OK, I may have literally booed that title.

Early issues of this series are pretty easy to pull from the back-issue boxes, but I feel like the latter ones are a bit more scarce. I lucked into a few recently, although sadly not the last issue; but this one had an interesting cover and a groaner title: from 1994, Guardians of the Galaxy #54, "The Spiders from Mars" Written by Michael Gallagher, pencils by Scott Eaton, inks by Keith Aiken, Jim Amash, and Mike Barreiro.

The Guardians' timeline diverged from the mainstream Marvel Universe, when Mars attacked earth in the late twentieth century, eventually wiping out most of earth's heroes and population. (I forget, but I think Killraven and the future Guardians are the same timeline?) Over a thousand years later, and Mars was still a forbidden, quarantined world; but the team was on its way there, in search of "interplanetary serial killer Ripjak." They have to fight their way past three Sentinels--classic, purple, mutant-hunting ones--to get to the planet's surface, which is seemingly deserted. Cautiously, they investigate a "memorial tribute war museum." Vance pops open a display case, to help himself to Captain America's mask, but it crumbles to dust. But there was another costume still on display: Spider-Man's tattered red-and-blue suit.

The Martians had an entire room devoted to Spidey, "the last hero to fall." They had also taken his body, which was not currently on display: a note, translated, says it had been removed for "possible plague immunization." The Guardians aren't sure what that means, but split up to search for Ripjak, who seems ready for them...I haven't read the rest of this series yet, I don't think, but I'm guessing he's a Spider-clone. (Nope! Close, but no.)

Starhawk makes a brief appearance, since a subplot of him searching for his origins would run for the rest of the series. I did read those after setting up this post, and there were some surprises, that may or may not still be in continuity; but a lot of the rest of this series seemed to be backfilling why so-and-so hero didn't stop the Martian invasion singlehandedly. Aleta was still with the team, although with a much more generic costume: the Starhawk costume would probably look great on her, although she didn't seem as grim. Lot of subplots running, actually: Talon was getting more bestial and somewhat rebellious, but even Yondu was questioning Vance Astro's leadership. Yondu was also out-of-sorts, possibly because he had learned his god Anthos might actually be Thanos! But, a lot of plates spinning, and not enough actually happens here, even with a great visual hook in the Spidey display.