Writers Andy Lanning & Andy Schmidt

Artist Gustavo Duarte

Colorist Marcelo Maiolo

Letterer VC’s Cory Petit

Cover Artists Humberto Ramos & Edgar Delgado

The cover is the only place that Lockheed can be found!

The Pet Avengers are – Lockjaw, Zabu, Furball, Ms. Lion, Redwing and Throg!  No mention of Lockheed, which is unbelievable!  Now I have joked in the past about being one of those X-Men conspiracy theorists but now that Lockheed isn’t considered a member of the team, I think there is something going on with the X-Office!

The Pet Avengers don’t have the Mind Gem, any longer, so they don’t sync up their minds with Rocket or Cosmo, so we don’t hear anything from the non-English speaking members, so we don’t get any reference to them, not talking about Lockheed.

This is a real shame that Lockheed has been kicked off the team.  All due to editorial.

Issue opens with Rocket and Cosmo, on monitor duty.  Cosmo, to pass the time, starts talking about other animal heroes.  Twooatu, the Cosmic Owl.  Graavalian Wormatoid.

Starting the running subplot of the issue, Rocket just wants to drink his very illegal beer.  Cosmo keeps it away from him.  Rocket gives chase and sees that Cosmo teleported off the spaceship so Rocket does the same.  I guess at some point, Cosmo joined the Guardians of the Galaxy, or at least, stays with them on their ship.

Cosmo speaks with this interesting accent but it is hard to read sometimes – essentially, anything that ends with -ing ends with -ink.  Listenink / shiftink / snoozink – maybe not hard to read but it makes me notice the spelling, thus takes me out of the story.

Somewhere on Earth . . . Rocket catches Cosmo playing poker with the Pet Avengers!  Lockjaw / Zabu / Ms. Lion / Throg / Redwing / Hairball.  Rocket is mostly upset that Cosmo never told him that the dog knew how to play poker.  They could have been playing poker this entire time!

All of a sudden, the wall busts down.  We get the Vulture Von Doom and the Pets of Evil Masters!  I imagine the name is a take off of the first two minis being titled “Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers” which I always thought was a silly title, just call it “Pet Avengers.”

Good thing we are given who their masters are, as I don’t recognize any of them.

• Vulture Von Doom – Doctor Doom
• Thori – Loki’s hellhound
• Falconia – Lady Falcona’s Familiar (who?)
• Mikhol – One of the Red Ghost’s Super Apes – who I totally called as being a member of the team
• Tiger Wild – Doctor Doom’s Attack Tiger
• Cuddles – Princess Python’s Killer Snake – of Circus of Crime fame – I haven’t heard anything with them in a while
• Bitey McSpidey-Bite – Mutant Radioactive Spider – the same spider that bit Peter Parker and Silk – who I also thought was dead.

The Pets of Evil Masters take out the Pet Avengers, rather easily and take off with Lockjaw.  Rocket now has to go save them, begrudgingly.

Cosmo can read minds, including animal minds, so that explains how he can play poker with the Pet Avengers.  I’m not sure why Cosmo doesn’t link all of their minds.

Latveria.  Castle Doom.  Vulture Von Doom is evil-monologueingm.  eviloguing?  He is a vulture who has been hiding in the shadows of the castle.  So he isn’t like a secret pet that Doom has been keeping, this entire time.

Editor, Xander the Xandarian Historian, informs us that Vulture Von Doom’s plan references the original Pet Avengers miniseries.  He is planning on absorbing the cosmic energy that the Pet Avengers were exposed to, when they had the Infinity Gems as he is planning to create his own cosmic cube.

Rocket and the Pet Avengers get to the castle, rather easily.  Rocket still only wants his beer back.  The beer has been shaken so Rocket just shoots it and the cans explode.  Everything is covered in sticky beer.  With this sequence of events, the Pet Avengers take out the Masters of Evil Pets, quickly.  It was the element of surprised that was their undoing last time.

Rocket gives the Pet Avengers a back handed compliment.  He takes off Vulture Von Doom’s helmet and he freaks out as he believes he is hideous.  Rocket informs him that all vultures look that way.

You decide –

 or 

I still say turkeys are the more unattractive bird!

Some off model Doombots – actually, Servo Guards – arrive to clean up and take the vulture away.  Doom is aware of the vulture and apparently, he gets up to these silly schemes in the past.

Sector QXM78-67EMX.  Pleiades Quadrant.  Planet Klaatu.  Grott, the Man-Slayer has come back to this universe, from somewhere where he didn’t have a body.  He will have his revenge.  Unfortunately, for him, Rocket, Cosmo and the Pet Avengers are ready for him.

I can only imagine these two pages were added so that Lanning & Schmidt could work in a “I am Grott” gag and Rocket says he already knows a guy with that shtick.  I imagine “Grott” and “Groot” sound alike, right?  It isn’t just the spelling of their names.

Issue ends with Lockjaw teleporting and giving Rocket a fresh case of his beer.  So the Pet Avengers are not that bad, now.

Not a bad story, I just wish Lockheed was involved or at least, mentioned.