Pointedly not featuring the title character! Instead we get a strange little Black Vortex epilogue focusing on Star-Lord’s half-sister Victoria – who I admit had completely slipped my mind amidst all the Kitty Pryde nonsense – as she confronts the Collector, you know, from that movie that time? I will say that he’s well-characterized for an Elder of the Universe, avoiding the usual ponderous dialogue usually associated with cosmic immortal types. He’s fun, inviting Victoria to join him for a friendly drink as they discuss the return of Victoria’s father J’Son, former emperor of Spartax and current amber-encased bauble in the Collector’s collection. He then takes Victoria on a tour of his collection, not the items of monetary value, but those of I’mnotevenkidding emotional value. My favorite part was the Collector taking a moment to ponder stillnotjokingyouguys the boots worn by young Thanos himself: “From when he was an innocent child.  Perhaps… before he was evil.”

So when the Collector laughingly refuses to let Victoria take her father to be tried for his war crimes, how does she convince him otherwise?  Any guesses?  Any…?  Did I hear someone in back say “Mesmerize him with the power of dance?”  No?  No one said that?  Because that would be CUCKOO BANANAS???  (Haha, did I forget to mention the flashback from earlier in this issue when J’Son summoned poor little tween Victoria to tell her that she was his illegitimate daughter and he was shipping her off to space-military-academy and oh by the way no more dance lessons and when she protested he basically said she was lucky he wasn’t listening to his advisors and just having her executed instead?)  So moved, the Collector tearfully tells her to just take her father and go already (but not before collecting his own tears in a vial [???!!!???]).  Afterwards, Victoria reveals that her distraction allowed her stealthy subordinate to successfully swipe the seed of the Kree Supreme Intelligence, presumably killed when the Kree homeworld Hala was recently blown up, and apparently this was their true goal all along to help consolidate galactic supremacy.  This was a pretty weird issue.