Looking Forward to Star-Lord #1

One of the great things about listening to the Panelologists podcast is that those two guys have such an infectious enthusiasm for comics that it helps to remind all of us why we read these things in the first place. Another great thing about listening to those guys (especially if you do what I did and listen to a years worth of podcasts over two consecutive days) is that you get to hear the typical pattern of excitement-anticipation-disappointment-rejection-excitement that all regular comic readers go through. It works like this: You hear news about an upcoming comic featuring your favorite character(s) or creator(s)--Excitement. You eagerly await that new comic and learn more about it as the release date approaches--Anticipation. Then you buy the thing, and it's not nearly as good as you'd hoped--Disappointment. You give it a half-dozen issues or so before you cancel your subscription, but you know that you should have given up on it much sooner, and you probably say stuff like "I'm not going to get suckered like that again"--Rejection. But that's okay, because a new comic has been announced--Excitement--that starts the whole cycle, and for every comic that turns out to be great, there's 5 comics that have suckered you back.

We all know that cycle well, and we can't seem to escape it.

So I'm just going to embrace it. And the newest title I'm excited about is Star-Lord, the new mini-series launching from within the Annihilation space saga. I've read all of the Annihilation stuff so far, and it has been quite fun. The first multi-part series featured Nova and company vs. Annihilus and Thanos, and it was truly an epic story. This new Annihilation series follows the first, and even though it's still a large-scale intergalactic saga, it seems much more personal as the evil Phalanx have infected the Kree and surrounding territories. Whatever. The plot is just a backdrop for cool character moments and some fight scenes. And I love it.

Star-Lord, in particular, looks to be a particularly cool entry into the Annihilation saga. It features a character I know nothing about (other than he was a miltary leader in the first Annihilation series and he used to be some kind of super-hero but he's kind of pissed off whenever anyone brings it up). It's written by Keith Giffen, whom I love, and illustrated by Timothy Green II, whom I know nothing about, except the preview pages look cool.

I guess Green was the artist on Rush City, but I didn't read that because it looked like a car advertisement, and I think it was. But his preview pages on this new book display a very different style from typical Marvel books (and a very different style from the other Annihilation books). He seems to draw heavily upon a European influence, and doesn't rely on the How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way Kirby by way of Buscema dynamic angles and gesticulation.

I'm excited about this comic, and I'm anticipating its arrival.

Plus, it's got Rocket Raccoon, so I'm not likely to be disappointed, am I?