It's been a while, folks. But welcome back to the First Ten. This is a recurring series in which I look at the first ten issues of a comic book series to see how it found its footing.

One of my first installments in this series was for the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning series Nova, and today we're discussing its sister book by the same team. But this one had a much greater impact.

The series spun out of the Annihilation Conquest event, specifically its tie-in miniseries about Quasar and Star-Lord. It's also responsible for forming the Guardians team that would go on to be in the feature film. Rocket, Drax, Gamora, Groot, Star-Lord, and Mantis all joined the Guardians for the first time during this run. The team was previously composed of a completely different group of characters.

This series ran a total of 25 issues, beginning in July 2008 and ending in June 2010. It crossed over somewhat heavily with the various Marvel cosmic events and went on to inspire a major motion picture.

So let's get into it.