So who was those people who
were going to ‘go steal some shit’ with Stallone at the end of Guardians of the
Galaxy Vol. 2?
Just a quick one, I’ve just
got back from seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I enjoyed it very much
thank you, I’m not sure if I prefer it to the original but it was very funny,
very awesome and we got to see a lot of character development. There were times
when I would have liked a little bit of a better balance between comedy and action
in one or two scenes but the balance wasn’t THAT far off. What I enjoyed as
much as the film was sitting in a full cinema, packed with as many teenagers on
their days off and Essex scum as it was with fans of the Marvel Cinematic
Universe and nerds and they all cared about Nebula and Yondu, they all cheered
on Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon, they all loved Groot, they all treated Ego the
Living Planet as a genuine threat. Having grown up in and been a tragically
hardcore fanboy during the nineties and early-to-mid noughties when not only
mainstream acceptance but fandom acceptance of these character was considered a
ludicrous impossibility, when you’d get laughed at in comic shops for liking
the Rocket Racoon mini-series, when
no-one but the most die-hard Kirby fans knew who the fuck Groot was. but being
the guy who did, who adored Jim Stalin’s run on Warlock, who read Guardians of the Galaxy and Infinity Watch (no matter how shit they could
be), who preferred Gamora to Wonder Woman, who preferred Rocket Racoon to
Wonder Woman (my dad will agree with this by the way, he’s loved Rocket nearly
as long as I have), who had complete runs of industry and fandom punch-lines
like Howard the Duck, this was so
gratifying, because this shit was always good and always filled with so much
promise and now everyone’s caught up, I felt like crying - and GOD that was a
run-on sentence.
Anyway I’m sure this has
been covered by some clickbait site or YouTube channel but I thought I’d do it
just in case: one of the FIVE after credits scenes in the film shows Silver
Stallone’s character delighted that his old team, made up of various Ravagers
captains, has been brought back together by the events of the film and they
should go steal some shit. The gag is that all of them are present day Marvel
Cinematic Universe versions of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, this makes
complete sense as Yondu (who has a much bigger role in this film) is a Ravager
who’s a modern day Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Yondu Udonta, the
archer from the original Guardians. For the confused there are two teams called
the Guardians of the Galaxy, the second is active in the present day and
debuted in 2008 in Guardians of the Galaxy
Volume 2 issue 1 following the event Annihilation: Conquest; this is the team
made up of Star-Lord, Rocket Racoon, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Groot, Adam
Warlock and so on - the one the film team is based on. The first team, now
sometimes know as Guardians 3000 or Guardians of Infinity, is from an alternate
future, the same one Killraven’s from and debuted all the way back in 1969 in Marvel Super-Heroes issue 18 (so the
second one comes first chronologically, comics are complicated) and is the one
that includes Major Victory, Yondu, Starhawk, Charlie-27 and Martinex. Hopefully this'll be useful to someone, so are you sitting comfortably: then do you have any tape?
Silver
Stallone is…Starhawk
Comic debut:
Defenders 27 (1975)
Yeah I didn’t catch this at
first, his name is mentioned once I think and even then it’s Starhawk’s real first
name: Stakar. It’s actually really
obvious once you’re told – if you know the character anyway: Starhawk is a generally
depicted as an angry man in blue, which is Stallone all over really but also
describes his character in the film nicely, Sly’s also rocking shoulder
ornaments that resemble Starhawk’s ‘light streamers’. Stakar is from Arcturus
IV though he’s not a native, he was brought there (by Quasar) and raised by the
Reavers, who I’m convinced are a main inspiration for the Ravagers. He has a
very…confusing relationship with Aleta – another Guardian who we’ll get to – they’re
often merged and can switch between one another, but they’re also married and sometimes
they’re not merged, comics are complicated. He’s powered by the Hawk God and his powers can pretty much be summed up as ‘does lots of things with light’. Starhawk
wasn’t a founding Guardian, nor ever the leader but he seems to have always been
the most popular so it makes sense to give him an elevated role, especially as
Vance Astro (the team’s usual leader and seemingly second most popular before the Cinematic
Universe made Yondu 'Most Popular Original Guardian') isn’t in the film: this actually makes a
lot of sense by the way as Vance Astro is a future version of the New Warriors
member Justice, so his present day Marvel Cinematic Universe version would be
Justice, not Vance Astro.
The crystal
man is…Martinex
Comic debut: Marvel
Super-Heroes 18 (1969)
I can never remember how to
pronounce this poor bloke’s name without looking at it, it’s really simple: mar-tin-necks,
I just always forget, mostly I call him Marty. Marty is one of the races who
evolved from the humans who colonised the Milky Way galaxy in his timeline,
specifically he’s from Pluto, the facet ‘skin’ (though he’s just as often
depicted as see-thru I think it’s supposed to be like armour) that makes him
look like a giant crystal (or a jaggedy Iceman) is to compensate for the
incredible heat on his home planet (ah, remember when Pluto was a planet? Poor Pluto). He’s the sensible scientific one and often served as leader of the team in the
70’s and 80’s. He also formed an offshoot team called the Galactic Guardians
because at the time Marvel Editor-in-Chief Tom Deflaco fucking loved that shit –
Thunderstrike, War Machine, Galactic Guardians, Fantastic Force, Secret
Defenders – he was mad on this idea (and wanted to do it to the Scarlet Spider
and U.S. Agent too), the Galactic Guardians had on its team Simon Williams aka
Wonder Man aka Hollywood (as he was uncreatively named while a Guardian) who
you’ll see cameoing throughout the new Guardians film on posters.
The dark
haired woman is… Aleta alias Lady Starhawk
Comic debut:
Defenders 29 (1975)
Ok I’m summarizing this going
off of the Marvel Wikia because I’ve never been able to truly make sense of it,
so any inaccuracies are their fault (muhahah blame passed): Aleta is the
adopted sister of Starhawk (the one Stallone plays) but also his wife, it was
she who found the statue of the Hawk God that gives them their powers and was turned
into living energy when she went ‘ooh what’s that’ and touched it (she always
has to touch), the ‘living light’ that allows Starhawk to do lots of things
with light (I think). The two shared a body and swapped in an out of limbo (the
same as Rick Jones and Captain Marvel used to) but Aleta got the ‘ump with her husband
cos he was usually driving and then her children got killed and then she got
de-merged from Starhawk and began shagging and eventually became the finance of
Vance Astro. Then she was forcibly merged again with Starhawk and then Starhawk
was a baby and she was the only one then Starhawk was an adult and they were
merged again and then eventually they were separated again because she didn’t
like what being Starhawk did to her and Starhawk was Starhawk and she was just
Aleta and she was back to banging Vance and nowadays? I have no fucking idea
but she was in the Guardians 3000 series so I guess they’re separate? COMICS
ARE SO COMPLICATED!
The robot
head with the voice of Miley Cyrus is…Mainframe
Comic debut: Amazing
Adventures Volume 2 issue 38 (1976)
Yeah didn’t work that out. In
the comics Mainframe is the future version of the Vision so male (technically
speaking I guess ‘identifies as male’ would be the better term, but his A.I. is
based on the brain patterns of a heterosexual male – Wonder Man again, he gets
everywhere – and we know Vision has the correct equipment to be considered biologically
male, well according to the Scarlet Witch anyway *wink wink nudge nudge*). While
‘A.I. in a robot head’ does basically describe him at times the film version is
pretty different to how I remember it looking (which as you can see was sort of
like the top of the Venus Space Probe from Six Million Dollar Man, but with
faces on it), but that’s who she’s supposed to be. Mainframe guarded Captain
America’s shield in the future btw (Vance Astro used it for most of the 90’s). The
sex thing of course really doesn’t matter as this isn’t the future version of
the Vision but a contemporary to him in the present day and the film’s design
is very nice, much better designed than and far more unique looking than (but
still evocative of) the comic version.
Ving Rhames
is…Charlie-27
Comic debut:
Marvel Super-Heroes 18 (1969)
Ha! Oh he is absolutely the
natural shape to match Charlie-27, wide as three people with no neck, ha! Perfect.
The comic book version of Charlie-27 is a huge Caucasian soldier who was genetically engineered to deal
with Jupiter’s gravity: so he’s got incredible muscle density and is wide and
kind of squat despite being huge, so he’s roughly the shape of Ving Rhames but
with a square head and more muscles, and much less melanin. He was the gruff
rough-and-tumble one (who I think was supposed to have an English accent?) and another
Guardians founder who came together with the others to fight the Badoon when
they invaded, I’d probably say either he or Yondu was my favourite from the
Guardians cast. He typically wears brown, red or mustard (or all three) with
lots of studs so while Rhames’ costume isn’t that close to the Masters of the
Universe look the comic book version usually sports it’s fine by me, Rhames
really needs his mask though (for accuracy, Rhames ain’t ugly - and even if he
was (he isn’t) I’d never admit it, he could break me into five pieces without breathing
heavy) - and some bigger studs in an X on his coat.
The lizard
man is…Krugarr
Comic debut: Guardians
of the Galaxy Annual 1 (1991)
Now we’re really getting
obscure, in fact I’d forgotten this bloke even existed (I feel bad). He’s the
Sorcerer Supreme in the Guardian’s time and from the planet Lem, he was trained
by Doctor Strange himself (who had become the current Ancient One by this time,
it’s so nice to be able to reference characters like the Ancient One nowadays
and know that a lot of people will know who I mean) and fought Korvac and
Dormammu so he was pretty hardcore and although it seemed like he didn’t appear
that often he racked up 14 appearances, not bad for a secondary hero in a universe
that was only being chronicled in one book and it’s annuals (and only two or
three less than Mainframe according to IMDB, though mainframe was more prominent at the start of the series when it was hot and Krugarr near the end when sales were lower, often characters who become important later on are less well remembered even if they are cooler). As a lovely nod to his role
in-comic we have him using the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s ‘spell circles’ to
give the thumbs up to Stallone in the stinger, so while he’s not going to be Sorcerer Supreme
any time soon, he still uses the same type of magic, fucking brilliant really.
So there you are, I wrote
this mostly because I was sat here refreshing my own memory and by that I mean
figuring out who was who because I’d completely forgotten because I haven’t
read the 1990s Guardians series (which is key to identifying anyone other than
Vance Astro, Marty, Charlie, Starhawk and Yondu) in years. Honestly I’d’ve
switched out Aleta with Nikki because, what with having her head on fire and
elf ears, she’s the more instantly recognisable female Guardian and thrown in
Talon too but that’s just cos I have this weird fondness for Talon left over
from my childhood (he was Space Cat Wolverine and I was like 9, of course I liked
him). Oh and just to continue showing up the gaps in my knowledge, I thought
Hollywood was Warpath from the X-Men up until today, that’s roughly 20 years of
getting that wrong.
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