Welcome back! In our MCU post hodge-podge we are now going to talk about the essential space Avengers themselves: the Guardians of the Galaxy! Please read if you want and be sure to check out the prior posts too!

NAME: Peter Jason Quill

POWERS: Skilled combatant, expert tactician, various abilities of a Celestial being (for a time)

APPEARANCES: 3 (Endgame?), first appeared in Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

REFERENCES/MENTION: 0

AFFILIATION(S): Guardians of the Galaxy, the Ravagers

EQUIPMENT: Twin quad blasters, space helmet, other gadgets

KNOWN FOR: Being a founding member and leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy, stopping Ronan the Accuser from destroying Xandar, saving the galaxy from his father Ego.

Overview/Interpretation: Peter Quill was taken by Yondu Udonta and his Ravager clan in 1988 on the same night that his mother died. Yondu was meant to take him to his Celestial father Ego but instead made him a viable member of the Ravagers, stealing and sneaking into places only a child could go.

Years later he decided to leave the Ravagers and make a name for himself on his own, only to wind up being involved with Ronan the Accuser’s threat of destroying the planet Xandar. Peter eventually decided to team up with a band of unlikely compatriots in order to stop this foe and they all quickly became known as the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Some months later, while doing jobs with the team and even getting closer with his love interest Gamora, he soon discovered who his father was and even the importance of his heritage as he was part Celestial. Upon finding out his father’s true ambition’s, and his fault of killing his mother, he had no choice but to stop and kill his father. After his father’s death his connection to his Celestial powers were gone.

Later on he helped Thor and the other Avengers in an attempt to stop the Mad Titan Thanos, the deadliest foe to the galaxy and the “father” of Gamora. Things don’t go so well. And after learning of the death of Gamora he quickly lost control and thus cost the other heroes as his actions let loose the Titan from their trap. Currently, he is a victim of the Decimation.

My Opinion: I got into the Guardians story and characters long before the first film came out. I was a person who was always aware of upcoming superhero films and I was most interested in this one because of how different and weird it was. Thankfully the film was incredible! Easily one of the best in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and just great on its own merits.

This is one of the few films where I actually like every single character without fail, and Peter Quill is definitely one of them! The actor Chris Pratt brought something to this character that was both needed and well deserved.

Of course the big issue this character has as both a flaw and a win is his quickened reaction to revelations. This worked great for when he discovered Ego, his father, was responsible for placing the tumor in his mother’s brain. His reaction of taking out his blasters to shoot him was well deserved. But this didn’t work well when he discovered that Thanos killed Gamora, where his reaction to hit the Mad Titan released him from the grasp of others around him and essentially screwed the universe as a whole.

Now this isn’t to say Peter Quill is a character to blame for everything, but it was a matter of having that particular character there to learn of a tragic event at the wrong place, wrong time.

Still this character is great, and I hope they can revive him from the dust in Endgame!

NAME: Gamora

POWERS: Superhuman factors due to cybernatics, master assassin and martial artist

APPEARANCES: 3 (Endgame?), first appeared in Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

REFERENCES/MENTION: 0

AFFILIATION(S): Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos

EQUIPMENT: Godslayer sword, switchblade, skeletal cybernatics

KNOWN FOR: Being the most dangerous woman in the Galaxy, being the adopted daughter of the Mad Titan Thanos, being a founding member of the Guardians of the Galaxy

Overview/Interpretation: Gamora was a Zehoberei that was taken by Thanos as an adopted daughter when his Chitauri army invaded her home planet. After killing half of her people, including her parents, she spent the rest of her childhood being trained in a torturous manner in order to become a deadly assassin. She was also Thanos’ favorite daughter and most deadly.

Eventually she found an opportunity to leave this lifestyle and start anew, with the side intention of avoiding and hopefully stopping Thanos in time. This of course led to her meeting and teaming up with a group of oddballs and outcasts, including Star-Lord (Peter Quill) of whom she slowly starts to gain romantic interests with throughout the films. Eventually they all manage to defeat an allied threat with Thanos, Ronan the Accuser, and they all become known as the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The group continues to have many missions and adventures together, including the defeat of Peter Quill’s father. And she even got to make peace with her sister Nebula, another adopted daughter assassin of Thanos who had it worse than Gamora did. But eventually their adventure got them tangled up again in the tyranny of Thanos when Thor was rescued by them.

Currently she is dead by the hands of Thanos, who killed her in order to gain the Soul Stone and continue his ultimate goal, but you never know what may happen in Endgame…

My Opinion: Gamora is a cool and important character to the overarching tale of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially due to her connection to Thanos himself. While merely by default, she is technically my least favorite of the Guardians team but I still like her character, she’s just not AS overly fun and crazy as the other characters.

Still, her origin is strong and I get the feeling we’ll see more of it despite her demise in Avengers: Infinity War (2018).

NAME: Drax The Destroyer

POWERS: Superhuman abilities such as strength and durability, expert combatant, knife mastery

APPEARANCES: 3 (Endgame?), first appeared in Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

REFERENCES/MENTION: 0

AFFILIATION(S): Guardians of the Galaxy

EQUIPMENT: Dual knives

KNOWN FOR: Being a founding member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, being a criminal known for brutal violence, vowing vengeance on both Ronan the Accuser and Thanos for the death of his wife and daughter.

Overview/Interpretation: Drax lost his wife, Hovat, and his daughter Kamaria to the ruthless attack of Ronan the Accuser, under the commands of Thanos. Since then Drax has sought vengeance for his lost family and eventually earned the title of “The Destroyer” due to his brutal path.

This eventually leads to him joining a gang of oddballs in order to get after Ronan and save the galaxy, thus quickly making this group become members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Since then he has gone on many missions with the team, but still holds an intention of eventually confronting Thanos and permanently getting the vengeance his family deserves.

He certainly went after Thanos alongside the other Guardians and even some other heroes, but at the ultimate price of becoming a victim of the decimation.

My Opinion: I wasn’t expecting Drax to be a favorite for me simply due to how his character was portrayed in the comics before the film. Now after seeing the film, he is easily one of the best characters in the whole film! The humor that comes from his lack of understanding things such as metaphors and simple decency works incredibly well while still letting you know that he is a powerful and formidable opponent!

Drax is great, and is a perfect example of how to improve a character in a different media.

NAME: Subject: 89P13 “Rocket”

POWERS: Enhanced abilities including intelligence, expert marksman, tactician, and engineer, expert pilot, expert combatant

APPEARANCES: 4 (including Endgame), first appeared in Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

REFERENCES/MENTION: 0

AFFILIATION(S): Guardians of the Galaxy, Halfworld, the Avengers

EQUIPMENT: Various cannons, gadgets, and other weapons

KNOWN FOR: Being a founding member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, being a mercenary.

Overview/Interpretation: Rocket was an experiment from alien scientists from Halfworld, where they altered both his intelligence and physical attributes through means of cybernetics. He eventually left the planet, befriended Groot, and became a mercenary known as “Rocket”.

He and Groot eventually got caught in the involvement of Ronan the Accuser, which in return resulted in them teaming up with others to stop this villain and eventually becoming members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. He unfortunately lost his friend during the battle, but Groot was able to produce an offspring of the same name.

He continued to go on many adventures with the team until they were eventually involved with the threat of the Mad Titan Thanos. And despite his efforts, he ended up losing infant Groot through the Decimation. Currently he still has no idea that he is solely the remaining member of the Guardians to survive.

My Opinion: When hearing about this film, I was most excited to see Rocket and Groot. This is because these characters were the most bizarre members of the team and, at the time, it seemed very strange that Marvel would want to go with this characters in an otherwise “grounded” universe.

Thankfully, Rocket is an enjoyable character due to his personality and wit. It also helps that he looks super real and genuine in the film considering he’s a talking raccoon. His arc throughout all the films he has been in is perhaps the most interesting next to Peter Quill. He is a character that claims he doesn’t need friends when, in reality, he needs them the most. This also makes his sadness for loss all the more heartbreaking, which Marvel seems to enjoy torturing this poor character by making him lose his original friend Groot, Yondu after realizing their similarities, the offspring of Groot and all the other Guardians.

His arc will surely continue in Endgame, where most of the attention can be placed on him since the other Guardians are gone. Perhaps we will get something truly remarkable in terms of closure for this furry guy.

NAME: Flora Colossus “Groot”

POWERS: Superhuman capabilities, body regeneration and manipulation, light generation

APPEARANCES: 3 (Endgame?), first appeared in Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

REFERENCES/MENTION: 0

AFFILIATION(S): Guardians of the Galaxy, planet X

EQUIPMENT: N/A

KNOWN FOR: Being a founding member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, for sacrificing himself to save the Guardians team (OG Groot), for helping to create StormBreaker (New Groot).

Overview/Interpretation: Groot is from a species of tree-sentient creatures from planet X known as Flora Colossus, typically they are all just called “Groots” in general. This Groot in particular joined and befriended Rocket.

He also got involved with stopping Ronan the Accuser and saving the Galaxy. He aided by sacrificing himself in order to save the Guardians team from crashing to their deaths, but thankfully was able to produce an offspring of the same name.

New or Baby Groot went on to live with the team for many years as a sort of “son” to the other members. Later on as a teenager he helped Thor create the Stormbreaker as way of defeating Thanos the Mad Titan. But soon became another victim of the Decimation, dissolving into dust in front of Rocket.

My Opinion: He is a creature of few words, literally only capable of saying “I am Groot”, but he has since become sort of a mascot to the team. Groot as an adult, baby or teenager has never once been anything other than excellent! Like I said, I was most excited to see Groot and Rocket when the original film was coming out and they did not disappoint!

Also this character doesn’t necessarily have any flaws in terms of major concerns. Sure as an infant he can be kind of brutal and curse from time to time, but this is merely a result of being an infant or a kid which is stuff that the character will grow out of.

NAME: Mantis

POWERS: Empathy including Empathic manipulation, durability

APPEARANCES: 2 (Endgame?), first appeared in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

REFERENCES/MENTION: 0

AFFILIATION(S): Guardians of the Galaxy, Ego

KNOWN FOR: Becoming a Guardians of the Galaxy member, aiding in stopping Ego

Overview/Interpretation: Mantis was found and raised by the Celestial being known as Ego. This was so that she can aid Ego in easing his neurotic behavior with her empathic abilities. After meeting the Guardians of the Galaxy and learning more about human emotions, she came to the realizing that what Ego was doing had to be stopped and helped the Guardians in stopping him.

Since then she has become a member of the team and even helped with stopping Thanos, but unfortunately she became a victim of the Decimation.

My Opinion: I really like Mantis, I especially like her interactions with Drax, but I wish to see more of her in the future. She is also interesting in the fact that she is learning alongside these other characters about emotions and how to interact socially despite these characters not being the best teachers. I am also hopeful that she and Drax can become something more, which just goes to show how much I like these two together.

She hasn’t been around for too long, but she is already great and I hope to see more in time…

Thanks for reading! I also wanted to get to Nebula and Yondu but perhaps that can be for another time. Next up with be the biggest smallest hero Ant-Man! Until then…

-TOM