out what's going on, I like the way that Wolverine decides where the line is and when he's going to step over that line. 

My main problem is that zombies as an infestation have been done and this doesn't add anything that feels new to this.   Within other Marvel Zombies, the exploration of Deadpool as Headpool felt new - I wasn't sure he could sustain himself as a head, at least - and the relationship between a zombified Wanda and Vision was deliciously creepy in a way that I've yet to see in any other comic with them.   In other words, even if the zombie threat wasn't new, something new was done with this world when combined with zombies. 

Wolverine's thoughts about how innocent Piotr is and how he should be spared from this didn't feel new, groundbreaking. or something that Wolverine wouldn't think about Piotr or a handful of other characters in the Marvel universe.   And somehow, him and Piotr are explored here, as best friends, which wasn't only done before, it was confusing.   (The Elf is just as much of a best friend to Logan; if you were going to choose between the other waves of X-Men, in fact, I'd choose Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler as Logan's best friend.   Not that Wolves and Colossus didn't get along, but I was always under the impression that Logan was closer to Nightcrawler.)

So all in all, as much as I enjoyed this, I couldn't give it a full five stars, not without something new being said about the characters added to the lack of originality as far as zombies go.    Another freebie, although I'm not sure if this was via Comixology or via the Marvel codes.

I think I better be careful as I might end up reading more graphic novels that I originally intended to, but then again considering the price of some of these books (and the number of books on my TBR shelf), that is something that I probably don't need to stress all that much about. Actually, I have discovered that our local public libraries have quite a few graphic novels on their shelves, though due to budget constraints I suspect that they aren't the latest editions (and even then the selection available doesn't seem to be all that great). The other problem with graphic novels (or should I call them comics because for some reason I can't really see Marvel Superhero comic books are being anywhere near books like Tintin) is that they tend to be serialised, and even if you do only get the books as opposed to the individual comics, you can still get a little lost.

So, as you can tell from the title, this is one of the Guardians of the Galaxy series, though we only have Groot, Rocket Raccoon, and Drax in this story (I'm not really all that sure what happened to Star Lord and Gamora, but I suspect they are taking it easy after a rather hectic adventure the week, or month, before). Anyway, they stumble upon this massive spaceship and decide to go on board and investigate only to encounter the Guardians of the Galaxy (one of them carrying Captain America's iconic shield), and after a brief battle decide to team up and, well, encounter The Guardians of the Galaxy. It turns out that the teams that they have met have come from the past, and the future, and the ship that they happen to be on has gates into these various time streams (and I have also learnt that the original Guardians are actually the team from the year 3000).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, which doesn't take all that much effort because many of these stories tend to run along a similar plotline anyway, the Guardians encounter a big bad guy that is trying to take over the universe – or all of reality as the case may be because his massive spaceship happens to sit outside of the time stream – and the Guardians of the Galaxy, after getting locked up in his prison and Rocket Raccoon having the unfortunate experience of having some other guy placed into his body, escape, beat the bad guy, say farewell to everybody, and go on their merry ways. Yep, basically your typical Hollywood plot with no real twists, and a bunch of superheroes being, well, a bunch of superheroes. Okay, we also have a bunch of space fighters flying around doing what space fighters tend to do, but that is it.

So, I guess the question comes down to why I gave this comic book the rating I did (I was going to say seven, until I realised that Goodreads, which is the other site I post these reviews on, only lets you rate out of five, and you can't do half ratings either, which is something Booklikes allows you to do), and I have to admit that I don't really know. Okay, there are people out there that have some really sophisticated ways of actually determining what rating they are going to give a book, and I suspect that they might even go as far as creating some proprietary algorithm to assist them, and then you have me – I basically pick a random number (usually between one and ten namely because a rating out of five doesn't give me the flexibility of being able to say whether a book is any good or not) and leave it at that. Okay, if I enjoyed the book I am hardly going to give it a one, and if I hated the book I am hardly going to give it a ten (or a five as the case may be), but as for this story, well, it was entertaining, and falls into the science-fiction genre, oh and also had pretty pictures and a psychotic raccoon, so I guess I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't be looking for some deep, post-modernist meaning, in the text.

Oh, one other thing, it would be interesting reading this one in German because the person who takes over Rocket Raccoon's body has a German accent and I would love to see how the Germans do a character with a German accent when the entire comic is in German. I make mention of that because when I was in Germany I bought an edition of Guardians of the Galaxy that was in German, if only to practice my German, and then promptly gave it to a friend because I don't like marvel superhero comics cluttering up my house (though I believe he does speak a bit of German).

Director: Jon Favreau

Starring: Robert Downey Jnr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrance Howard

Release: 2 May 2008

IMDB User Rating: 7.9

Rotten Tomatoes User Rating: 91%

I thought I had already written a review of this film (on IMDB that is), so it was a good thing that I have decided to go back and rewatch the Marvel Cinematic Universe films again (if only so I can have a better idea of what had happened previously, especially since the movies seem to reference events from the earlier films on a regular basis) so that I can review some of the films that I have watched in the past, but had not got around to reviewing. Anyway, this is the 'first' film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (though some could argue that the Ang Lee version of the Hulk was actually the first since the events of the Incredible Hulk do seem to come after it, despite there being a number of changes to the Bruce Banner's history) and it certainly has kicked off a craze, with at least two films being released a year, as well as at least two television series.

Anyway, Iron Man literally sets the stage for what is to follows. First of all we have this guy wandering around saying that he is from the 'Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division' which is truncated to the acronym SHIELD at the end of the film. We also have Nick Fury making an appearance indicating that he is looking to start up a group and that Tony Stark isn't the only person around that happens to have super powers (even if those super powers consist entirely of a flying metal suit). It was probably logical to also have Ironman as the first movie since he apparently was the one who initiated the Avengers.

Well, the film is basically about how Tony Stark, a billionaire playboy who happens to run a corporation that develops and sells weapons, becomes Iron Man. The thing is that he is also a playboy, and a tinkerer, which means that he is more interested in building things, and having fun, than actually running the company, which means that the company is doing a lot of things that he doesn't actually know about. However the realisation of who his company is selling weapons to comes to light when he is captured in Afghanistan after demonstrating one of his weapons that he claims to have the capability of stopping a war with one shot. Well, the problem is that when he demonstrates the power of this weapon, the other side want it as well, so they kidnap him to force him to make one.

As well as being about how Iron Man becomes Iron Man, the film is also has an underlying theme about the military industrial complex. He we have a private corporation that years ago assisted the United States to develop a weapon to defeat the Japanese now double dealing – that is selling weapons to both sides in a conflict. It is the idea that the only person who makes money out of a war are the weapons manufacturers, and the longer the war goes on, the more money that they make, which means that it is in their interest for there to be a perpetual war. However, selling to just one side in the war doesn't really help with the profits, especially since one side may have a huge advantage, however selling to both sides means that the odds are evened out, and also that the war is likely to last a lot longer.

As for the villains, you sort of have two – there is the Ten Rings, an organisation that Iron Man is regularly confronting in the comics (and while they are operational in Afghanistan, when I first watched the film I simply thought they were insurgents, or at least Taliban, however this time I realised that they were actually a mercenary force working for the Taliban), and the Iron Monger, who also happens to be Tony Stark's 2IC, who then builds his own Iron Man suit to take on Tony.

As for the film, yep, it's pretty good, and I also picked up a lot more the second time round, which is not surprising since I do have the advantage of having seen many of the other films in the franchise already, so by rewatching them I also pick up a few more things, such as when Rhodey looks at one of the suits and says 'next time' which is flagging the arrival of War Machine in the next instalment. A good movie, pretty enjoyable, and I have to admit that Robert Downey Junior certainly plays the role quite well.

For those who are interested I have written a blog post on the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (if only as an aide de memoire).