All New Guardians of the Galaxy #11

HIGHWAY PATROLMAN

Written by Gerry Duggan

Penciled by Roland Boschi
Cover by Francesco Mattina
Published Oct 4 2017

   Nova Corpsman Scott Adsit has summoned Rich Rider to an abandoned ship found adrift. There he plays an unsent message from Robbie Rider, his kid brother. It seems that some time ago, he was unable to contact anyone and went to an undisclosed location to restart the Nova force. Richard tells Scott that he must be found. He leaves the ghost ship for the one place he thinks his brother would have gone - Xander.

Good luck, dudes. But I gotta roll.

   There, Robbie landed hard but off target. He sees recent tracks at the old headquarters but while he thinks he was following them, they were actually on HIS trail. The Raptors have tracked him down. They knock him out cold and later, after ransacking the entire area, they put a weird virtual reality helmet on him. With it they almost completely reprogram him. One of them asks if the helmets were ever used on them, but if they were, it was for the good of the fraternity. Pleased with their take, they continue torturing Robbie and prepare one of the Nova’s once brightest minds for prisoner transport.

Man, the Sh'air are some real jerks...

   Later they give Robbie Rider a choice. He can die with his Nova helmet on right now, or he can turn his life in a new direction. Suddenly Nova breaks the door down but we see that it’s far too late. Robbie isn’t there and he’s been gone awhile. He radios to Adsit that while he’s found evidence of his brother, he’s still definitely missing. But where he is is definitely bad news.

I don't remember Darkhawk being such a dickhead.

   Again, they give him the opportunity to choose his path. He chooses the talons, and with them swipes a gouge in the dome of his helmet. In his ceremony welcoming him to the Raptors, he refuses his earthly name. Now he will call himself Talon-R. The General gives a pep talk to his scores of Raptor followers when he’s interrupted by the newest member of their fraternity. Talonar knows the location of some nega-bands that in the future, he and Star Lord will fight over. The general declares that with these bands, acquiring the infinity stones will be just that much more of a possibility. And with that, we’re left to be continued.

You sure you're the right guy for this gig?!

   So an entire issue of Guardians of the Galaxy without a single Guardian among it. That’s kinda weird. Still though, it’s cool that we see the background of just where this super badass Raptor came from. Who’d have ever thought that a few issues ago, Peter Quill was fighting Rich Rider’s brother? I know that we’re setting the scene for a huge Nova influx in the pages and you know what, I can definitely dig it. So even without any of the Guardians, I give this issue a 9/10.

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