The Guardians of the Galaxy ongoing has finally, officially, slumped. There was a time where this title had the finest art in Marvel's stable (I miss you, Sarah Pichelli!), and the writing was fresh and fun like a Saturday morning cartoon with convincing stakes. The slow decline in quality has come to an abrupt head with The Black Vortex crossover event that continues in this issue from last week's The Black Vortex Alpha, and will take over other fun titles including All-New X-Men and Legendary Star-Lord.

This is a perfect microcosm of how a big crossover event can tear down an established ongoing with its rote predictability. Readers have seen and been through all this before, and amongst the endless bickering Kitty Pryde even acknowledges this drawing comparison between The Black Vortex's gifts to the dreaded Dark Phoenix. Schiti's art is not up to Marvel's current standard displaying poorly articulated facial performances and vaguely established spacial geography. This level of sub-mediocrity involving such a sprawling ensemble is difficult to recover from.