Random Back Issues #131 - Guardians of the Galaxy #21

"Cancerverse" is such inflammatory language. Call it a "Fecundiverse"; that only sounds vaguely dirty.

The last time we looked at the Guardians, they were in the process of failing miserably to convince the Inhumans and the Shi'ar to stop fighting a war that would endanger the very universe. Well, Black Bolt and Vulcan are dead now (hooray!), but not before the Inhumans set off a bomb that tore a hole in space-time continuum, dubbed the Fault.

The Luminals, an irritating band of superheroes that hang out on Knowhere and basically fuck everything up, sent some of their team into "The Fault", and came back infected. The alien tries to attack Moondragon, but she's able to create a telekinetic field to trap it.

The rest of the Guardians arrive, but so do a bunch of followers of the Universal Church of Truth, who think the many-tooth alien squid-thing is their god (due to the particular psychic emanations it produces.) All the excitement of the dumbshit fundamentalists exercising their religious freedom drives the creature nuts and it breaks loose, killing several of them, before attacking the Luminals' leader, Cynosure. The only option Moondragon has is to lure the creature into herself instead.

Now in quarantine, Moondragon's using her telepathy to keep the thing under control. But, it gives her a chance to learn some stuff. The creature comes from a universe on the far side of the Fault. A place where life has won. Star-Lord doesn't get what that means, but he'll have to parse it later. The Luminals are here to be fuck up again!

The creature killed one of their teammates, so they want to "extradite" it. How is not elaborated because Cynosure cuffs herself to Moondragon with something that'll blow them both up without the combination. The Knowhere Council want the creature off the station, but the Guardians are not about to let the Luminals handle that. And fortunately, they've got Drax to claim parental rights, which at least buys the team a few hours.

But since it's all down to whether Moondragon can get the thing under control so they can expel it from her and back into the Fault, Rocket uses the time to jab at Drax about almost sounding like he actually cares about his daughter. Which spurs Drax to go visit, only to find the church loonies kidnapping her and Cynosure. Which gives Drax a chance to do what he does best, kill people. It's going pretty well until the Church's Matriarch does a vaguely Penance Stare-like move and Drax goes into the fetal position.

{5th longbox, 42nd comic. Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #21, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Brad Walker (penciler), Andrew Hennessy and Victor Olazaba (inkers), Wil Quintana (colorist), Joe Carmagna (letterer)}