The Globe

“Guarding the Globe” #2 wastes no time pretending to be something it isn’t. Phil Hester, Todd Nauck, John Rauch and Rus Wooton get right down to the business of making this a candid and amusing superhero comic. The issue opens and closes with a splash page, catering more to Todd Nauck’s knack for drawing a showy character pose. Nauck has the benefit of working with Phil Hester, a writer who also happens to be quite an accomplished artist in his own right. Hester has taken the guidelines established by Robert Kirkman in the letters page of the first issue of this series to heart. Sometimes the comic features Brit, sometimes Best Tiger. Whoever steps into the spotlight, even in a brief page or a panel, Hester gives them a chance to strut. Granted, two issues into this series I still need to make notes about the characters and who they’re with, but I have the general notion of what the “main” characters are about despite having not read very many issues of “Invincible” or other books s

Back in March, Image Comics started releasing a series of press releases announcing the members of the “Guarding the Globe” mini-series (then called “Guardians of the Globe”), one at a time. At first it started normally enough, with Invincible as the initial member. But from there, other members included Spawn, Rick Grimes from “The Walking Dead,” President Barack Obama, and the young wizard “Gary” Potter. Needless to say, it was a joke, and later the real members were announced. But reading “Guarding the Globe” #1, I hate to say this, but I found myself wishing that somehow those characters were the stars of this comic instead. “Guarding the Globe” is actually a direct spin-off of the long-running “Invincible,” a comic that I haven’t read in quite a few years. (I should try and catch up one of these days.) Fortunately for new (or lapsed) readers, after the first five pages, just about all of the old members of the Guardians are written out and the book starts fresh. That’s the good