Since the Guardians of the Galaxy aren’t exactly the most popular characters amongst even diehard Marvel Comics fans, it’s probably safe to assume a good chunk of the crowd in Hall H had little idea who the characters are, let alone why Marvel chose to give the Guardians the big screen treatment ahead of more recognizable properties like, say, Dr. Strange, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Black Panther or even sequel/spinoff treatments to the Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow and/or Nick Fury. But there are plenty of damn good reasons why Marvel tapped their team of interstellar misfit adventurers to follow the original Avengers onto the big screen, and those same reasons will likely lead the Guardians film to enjoy the same crossover, mainstream success as the rest of Marvel’s billion-dollar film franchises despite their low profile. In short, the cosmic realm of the Marvel Comics Universe is an awesome, weird, incredibly fun place filled with endless story possibilities. If Marvel Studios gives it and the Guardians the same accessible yet faithful-to-the-comics treatment it gave its other properties, those Hall H fans, as well as the rest of mainstream moviegoers, are in for a hell of a treat.
What follows is a background and appreciation of Marvel’s Cosmic Universe and thoughts on the exciting potential of a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.
The New York City of the Marvel Universe is undoubtedly its capital and heart – it’s where Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, Punisher and many more all call home (even the X-Men, in nearby Westchester, can be considered New Yorkers), and where all these heroes gather together when it comes time to defend Earth against Galactus, the Skrulls, Loki, Kang the Conqueror, Thanos or any of the other great sci-fi villains that call the Marvel Universe home. Moviegoers got a firsthand taste of how awesomely entertaining such a spectacle can be in this past summer’s Avengers film, but like the original comics on which the movie was based, Joss Whedon’s superhero extravaganza only ever really hinted at the insane potential of the sort of stories that derive from the outer edges of the Marvel Universe. It’s out there, in the farthest reaches of the Marvel galaxy, where the real nutty, genre-bending, high-concept sci-fi craziness truly goes down, to the point where you can almost call it the most creative part of a fictional universe defined by its remarkable, near-endless creativity.
Being home to some of Marvel’s greatest, larger-than-life sci-fi villains, it wasn’t uncommon (and still isn’t) for Marvel’s most iconic heroes – everyone from the Avengers to the Fantastic Four to the X-Men to even Spider-Man – to strap on their spacesuits and head to the outer reaches of the galaxy to battle the big bads on their home turf. That said, these iconic heroes always went home after vanquishing the big cosmic bad, and it wasn’t long before a whole slew of new, space-based heroes were created by the likes of Starlin and Kirby to populate those outer-reaches and defend the cosmos from evil whenever Earth’s heroes were busy back in NYC. Thus, characters like Adam Warlock, Captain Marvel, Quasar, The Guardians of the Galaxy and many others were born, all of whom immediately filled not only an important, space-based vacuum (pardon the pun) in Marvel’s roster of heroes, but also enjoyed a level of character growth and high stakes that those plastered on lunch boxes and Saturday morning cartoons never could. To put it another way, a writer can get away with growing or even killing a C-list space hero way more often than he can Captain America or Thor. And added onto the already abundant creative freedom offered by space-based Marvel comics, the freedom for a writer to truly grow, change or kill a space hero was just another in a long list of reasons Marvel’s cosmic comics offered a reading experience vastly different and in many ways more exciting than the core comics.
Plenty of great stories have followed in the years since Kirby, Starlin and company defined the versatile style of Marvel’s cosmic stories, but Marvel’s most recent success in that particular corner of the universe is very likely the best indication fans can get of what a modern cosmic Marvel movie such as Guardians of the Galaxy might look like. Created largely by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (a writing team affectionately known as DnA), the most recent spaced-based Marvel epic is a whirlwind of a story that kick-started in the Annihilation mini-event and spun off into a variety of series and crossovers that all told one grand, sprawling cosmic adventure. This saga, which you can read starting with Annihilation and continuing through Annihilation: Conquest, War of Kings, Realm of Kings and The Thanos Imperative, told of a devastating war between the various, deadly factions of Marvel’s cosmic realm, with a few underdog space-based heroes – among them The Guardians of the Galaxy – forced to try and stave off universal Armageddon.
More so than perhaps any writer since the original architects of Marvel’s cosmic realm, Abnett and Lanning effectively capitalized on all of the creative freedoms offered by this all-too-often untapped area of the Marvel U. The two grabbed up virtually every character not being used in Marvel’s Earth-bound crossover of the moment, casting the likes of Kirby’s Inhumans, the X-Men’s Shi’Ar Empire, the Skrulls, Kree, and pretty much every other great character they could get their hands on. Taking advantage of their ability to push these characters and concepts to their limits, DnA swung for the fences with one of the most high-stakes superhero stories you’ll ever read. Part space opera, part political drama, part tragedy, part comedy, part war story, DnA’s space epic has it all.
And at the heart of this tale stands the Guardians, a rag-tag group of misfits composed of an interstellar space cop with a bad attitude (Star-Lord), a wise-cracking alien raccoon expert in tactical warfare (Rocket Racoon), a tree monster (Groot), a deadly female space assassin (Gamora) and a blood-thirsty alien warrior hell-bent on killing space’s biggest villain (Dax the Destroyer) among other. If that cast of characters sounds crazy, that’s because it is. This motley crew operates like a more colorful Dirty Dozen if you dropped them into the middle of Star Wars, making for some of the wildest, most downright entertaining and fun comics I’ve read in years.
That Marvel Studios chose this particular iteration of the Guardians to introduce their cosmic realm to mainstream movies audiences was the first great sign that they truly know what they’re doing in their next step towards bringing Thanos – arguably the Marvel Universe’s biggest and baddest villain – from the final, post-credits scene of the Avengers film to a starring role in Avengers 2. That they tapped James Gunn, the twisted mind behind such films as Slither and Super, to direct and write the movie was the second great sign they’re on the right track. A Guardians of the Galaxy movie that stays true to the spirit of these source comics is going to blow unknowing mainstream audiences away. I almost envy their ignorance.
That’s it for now. At a later date I plan on going more in depth about DnA’s awesome cosmic epic. For now, thanks for reading, and as always, please spread word of the blog onto friends and likeminded fans.
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