With the Guardians of the Galaxy film set to hit theaters August 1st and us doing a whole Guardians Month in order to benefit Bill Mantlo (which you can read more about here and here), we thought that one thing that could be helpful would be for us to put a guide together, similar to what we did for The Avengers after that film a couple years ago. After all, with all the people who see and enjoy Marvel’s films without having any real connection to the comics, something like this could certainly be useful to pass around. At the very least you could absorb all the knowledge and hold it over your friends heads when they have no idea who any given character is supposed to be.
That and, well, lets be honest: the Guardians are cool and all, but they’re pretty niche in terms of their popularity. Cosmic Marvel always sort of has been, for better or for worse. And with a movie like Guardians, which is attempting to make bank on characters who aren’t household names while pulling together a cast of characters that in quite a few cases represent rather deep cuts into Marvel canon (Korath, anyone?), it can be kind of overwhelming to see all these things thrown out there as if we have any idea what Marvel and James Gunn are talking about.
Unless you just want to roll with the punches, which is absolutely fair. I mean, it’s a James Gunn movie; without seeing it and just going off the trailers alone I think I can tell you fairly that this film is going to be pretty nuts. That’s what you get when you put a talking tree and not-raccoon front and center, right?
So join me as I go through the history of the Guardians a bit, lay out some places where you can start reading and, hopefully, get across exactly why anyone should care about this bunch of A-holes in the first place.
Guardians of the What?
To start, it feels prudent to begin by breaking down the three different iterations of the Guardians team: the original team, the one the film is based on, and the current team (which ostensibly influences the film, but I’d wager it’s more the other way around).
Debuting in 1969 in “Marvel Super-Heroes” in a story written by Arnold Drake and illustrated by Gene Colan, the Guardians weren’t exactly a mainstay in the Marvel Universe until two decades later. Appearing mostly alongside other more recognizable heroes like the Avengers or even the Defenders, they were a team set in the distant future and only allowed back in time when time travel was the name of the game. As such, they appeared sporadically as side characters, often in pretty wild adventures, like when Thor had to throw down with Korvac (and thank goodness Korvac isn’t still kicking about).
However, there’s a lot of fun and value in the early stories as well. This was one of Marvel’s earliest forays into their own expanding their content beyond the universe that Kirby and Lee were building (which debuted in 1961 with “Fantastic Four”), and “Marvel Super-Heroes” and books just like it showcased a lot of new ideas that were picked up by others and expanded further as the universe built up and developed. So while a lot of early Guardians appearances are sporadic and chaotic, this in turn becomes part of the charm; you didn’t know when the Guardians would pop up, but when they did it was usually because they were really needed — and that has become a core aspect to the team’s identity.
In terms of having a recognizable identity, the team didn’t really reach “mattering” status (in the broad sense of the term) until after Jim Starlin had really began to breathe new life into Marvel Cosmic. Starlin had been tweaking and reviving the Cosmic realm since the mid-70’s, and much of that came to a head in the 90’s with some of the biggest stories you could imagine. But these tweaks were the foundation for the bigger stage that was being played out in Marvel’s Cosmic line; while there was a good set of continuity and a recurring cast of characters on Marvel’s Earth, the Cosmic realm developed into a brand new space that could interact with Earth when it needed to but otherwise be self-contained.
Continued belowAnd right before the most famous Cosmic event in the 90s (“Infinity Gauntlet,” which we’ll get into later), Marvel debuted a new series written and illustrated by Jim Valentino that became the major calling card for who the Guardians were as recognizable heroes.
Bringing the team back together and nailing down a consistent, relatively stable line-up, the Guardians were a ragtag group of heroes in the 31st century, all of whom were inspired by the heroes of old to basically be Space Avengers. Lead by Major Vance Astro aka Major Victory (the best superhero name ever), who had been frozen in suspended animation traveling in space for a thousand years from our time to the future, he awoke and essentially chose to become Future Captain America. Around him formed the team, which initially consisted of characters like Starhawk (who was given his powers by a space Hawk-God), Aleta (Starhawk’s wife and adopted sister (yeah…), also imbued with power from the Hawk-God), Nikki (a genetically engineered superhuman from Mercury), Captain Charlie-27 (a bruiser from Jupiter), Martinex (a crystal warrior from Pluto) and Yondu (a primitive hunter from Alpha Centauri, who tries to kill Vance Astro when they first meet).
And out of all those characters they had to work with, only Yondu made it into the film. Lets just be glad we don’t really have to open the whole Starhawk/Aleta can of worms, I guess (he says, willfully ignoring that the Avengers is lightly based on “the Ultimates,” which featured Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver engaging in twincest, and that both of those characters are in Avengers: Age of Ultron).
The general point of the team was that they each represented the last of their respective kind (although they didn’t really) and a good portion of their existence was spent in battle against the Badoon, an evil alien race hellbent on conquering the solar system — hence their role as Guardians of the Galaxy. And, true to the original incarnation of the characters, they were mainly tasked with adventures and stories that mattered; while having their own timeline in their own series certainly allowed for a bit more self-definition than was previously afforded, it was still a consistent factor that if the Guardians had to deal with something then it was something of great importance.
Also, they did a LOT of time travel and messed with their own timeline; like, a lot. If you want some convoluted stories, the original “Guardians” are the way to go – although, to be fair, going back and reading older comics reveal a lot of things that are obvious products of their times, and the Guardians are certainly fairly indicative of that.
Their stories are a lot of fun, though, especially if you’re the type of reader who can roll with the punches, and while the book does sort of implode at a certain point (particularly when Valentino left it) it’s a fairly fun entry into the Cosmic Marvel history.
Recommended Reading: “Guardians of the Galaxy: Tomorrow’s Avengers” Volume 1, collecting the debut of the characters by Drake and Colan, or “Guardians of the Galaxy” by Jim Valentino Volume 1
So if these guys are the Guardians of the Galaxy, then why is there a whole other team in the film?
Well, when Keith Giffen tore the Cosmic Marvel Universe apart in 2006 with “Annihilation,” it led to a sequel event called “Annihilation: Conquest” – and in this event, a brand new team was born.
Before “Annihilation,” the Cosmic Marvel Universe was in a place of stagnation. It was a pretty niche market, to be fair, and while there were light forays into cosmic aspects and ideas (an “Inhumans” mini here, a “Spaceknights” story there), a lot of it didn’t seem to bring with it any real resurgence towards Marvel Cosmic until Jim Starlin and Keith Giffen collaborated on the “Thanos” ongoing series that ended with issue #12. Suddenly, Cosmic characters were coming back and were in the focus again, as two early Cosmic mainstays were back in action — and before you knew it, the Annihilation Wave arrived and the “Annihilation” event was upon us.
While we’ll get more into “Annihilation” later (though the gist is: Annihilus forms an army, rampages through the galaxy like Genghis Khan and destroys a lot in his wake before he’s put down — and also, Thanos does stuff), its follow-up “Conquest” was in some ways the opportunity that Cosmic Marvel of the time needed in order to grow. “Annihilation” afforded the opportunity for a “Nova” ongoing, but it was the second that made everything get that much bigger. In it, Ultron did his best to take over the galaxy, and while many forces formed to oppose him, Peter Quill aka Starlord (at the time, though now it’s Star-Lord) forms his own team to help prevent these kind of massive galactic disasters after an adventure with Bug, Mantis, Captain Universe, Deathcry, Rocket Raccoon and Groot (see: “Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord”).
Continued belowAs the dust settles, Peter forms a brand new team: the group who are currently known as the Guardians of the Galaxy. Based out of Knowhere, the floating severed hollowed-out head of a Celestial, the team consisted of Bug, Mantis, Rocket and Groot as well as Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Quasar and Adam Warlock. Together with the help of a talking telepathic dog named Cosmo, the team spent the majority of their existence battling with the Universal Church of Truth, a spacecult dedicated towards the perversion of the Galaxy and who held within their ship a mysterious cocoon.
Now, in terms of reconciling the differences here, Abnett and Lanning were pretty smart about it. With their ongoing they essentially pulled out a zillion characters from the unused Marvel toy box and worked it all out in the form of a giant Wagner-esque space opera, and they began it all by sticking the current Guardians with Major Victory, discovered in a time displaced block of ice (remember when I said Vance wanted to be Future Captain America? Ta da!). In turn, it was Vance that introduces the team to the concept of “The Guardians of the Galaxy,” which allows Rocket to suggest taking the name for a team in the past that inspires the future Guardian’s actions because time is a flat circle.
Of course, from there comes a whole bunch of wibbly wobbly timey wimey goodness in which the modern Guardians interact with the Future Guardians, in particular a time traveling Starhawk who is trying to fix the timeline – but that’s all a story for another day, when you sit down and read this run for yourself.
However, this is for the majority of modern-day Cosmic Marvel fans the be-all, end-all book of the Cosmic Marvel run, and for good reason. While Abnett and Lanning were also writing a “Nova” ongoing at the time, not to mention intermittent events and sporadic additional minis, “Guardians of the Galaxy” became the quintessential Cosmic book, bringing back a ton of lost and forgotten characters and really embracing the space opera storytelling style. What made it even better, though, was that everything that was pulled out of the obscure pile of comics was given a great sense of logic and reasoning and importance, perfect for new readers; while there was a lot here that was particularly exciting and inspired for fans of the old (one moment literally made me stand-up and cheer, if memory serves), you didn’t have to have even the foggiest idea of who Major Victory or anyone else was to follow along and enjoy the ride.
That, to me, is the beauty of this run, and why it continues to endure and inspire. Sure, it’s all based on previously established canon and characters, but in terms of rebooting an entire line — something we see a lot of in modern comics — this did it successfully and thoughtfully, without disrespecting that which came before and talking down to the newer audience experiencing a lot of this for the first time.
Well, OK, that and the talking raccoon and the tree who could only introduce himself having adventures in space wasn’t too shabby either. But, well, you get it.
Recommended Reading: “Guardians of the Galaxy” by Abnett and Lanning: The Complete Collection, Volume 1
Of course, it all came to a head in “The Thanos Imperative,” where – and I’m going to have to be blunt about spoilers here, though I’d encourage you to go read the books – Peter Quill “dies,” ie. is trapped in an alternate universe with Thanos and Richard Rider, aka Nova where it is presumed that they’re either stuck forever or killed by Thanos in a blaze of glory.
But then he came back. And with one of the two aforementioned characters.
After the success of The Avengers, or perhaps even just because of it, Marvel launched a book in 2012 called “Avengers Assemble” by Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley, two of their biggest name creators. Bendis and Bagley alone are responsible for the longest duo run in superhero comics with their work on “Ultimate Spider-Man,” and with “Avengers Assemble” the task of the book was essentially to create something that fans of the film could walk into the store and pick-up and find an entrance point into the Marvel Universe.
Continued belowOf course, the sneaky part of the book was that it “secretly” (in quotes because, well, it wasn’t hard to figure out) hailed the return of Thanos and the Guardians of the Galaxy, as somehow Peter Quill and Thanos had made it back into our universe — something that, for the record, has not been revealed at the time of this writing but has been teased for the “Original Sin” tie-ins of “Guardians.” And with the return of the Guardians, Bendis re-formed the team somewhat with Starlord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket, Bug and Groot, though Bug left very quickly after the team-up ended while Thanos licked his wounds and went home alongside Bendis and Bagley, who both left the title when the story wrapped.
Then in 2013, “Guardians of the Galaxy” re-launched for its third major iteration, helmed by Brian Bendis and initially featuring Steve McNiven on art. Featuring new costumes and new attitudes, the team consisted of Starlord (now a much angrier/sassy rascal archetype) alongside Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot, with Iron Man coming into space to tag along as well.
Since then, the book hasn’t maintained a single consistent identity like the other two iterations did, with Iron Man’s presence land-locking the book to Earth (ostensibly to show modern readers who liked the Avengers why they should care about this current team enough to support a future movie) and then getting stuck in other events, such as the “Age of Ultron” fall-out which placed Angela from “Spawn” in the book, and “Infinity” and an “All New X-Men” crossover, both of which once again caused the Guardians of the Galaxy to deal almost exclusively with trouble centered around Earth.
It’s tough to really go too much into the current iteration of the book because, well, 16 issues in and I don’t think the series has quite yet found its voice. Part of it wants to appeal to Avengers fans, part of it seems to want to appeal to Cosmic fans, but the book spends too much time relying on other titles that inhibit it from defining itself clearly. There’s a lot of potential in the book but it hasn’t quite hit where I think the title with art from the likes of Nick Bradshaw and Ed McGuinness could take it.
That said, the book does seem to be reaching a more central point of consistency. As of Free Comic Book Day, the book did slightly relaunch, adding Agent Venom (Flash Thompson) and Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) to the team, and the book has basically been ripped apart and is slowly piecing itself back together. The most recent arc in fact deals with the team being pulled apart and having to figure out to identify on their own, which in turn allows them to positively get back to relating to each other more. While it still largely deals with Peter Quill’s hereto unseen daddy issues with J’son, King of Spartax, recent issues have addressed and seemingly resolved this aspect of the book — so I’ll happily note that the current issues of “Guardians of the Galaxy” (starting with #14 and the FCBD issue) are a lot better than the book has been previously, if you’re so inclined to go and check it out.
Recommended Reading: ”Avengers Assemble” and ”Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1: Cosmic Avengers”
So that’s the history of the Guardians as a team and an endeavor for Marvel. But what about who they are as individual characters, at least in their current line-up?
I’m glad you asked, because that brings us to our next section:
What a Bunch of A-Holes
The film features five characters as part of the Guardians of the Galaxy, all of whom are currently featured in the current book. The new film certainly has a task the Avengers didn’t have, which is to introduce all the characters from scratch and make you understand why they’re a team in the first place; film audiences have never met these characters before and have only slightly been introduced to concepts that involve them (ie Thanos, the Infinity Gems that aren’t called Infinity Gems and Crazy Haired Benecio Del Toro). While this of course is not something superhero films in the past haven’t done and gotten away with (see: X-Men), the uphill battle of it all is that the Guardians are not in any way household names. Yet.
Continued belowTo that end, the characters will all have to battle for who can be everyone’s favorite takeaway instead of having had ample time to be established before everything is thrown together to save the galaxy from destruction, and could potentially be chaos. So in order to mitigate some of that intense canon and spotlight stealing, lets all just agree that Groot is the best and explore our heroes a bit from there, shall we?
Peter Quill aka Star-Lord
The leader of the pack, Peter Quill is not necessarily your typical leading man. His role has certainly changed over time, but that seems to happen with any character that sees at least mild-consistency in appearances throughout a shared universe. For example, when originally created by Steve Englehart and Steve Gan, Englehart described the character as an “unpleasant, introverted jerk” who would become a more enjoyable hero over time — and to a certain extent, that’s just what happened. Initially much more introverted and definitely slightly landlocked from his relationship as an Earther, the character was slightly revamped by Chris Claremont into a more typical stereotypical sci-fi lead, someone who could fill the general ideas of a leading man while also playing towards a lot of sci-fi/pulp ideas popular during the 70s.
It’s a point I’ll consistently come back to, but it wasn’t really until the “Annihilation” era of Cosmic Marvel that Quill got his big break, where he was changed from his more archaic beginnings into that of a pseudo space-sheriff — think, essentially, Captain Malcolm Reynolds with less misbehaving. And as such, when the Annihilation Wave hit, Peter Quill was forced to accept a tremendous amount of responsibility and was intensely revamped, now a more natural-bordering-lawful good character if perhaps a reluctant leader as well. And lead he did, becoming the man in charge of the Guardians of the Galaxy, even if the team did not immediately take to him right away.
But Quill makes for a good hero because, in many ways, he represents a lot of classic ideas. Certainly that’s based on the era that he was born out of, but as he continued to grow it became more clear that he was a small person put onto a big stage who had to struggle to get by. Quill was imbued with a strong moral center, one that wanted to do the right thing but didn’t know how to since he was out of his depth, and that led to a lot of creative reasoning and often dire situations as leader of the Guardians. However, it also weighed on him and quite heavily; he didn’t take his failures lightly, and it was easy to relate to his struggles.
And after time, Quill finally fully embraced his newly defined role as the Star-Lord — right up until he “died” saving the universe. As they say, focus not on how you will die but what you will represent while you live, and in that regards Peter Quill was a true hero, offered up his chance to go out in a blaze of glory as the hero to us all. Of course, he came back under unknown circumstances and has been kicking around in the galaxy since then, and he’s back to the more darker origins of the character; someone who has more edge to him, and a fair deal of dark humor. That, and a lot of daddy issues. But, well, it’s a Marvel Comic book in 2014; if they’re not funny but full of parental problems then something is amiss.
So if you’d like to start with Peter Quill, there’s admittedly no better place to start than his early sci-fi stories that have recently been collected. The modern film interpretation (beyond just allowing Chris Pratt to be Super Chris Pratt) certainly relies on the character that was expanded upon in “Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord” which then turned over into “Guardians of the Galaxy,” but it never hurts to go back to old 70’s Marvel sci-fi. You’ll get the chance to pick up the other “Annihilation” books soon enough.
Recommended Reading: “Peter Quill: Guardian of the Galaxy”
Gamora
Gamora is the adopted daughter of Thanos and, at times, has been referred to as the single most dangerous woman in the galaxy — and for good reason. After all, if the Mad Titan is the one that adopts you there’s certainly a fair deal of foreboding in there.
Continued belowIn fact, as it so happens Thanos essentially trained Gamora into who she is now: the last of a dead species and a warrior bent on destruction and chaos. She was trained from the moment Thanos found her to take out the evil alternate version of Adam Warlock, the being known as the Magus, but her appetite for destruction is seemingly matched only by Guns N’ Roses. Gamora has been trained in various forms of increasingly deadly practicies from martial arts to swordplay and gun mastery, and while her past is certainly “dark” and “edgy” and full of some frankly ugly and stereotypical tropes that have been rampant in literature for far too long as cheap shock mechanisms (at one point Gamora is raped and Thanos comes to her “rescue,” murdering her assailants), what has been done with the character since then is very worthwhile.
So after years of being a bit sidelined and in fact trapped in a pocket dimension (see: “Infinity Gauntlet,” which will always be the most frequently referenced Cosmic Marvel book for good reason), Gamora came back during the “Annihilation” event as the warrior leader of a group called the Graces, essentially returning in order to make a name for herself. She uses the Annihilation Wave’s attacks to her advantage, utilizing her skills as a warrior to reclaim her name and restore her reputation after being stuck in the outfield for so long. And while her role after that somewhat is a bit uneven (she dates Nova for some time and then battles against him during “Conquest” after being taken over by the Phalanx), she joins Peter Quill and the Guardians, becoming a major part of the team to once again do battle against the Magus resurgent (which is a pretty fun sentence to type).
And you know what? In the current run of “Guardians,” she’s easily the best character, hands down. While she’s a lot more quiet and certainly a bit different than the Gamora we saw during “Annihilation,” it is clear that she has reclaimed her title and is using a certain sense of mystique to her advantage. If you can find it, “Guardians of the Galaxy” #10 illustrated by Kevin Maguire featuring Gamora and Angela out on a hunting trip is the best issue of the series so far.
Unfortunately, Gamora has not been a character graced with her own series, so I can’t recommend any there. For the most part she has been mainly been playing against other characters for the duration of her existence, for better or for worse. However, the caveat to this is that for the best early Gamora stories you can dig into Jim Starlin’s “Warlock” run, all of which has been collected into a single book which may just be some of the best Cosmic Marvel that Starlin ever wrote. That’s certainly a good deal there; not only will you get a good, hefty introduction to some of the bigger (non-“Guardians” related) concepts and ideas, but you’ll get to see the early days of Gamora and her father Thanos, and it’s pretty cool.
Recommended Reading: “Warlock” by Jim Starlin: The Complete Collection
Drax the Destroyer
Drax is an interesting character, and certainly a different one from most of the characters we see. While Star-Lord himself is also from Earth, he doesn’t inherently consider Earth his home; he’s part alien and all-time adventurer, and Earth only means so much to him. Drax, on the other time, was at one point a human being — Arthur Douglas, whose family was killed during an attack helmed by Thanos. Seeking revenge, Douglas is revived and used by a cosmic entity known as Kronos, who gives him a new body and moniker in the form of Drax the Destroyer. And upon this event happening, Drax literally becomes a weapon designed for one purpose: to kill Thanos. He’s a HODOKT (Human Organism Designed Only For Killing Thanos).
Of course, Drax is then sort of pulled into this weird loop where his existence happens around and in tandem to Thanos. For example, Drax is predominantly relevant during the events of “Infinity Gauntlet,” which — besides frequent references in this column so far — is the main story to which all Thanos stories are judged; as such, the same was slightly true for Drax. However, while he did join Warlock and his Infinity Watch afterwards (a supergroup formed to be temporary Space Avengers), Drax did somewhat died and come back to life on a few occasions soon after, as well as being exiled by comics — by which I mean he’s left on a planet to just hang out on his own before randomly reappearing right before “Annihilation” in a prison ship that crashed in Alaska.
Continued belowWhich is, of course, where we eventually always seem to come back to when talking about the Guardians.
So with Drax, and maybe I’m biased here, but the best place to get a good idea of who the character is is in the prelude to “Annihilation,” the eponymous 4-issue “Drax the Destroyer” mini-series. It certainly defines the character well (as well as introducing fan favorite Cammi, who reminds Drax of his lost daughter and results in a rather interesting relationship). In it Drax is able to differentiate himself from his ties to Thanos while ultimately having the story acknowledge this, and “Annihilation” even allows for Drax to be pitted against Thanos again in the new era of Cosmic Marvel with a pivotal scene that absolutely defines who the character becomes from there. Is he just the Destroyer, or is he allowed to be something more? Can he ever regain any semblance of humanity when he was reborn time and time again as a weapon?
It’s tough to look at a character like Drax compared to most of the others in the Guardians because, essentially, Drax has always had to be defined by his nemesis Thanos to some extent until the finale of “Annihilation,” in which his character was given a new lease on life and a new path to walk down. But since then Drax has very much become the affectionate bruiser of the team, a character fueled by a form of bloodlust but still someone that you can like even while the character always seems to be teetering on the edge — like watching Rocky decide if he’s really ready to go for one more fight, even though he knows he probably shouldn’t.
Recommended Reading: The “Annihilation” Omnibus, which contains the “Drax the Destroyer” omnibus and his most important scene to date
Rocket Raccoon
Rocket Raccoon is not actually a raccoon, so don’t mistake him for one. Even though his name is Rocket Raccoon (a riff on the Beatles song “Rocky Raccoon”) and even though he looks like a raccoon, he is technically an alien, so stop calling him a raccoon. He’s totally not. You don’t get it.
Rocket began his life as the leader of a whole group of anthropomorphic aliens as captain of a spaceship for a group called the Loonies. And while his first adventure was essentially a massive homage to the aforementioned Beatles song; his first story is in “Incredible Hulk #271, where he and the Hulk have to get back a variant of the Gideon’s Bible from a villain named Judson Jakes, a not-mole who works with Blackjack O’Hare and the Black Bunny Bridage. So Rocket certainly started off as a joke, but a very affable one written by Bill Mantlo (for whom our Guardians Month is for), illustrated by Keith Giffen in “Hulk” and then by a very young upstart in comics named Mike Mignola in a “Rocket Raccoon” mini.
Rocket is special, though, as he is the first character in our group to actually be a guardian. As mentioned, Rocket was the captain of a a spaceship, and he began his career as the Guardian of the Keystone Quadrant, a closed off part of the universe inhabited by a lot of anthropomorphic aliens. This was later retconned to have a different meaning and identity, as Rocket later finds out that all of his memories were false and that he had been manipulated by his past foes towards remembering everything incorrectly. But, you know, comics.
Rocket essentially dropped out of the comics for a long time until “Conquest” happened, appearing in quick cameos but not much more. He was essentially plucked from obscurity both by Marvel editorial and Starlord in the story, and Rocket’s role certainly grows from there exponentially. While he has a lot of memorable and notable actions, it is actually Rocket that helps the team pick a name — and of course he carries a big gun that frequently saves the day.
Rocket is essentially the team’s wild card how seems to be the most unpredictable of the group (somewhat because he’s apparently supposed to have OCD). While his retcon does seem to have effected the character’s personality a bit (which has more to do with switching writers than it does necessarily the events), he’s still an absolutely incorrigible and hilarious little character — but now with an added hate off cats and a bit more of a potty mouth.
Continued belowFor Rocket, you’re pretty much best off getting his original appearance in the “Guardian of the Keystone” book, which collects not only his appearance in “Hulk” but also the Mantlo-written, Mignola-illustrated story in which Rocket originally made a name for himself. For the later story that changed all this, though, we have to look no further than the book recommended for Rocket’s best pal, Groot.
Recommended Reading: “Rocket Racoon: Guardian of the Keystone”
Groot
When Groot first appeared, he was a giant monster tree from Planet X who came to stomp the Earth and capture humans to study us. He was basically a nefarious scientist that was also a tree, but he spoke eloquently enough, was pretty angry and was then defeated surreptitiously by being infected with termites. Turns out that’s all you need to stop a tree, in the same way that all you need to stop martians is a sneeze.
Since then, a character called Groot has appeared a number of different times. He’s had a role as a Howling Commando at one point, and was even used to beat on the Hulk. Essentially Groot is a monstrous catch-all, and those who chose to incorporate him in stories took what they could get out of the situation.
However, there’s a fairly simple explanation for this, as offered up by Abnett and Lanning during their run: it’s not that those characters were Groot, it’s just that we have no idea how Planet X really works.
See, as it turns out, yes, Groot is a character who says “I am Groot!” all the time, but it’s mostly because what he is saying is done in such a fashion that we literally can not understand him. “I am Groot” is the best our ears can do to make sense of the sounds he is making; it’s actually more like R2D2, where the beeps mean a heck of a lot and a only a few select ears can “get it”. And as such, our Groot — the one who joins the Guardians during “Conquest” — is essentially his own, unique particular iteration of Groot.
Our Groot is a smart Groot, and a surprisingly compassionate one. It doesn’t all come out at once, but overtime Groot is used more and more to solving the team’s scientific issues (particularly in one noticeably humorous scene in which Groot talks with Maximus the Mad and gets the Guardians out of a particularly sticky situation). Not only that, but it’s established that our Groot, despite claiming to be the Monarch of Planet X, is actually an exile of the planet who was kicked out by elder Groots of after killing a younger Groot; though, in Groot’s defense, he was protecting a small raccoon-like creature on his planet from torture.
So Groot is a smart guy, and a bit of a rebel, but certainly the heart of the tean as their lovable and misunderstood tree-man. And as such, honestly, reading the recent “Rocket Raccoon and Groot” mini-series is probably the best you’ll get on Groot. While there’s two “Rocket and Groot” minis, one focusing on each of them, the Groot mini really goes deep into the character and how he works so that while yes, you should just have read “Guardians of the Galaxy” to get to know him, this will certainly be the cherry on top.
Recommended Reading: “Rocket Raccoon and Groot:” The Complete Collection
The Rest of Cosmic Marvel for Dummies
The original hope of this column when I first sat down to write it was to do the same for the villains/ancillary characters that will appear in Guardians that I had done for the team themselves. After all, that was the goal of the Avengers follow-up piece; but, truth be told, it was a lot easier to do something like that when you weren’t operating with 90% characters most people could never have heard of without at least one Marvel fan hanging around in their life frowning and saying “No, the Nova Corps is not the one with the green rings, stop saying that.”
Because really, when you look at it, there’s a lot that appears in the film! Never mind the fact that you’ve got an appearance from Yondu in there (to my understanding he appears with no inherent relation to the future Guardians, but as I’ve not seen the film I can’t say with any certainty what role he plays), but you’ve also got characters like Korath, aka Korath the Pursuer, a character who appeared in the 90s who himself is tied back to a 70s “Inhumans” concept. He’s basically a Kree enforcer, and it’s very hard for me to offer up a Recommended Reading for him as there is no real story about Korath.
Continued belowWhat about someone like The Collector? For all intents and purposes from what I’ve seen, most of who he is doesn’t make the film; he just seems to have the weird hair and the talented actor. But the Collector is actually an ancient eternal being, part of the Elders of the Universe, whose real name is Taneleer Tivan. And, well, he collects things as a hobby (I mean, there’s more to it than that — his wife gave up her immortality and he wanted something to do to not go crazy by being bored). The stinger from Thor: the Dark World inferred that he’s somewhat sinister in the film, or even an agent of Thanos, and both are a possibility. I really couldn’t tell you.
And I’d like to tell you about the Nova Corps as well, but with no Richard Rider (that I know of) it’s tough to explain the starting point there. The Nova Corps are basically space police, though, in the same way that the Green Lanterns are “just” cops in space as well. Utilizing the Nova Force, the many members from many races of the Corps travel the galaxy, protecting and serving, with our primary entry point into that being the aforementioned Rider, who is from Earth and at one point is the only Nova Corps member left in the galaxy after the devastation of the Annihilation Wave. (You can read his early adventures in first volume of “Nova Classic,” though the Corps didn’t really show up until three years later, which you can find in the third volume.
That’s not to say that all of the characters are difficult to explain or talk about to the layman. Ronan the Accuser, the primary antagonist of the film, is very easy to talk about. Originally a “Fantastic Four” antagonist, Ronan is also a Kree warrior and part of what is known as the Accuser Corps, which is basically a branch of the Kree military that acts as judge and jury (and executioner). He’s elevated towards the top of the pile and he becomes Ronan the Accuser instead of Accuser #3485928 Named Ronan.
That said? It’s difficult to recommend a good Ronan story. He gets a nice spotlight in “Annihilation” (he gets his own mini-series, in fact), and once “Secret Invasion” roles around Ronan’s role gets bumped up even bigger when the Kree and the Inhumans make a marriage pact involving him and Crystal. Before that, though, it’s hard to really recommend much to show off who he is as a character; I guess there’s “Maximum Security,” a 90s Avengers/X-Men crossover where Earth gets turned into a prison planet and Ronan is in charge, or perhaps I could even point you to the “Kree/Skrull War,” which is a classic story in which Ronan has a rather significant part, but it’s tough to relate that to the Guardians, how he’ll clash against them, and how the item that he seeks plays into it.
As it turns out, the only thing really worth recommending is “Infinity Gauntlet,” and I’m not being dramatic when I note that this is probably the single most important comic to all of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe in the first three Phases.
“Infinity Gauntlet” is pretty easy to summarize, thankfully. Thanos the Mad Titan (ie the guy with the smile from the end of Avengers who likes courting death and being voiced by Josh Brolin), hellbent on destroying everything in order to appease the literal embodiment of Death, has collected for himself six Infinity Gems (as seen in the “Thanos Quest” prequel mini), each one granting a certain powers based on different aspects of the universe: Mind (Blue), Power (Red), Space (Purple), Reality (Yellow), Time (Orange), Soul (Green). Mounting them onto a massive gauntlet from which the series derives its name, he attempts to erase all life in the universe — and he does end up taking out a good chunk. Those that survive band together to go against him, led by Adam Warlock, and while I’ll skip certain aspects of the story to avoid spoilers and allow you to enjoy it, I think it’s pretty obvious that the stakes of it are incredibly dire.
Continued belowIt’s the story to which all Thanos stories are judged, and you better believe there were two sequels: “Infinity War” and “Infinity Crusade.” Not only that, but when Thanos came back into comics after appearing in the film, the event chronicling his invasion of Earth was called — you guessed it — “Infinity.”
But this set-up has been making it’s way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe a great deal. After all, Avengers featured the Tesseract, which was condensed into a blue gem in Loki’s staff which allowed him to control minds; Thor: the Dark World featured the aether, which was condensed into a red gem and gave it’s wielder great power. Those of you who have watched the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer will have seen that it features something purple frequently appearing in it, and given that it’s a film in space about space stuff you could probably assume that this is the space gem, no?
Plus, those with eagle eyes will know that Odin has the Infinity Gauntlet in his vault in Thor, and while it’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” easter egg, it is there.
So you could probably assume by now that the last film in the Avengers trilogy will be Infinity Gauntlet, because that’s what everyone is assuming anyway! So why not pick that up and enjoy it? Especially if everything else in Marvel Cosmic is stuff you find agreeable?
Plus, “Infinity Gauntlet” features Nebula in a rather key role, so if you’re looking for a place to understand her and her motivations (which are pretty simple: she claims to be Thanos’ granddaughter and wants to take advantage of that legacy), this is a great place to start.
(I’m not going to offer up any recommended reading for Thanos. For that, you can check the older Avengers post.)
That about does it. There’s more we could get into as we dig deep into the lore of Cosmic Marvel, but I’ll refrain. Drew Bradley somewhat laid out a clear path in his Tradewaiter column some time ago over two installments, and it’s pretty short and sweet and direct.
However, hopefully this gives you some idea of where to look before and after the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film. It looks to be rather full to the brim of ideas that have been playing around in the comics for some time now, so it’ll be interesting to see how it all coalesces into a single point.
If I could make one recommendation, though?
When you see the film, if you enjoy it and if it makes you smile — perhaps via the character of Rocket Raccoon in particular, who I’m sure will be a scene stealer — then please consider donating the equivalent of your ticket cost to the Hero Initiative. This was an idea that was introduced back when the Avengers hit theaters, as the Hero Initiative is an amazing organization that helps creators in need, particularly older creators. We at Multiversity have done three benefits for them, including Emerald City’s benefit for Stan Sakai, and I really can attest to what a wonderful and enthusiastic organization they are.
Also, be sure to check out all of the Guardians Month pieces debuting here at the site over the next month, which will culminate in an auction of some of the pieces to which all proceeds will be given to Bill for his ongoing care. And, of course, you can also reach out to Bill directly, via a donation or even just sending him a card, which you can read more about here.
It’s undoubtable that the film will make a lot of money as these all do. I’ve done my best to break down and point out many of the creators involved in the material that will be used in the film, of which there are many, but I also know that there’s an impression that seeing the film and celebrating a character like Rocket is not supporting Bill Mantlo — which, for the record, Bill’s brother and primary care giver Michael (who has helped us organize Guardians Month for Bill) has stated as false:
David, while I applaud your concern for Bill, and our family, I think you may have either misconstrued the facts or fallen victim to relying on false/spotty information. The Mantlo family is not, and was not, put into financial ruin by the tragedy that befell Bill. Yes, I agree that the shabby treatment by his insurance carrier at the time was disgraceful, but in reality he received an incredible amount of coverage (over $2 MILLION in less than 3 years), and like virtually every other policyholder in this country, he was able to obtain continued care (to this day) through Medicaid coverage. And, again because you are not privy to private contractual terms, you are way off base with accusations that Marvel has not compensated Bill adequately. Please don’t join in the spreading of false rumors. And above all else, anytime anyone (you included) wants to know anything about matters concerning Bill Mantlo, you really should consider contacting ME first, as I am his Legal Guardian (and brother, to boot)! Folks, on behalf of Bill I urge everyone to SUPPORT the “GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY” film, and help it have TREMENDOUS SUCCESS. That will benefit Bill Mantlo more than anyone could ever imagine. Supporting the Hero Initiative is equally as worthy a cause, and of course, the Bill Mantlo Support Fund accessible through the Greg Pak “PAKBUZZ” site is always grateful and appreciative of any, and all donations. THANKS…..and GO ROCKET RACCOON!!!!!!!!!!! –Michael Mantlo
With all of this said, I think it’s more than fair that if you enjoy the film, these characters and how far they’ve come, that you, me and everyone we know do what we can to help one of the main character’s creators when he needs us. Bill gave Rocket to us; we could stand to give our love and support back to him.
Now go and enjoy some cosmic comics and the film.
