Guardians of the Galaxy

Collect Them All

By: Corinne Duyvis, Marvel

Narrated by: Scott McCormick, full cast

Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

When the Guardians attempt to evacuate a Kree prison planet and end up in a fight for their lives - what else is new? - they discover their old pal Groot is stretched a little thin. Someone is planting stolen branches of the monosyllabic hero and selling the saplings across the galaxy! 

The search to find Groot's missing pieces forces the Guardians into an alliance with the unscrupulous Collector, but the real problem is more complicated than he wants them to believe. The seller is a kid. And she's got more than a few things in common with Gamora - like green skin and a wild temper. Now with an unruly teen in tow, the Guardians attempt to track down the remaining Groots - and discover an interplanetary conspiracy. 

War looms on the horizon. It's a race against the Collector, Groot himself, and the entire Kree armada. It's battle as Rocket likes it best. Sit back and watch the destruction as Corinne Duyvis, author of Otherbound and On the Edge of Gone, makes her Marvel debut!

©2020 Marvel (P)2020 Marvel

Same old same old

It’s hard to write a completely objective review for this (audiobook) as a fan of the initial iteration of this team put together by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning during Annihilation Conquest. That being said, the rewrite by Bendis meant to bring them more in line with the movies is known to me and I understand the thinking behind trying to capitalize on the movies.

So here, the problem arises that when you try to ape the movies in tone over and over again the themes become stuck in a rut. As you probably already know the theme is “family from strangers” blah blah blah. Fine the first 3,000 times you see it but frankly regardless of how original a story is, if you don’t switch up the themes occasionally then even new material feels like the same old same old. It doesn’t mean the writing is bad, just more predictable than it should be. This has kind of been the problem of every writer for GotG in the comics since they were changed/retconned.

For the audiobook itself, my criticism is the same as others I’ve seen. At times Rocket and Quill’s voices are indistinguishable, especially if they’re yelling, which can be a bit confusing at times, mostly during action sequences. I also feel like the sound design was a little lacking in parts as illustrated by someone walking into a Kree lab and you hear the squeaky hinges on a door...doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

All in all, while the writing, dialogue, pacing and everything is decent, inconsistencies in the audio and an extremely predictable plot by way of the theme makes this an average experience all the way around. Only check this out if you’re just dying for some GotG content.

Guardians fans will like this.

Groot fans will LOVE this. I gave the performance 4 stars because Quill, Drax, and the Collector were difficult to tell apart at times. Cute story. I listened in two sessions back to back.
Definitely worth a credit and though not my favorite, it is in the top of the bunch for these types of Ex-GraphicAudio-style Marvel stories.

amazing

awesome listen. definitely recommended to any marvel fan or anyone who isn't familiar with GOTG.

Nasty Language

I definitely do not recommend this. especially if kids may be listening. very disappointing.

I couldn't enjoy it

As much as I wanted to I couldn't enjoy it. the sound effects are nice but I wish they were just a little more quiet, they become distracting bc it's usually the same sound playing over and over during long stretches of dialog.
Sometimes the narrator sounds bored and even though they were doing a great job voice acting, it was hard to tell the difference between Quill and Rocket.
The story is fine but I only made it an hour in before I gave up.
and of course audible won't let me return this one for whatever reason.

Good plot, bad voice choices

Good plot. Great use of The Collector. Voice actor choices were awful. Quill and Rocket are indistinguishable and Drax is far too similar also.

Need more

My only complaint is that rocket and Peter very similar. Otherwise all the characters were perfectly done. Perfect

Narrator sounds asleep

Great story and on the whole well narrated. The main narrator sounds a bit out of it as if he is falling asleep roughly 2 hours from the end.

Marvelous

Great narration and entertaining! Can’t wait to find more like this. Family friendly. Great for all ages.

Great to find the Marvel Graphic Audio title

A fun adaptation well produced and performed. Nothing terribly deep but very entertaining. Nothing wrong with a good cheeseburger of an audiobook.

Flarking amazing!

A pretty good storyline that was a nice difference to some stuff that follows the script of movies.

All the characters were well casted, I particularly loved Rocket in this one!

great story

loved it. another fab graphic audio production. great story and production- and the voices were on point