DRAX THE DESTROYER #1-4 (2005)

When you think of Drax the Destroyer, do you think of this:

Or does your mind go here:

If the latter, then you’re thinking of the Drax from this miniseries, which rebooted the character and really serves as the beginning of the reimagining of Marvel’s “Cosmic” family of comics. There is a straight line between this series and the best Marvel movie of all time, Guardians of the Galaxy.

A prison transport with “Galactic Class Criminals” happens to crash down to Earth, freeing Paibok the Power Skrull, Lunatik, the Blood Brothers and, of course, Drax.

The humorous tone is already present.

Drax still has the mind of a child. The aliens come across a couple teenagers hiking in the Alaskan wilderness and Drax thinks the girl is Moondragon. The girl is Camille “Cammi” Benally. She’ll be around for a while and become a fairly major cosmic player.

From the jump, she’s introduced as a precocious badass.

Cammi uses Drax’s confusion to her advantage, turning Drax into her own personal attack dog to protect her from the Blood Brothers.

Drax continues fighting the other fugitives throughout the series, with Cammil being a little too nonplussed by the whole thing to be completely believable. Yet her teen cynicism and sarcasm do add a bit of fun to the mayhem as the aliens terrorize the remote town.

Paibok, shape-shifted into Thanos–kills Drax and the aliens bury him.

But of course Drax is not really dead, and for some reason when he arises he has his tattoos, his mind is restored, and his body is leaner.

And then he gets revenge, killing first Lunatik…

…by cutting off his head and then, seemingly, destroying it.

(I do wish this scene was a little cleaner and easier to follow.).

And then killing R’hos the Blood Brother.

SHIELD comes and takes Drax and Paibok, along with Cammi, and there’s a bit of a cliffhanger that will lead directly into the Annihilation event.

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