Guardians of the Galaxy #25

   As feared, by this point the whole Black Vortex storyline (which is crossing through various titles, including several I don't buy) is unraveling like a cheap scarf.

   You have assorted teams made up of mixed-up members of the Guardians of the Galaxy and the All-New X-Men - oh, and thrown Nova in for good measure (no doubt Spider-Man was booked up).

   They're all off on various missions that seem to have nothing to do with the mystery of the Black Vortex, which is the 2001-ish McGuffin that everyone's looking for but no one knows what to do with.

   And some of the events in this issue don't even make sense. At one point Nova grabs the Black Vortex, only to have it swiped by one of the generic bad guys - but at the end of the issue, he has it back, but we have no idea how that happened.

   There's massive destruction and death, characters who change attitude in mid-stream, and not much coherence in evidence.

   I was hoping for better from this series. It started out strong, but this issue doesn't fill me with optimism.

Grade: C+

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