The original Guardians of the Galaxy premiered in 1969, which is further back than I expected. I was figuring mid-1970s. Based on a quote from Roy Thomas on Wikipedia, it sounds like they were originally Red Dawn, The Comic Book, before Arnold Drake and/or Stan Lee revamped them into a sci-fi adventure in the future. The team bounced around as guest stars in a bunch of books through the 1970s, becoming sort of a go-to destination for time-traveling Marvel heroes, and also had a brief stint with Marvel Presents as their own book.
It wasn't until 1990, however, they got an ongoing series bearing their name, with future Image co-founder Jim Valentino as writer/artist. At least until he asked his editor if he could switch to just being writer (because he was busy co-founding Image) and got the boot entirely after issue 29. From there on, Michael Gallagher wrote the book, with the Kevin West/Steve Montano art team covering almost every issue.
The Guardians succeeded in freeing Earth from the Badoon's control at some point previously, so the book took an approach focused on them roaming the galaxy and getting mixed up in different problems. Most of those problems were connected to things from the 20th Century Marvel Universe, in what was surely a remarkable coincidence. Searching for Captain America's shield, finding the world most of the mutants colonized. That would be that world getting destroyed up there. Ooops. Don't worry, the inhabitants got transported safely elsewhere.
A remarkable amount of people from the 20th Century survived to the 30th. Some made certain amounts of sense - Vision becoming a vast mainframe, Dr. Strange becoming the Ancient One for the new Sorcerer Supreme, who I think was a snakelike alien, Mephisto - others, not so much. Like Dr. Doom's spirit somehow inhabiting Wolverine's skeleton. Not his whole body, just the adamantium skeleton, walking around like a chromed-up fugitive from Army of Darkness.
I don't know enough about the earlier Guardians' stories to really compare, but Valentino seemed to ramp up the hostility between Starhawk and his wife Aleta, when he wasn't doing some weird thing where they kind of inhabited the same body and each kept trying to take control. The team also had more and more trouble accepting Starhawk's "I'm the One Who Knows," mysterious bullcrap. Vance Astro calmed down and eventually became a leader. Must be something about Captain America's shield.
The biggest problem I see with the book, based on reading maybe half of the series, is the team often feels almost incidental to the story. A team losing a lot isn't necessarily a deal-breaker; the X-Men got their asses kicked a fair amount in Claremont's run, seems like sometimes all the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans did was lose. The Guardians don't lose an unreasonable amount, but it often feels like they have as much importance to the final outcome as a piece of lawn furniture.
They fight a group of invading aliens called the Stark (who yes, based their entire culture around a starship full of Tony Stark's stuff that landed on their world) and Firelord shows up to help. The Phoenix handles things with the planet of mutants. Galactus runs afoul of a seriously amped up Silver Surfer. They keep getting thrown in the deep end without being able to actually swim. I'm not sure it ever improves much, even after Martinex forms a second team of more powerful characters like Firelord and the new Phoenix (and Wonder Man, now calling himself Hollywood. Yeesh.)
The book ran 62 issues, plus a 4-issue Galactic Guardians mini-series before being put to bed. And for over a decade, that would be it for the Guardians of the Galaxy. Nobody wanted to play in the future, so they had to bring the concept to the present.
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