Review: Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Break Out “Black Vortex Part One/Two”

They all got a piece of the action.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The Black Vortex is some sort of cosmic being that sucks in all of the Guardians after the Milano is headed for destruction. Upon entering the vortex, each of the Guardians gets animated in a different way and take on their own solo adventures. For Gamora, she’s dropped into a world animated a lot like the princess fare that you see on the Disney channels like Tangled or Elena of Avalor where she eventually has to battle through a bunch of rabbit monsters.

Drax is dropped into more of a motion comic inspired by Spider-Man as “Draxx-Man” where he has to battle street thugs, angry bosses, and a condescending narrator. Fortunately, Drax becomes the first in being able to get contact from another member of the Guardians, in this case, Gamora who aids her cosmic brethren in his escape.

Last, but not least, we get two different CG takes on Rocket and Groot respectively. While Rocket’s trying to stay alive inside of a UPS almost like a cheap Toy Story, a fully verbose Groot is part of an adventure that looked more like Star Wars Rebels. It’s in Groot’s plot that we learn more about the Black Vortex and why this is all going down in the first place.

Our Take

This week’s episode of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is not unlike Family Guy’s multiverse episode and like that episode, it’s the Disney classic-inspired bit that will probably get the most ink and with good reason, because it was the best produced and had the best plot. Everything else, not so much. Drax’s bit wasn’t terrible though I found odd that we dropped a comic book character into…yet…a comic book. I would’ve preferred a bit of variety there and this point would further come into focus when both Groot and Rocket are part of CG-produced efforts which Groot getting the far better aesthetic. Unfortunately, Groot’s bit was ruined by the fact that Groot had actual speaking lines throughout the episode which isn’t a knock against actor Kevin Michael Richardson because he’s one of the best, however, the decision to give Groot speaking lines is the part that irks me. And don’t even get me started on Rocket’s dated and boring ass short. Seriously, if we’re going to do a CG Rocket, why not just take inspiration from the actual feature film in which the character is already CG? In this one, he looked like a Bubsy 3D reject from hell. Fortunately, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie is getting enough heat so the producers did a good job dropping this short in the same week, but I’m hoping the next two episodes will have the same level of attention to detail as the Gamora and Groot shorts.