Issue(s): Guardians of the Galaxy annual #2
Cover Date: 1992
Title: "Riders on the storm"
Credits:
Jim Valentino - Writer
Herb Trimpe - Penciler
Steve Montano - Inker
John Lewandowski - Assistant Editor
Craig Anderson - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue doesn't really belong in my project, since it takes place entirely in the alternate future of the Guardians of the Galaxy. So i won't be covering it in much detail. I'm only covering it for completion's sake, since i covered the first three parts of the System Bytes crossover. I also won't be covering the back-ups.

It seems that the rocket that was infected with the Ultra-Max virus has survived the explosion in the Wonder Man annual, and it drifted in space for a thousand years until it crash landed on planet Klattu and infected Mainframe, the version of the Vision from the future after he became a planet-wide computer. The minions of Korvac then show up with plans to re-create Korvac.

A group of Guardians show up to fight the Korvac replica. But Mainframe was also keeping the present day version of the Phoenix in stasis, and due to the current situation Phoenix is released, and he stops Korvac and wipes out the Ultra-Max virus.

With the exception of Martinex, the Guardian characters that appear here are not the ones that you normally think of (Charlie-27, etc.), apparently due to a big upheaval in issue #25 of the regular series (which is referenced multiple times). So the Guardians here are Martinex, Firelord, a Skrull named Replica, Hollywood (alternate future Wonder Man), Krugarr (the Sorcerer Supreme) and Spirit of Vengeance (basically, alternate future Ghost Rider). At the end of this issue, they decide to stick together, along with Mainframe, as the Galactic Guardians.

Herb Trimpe is in full Rob Liefeld emulation mode in this story...

...and while i applaud the copious amount of footnotes, the messy art plus the huge number of threads from the regular series that come together for this story make it pretty confusing and not very new reader friendly. Which is a shame since due to the fact that it's the final part of a crossover it would have been an introduction to this series for a lot of readers (and by all accounts, the regular issues are much better).

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is the fourth and final part of The System Bytes. As noted above, this issue doesn't really belong in my project at all. But one of the peculiarities of my advanced search is that entries won't show up if they don't have at least one character appearing. I've chosen to list Ultra-Max since it doesn't appear anywhere else outside of this crossover.

References:

• Spirit of Vengeance took a Guardian star/badge from the Grand Inquisitor in Guardians of the Galaxy #14.
  
• Firelord became a joint Protector of the Universe along with the Keeper in the "already classic" Guardians of the Galaxy #25.
  
• Ultra-Max was designed by Max E. Mumm, as seen in Punisher annual #5.
  
• Deathlok tried to destroy it in Daredevil annual #8.
  
• It got launched into space in Wonder Man annual #1.
  
• Korvac's minions recreate him with a data chip encoded with "da sum total a' Korvac" before he want to the 20th century in Avengers #167.
  
• Krugarr accepted a Guardian star/badge in Guardians of the Galaxy #20.
  
• Hollywood shows up thanks to a psychic link that he once shared with Krugarr in Guardians of the Galaxy #19.
  
• Mainframe has been holding Phoenix since Guardians of the Galaxy #10.

Crossover: System Bytes

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The title comes from the song by the Doors.

Herb Trimpe; you're better than that.

I was a regular reader of this series, and I remember being horrified at the time that this Annual--which finally assembled the Galactic Guardians, which had been building as a subplot for a while--was stuck with such awful art. Having since seen Trimpe's earlier work, my mind is boggled at how he allowed himself to devolve to this.

Fnord, just fyi the back-up story doesn't actually introduce Replica--she had been a supporting character in the series since issue #9 or so.

At the time it really bothered me that this was part of the System Bytes story, as the Guardians timeline had diverged from the main Marvel line almost a decade previous, so how did the rocket get there? Now I'd just figure that a similar set of circumstances also happened in the GotG timeline.

Another thought is that the rocket encountered a space/time warp that moved it to the GotG timeline. Something must have happened to it. How else would a rocket designed to reach orbit make it Klattu in about the same timeframe it took Vance's ship (designed for the journey) to reach the closest star to Earth?

Having been an avid reader of the GOTG series, I loved this annual because it continued from GOTG #25. And it paved the way for the "Galactic Guardians" - basically "Avengers West Coast" in space.
Of course, FNORD will be covering some of the GOTG issues for Infinity War coming soon.

I feel this is where the Guardians 90s run "jumped the shark". The first 15 or so issues have great art and seem to be heading somewhere in an overarching part, the next 10 issues have a lot of gimmicks ('Crazy Nate' who is a Cable red herring, the world of the Punishers, Ghost Rider in space etc.) but Valentino's affection for the characters and his art make up for that. After issue 25 it's all downhill. Bad art and not a lot of direction.

For those who followed the series after issue 25, Am I wrong?

@Erik, yeah I also assumed some sort of space/time warp was involved. There has to be something linking the two realities, since whenever the Guardians travel into the past they keep showing up in the 616 timeline even after it diverged when Major Victory influenced his past self.

@Dermie, thanks. A footnote said the back-up was Replica's "first ever solo story", which i misinterpreted.

Shouldn't Martinex get a tag?

No. As i say in the post, this entry doesn't really belong in my project. It takes place entirely in the future. I do tag the Guardians when they've time traveled to the present, but that's not the case in this story. You may feel i bent the rules in tagging them in last year's annual, but that was a different case since they were returning from the present in continuation from the other annuals in the Korvac Quest event; it wasn't just a story that took place in the future. It's a different case here.

Then isn't the same true of the MTIO issues and Thor Annual?

You're right. I've removed their tags from those entries.

If fnord is still working on this website a thousand years in the future perhaps he will once again add tags for the Guardians to all of these stories since by that point the year 3000 AD will be the present day :)