Marvel aims for the stars with Guardians of the Galaxy. Brian Michael Bendis and Steve McNiven launch a brand new Guardians of the Galaxy series this week.
Star-Lord, Groot, Rocket Raccoon, Drax, Gamora will be joined Iron Man. Bendis tells Marvel.com he’s been digging into the book’s history as he makes the team accesible to old and new audiences.
“We were talking about the characters, what they want and their reliability. I dug up some of their origin stories, particularly Peter Quill’s origin story, which as I tweeted recently I had come across, and decided that it was, for my money, as good as Superman or Spider-man’s origin—it was just no one knew it! It was literally a two-page story in MARVEL PREMIERE about 34 years ago, and I just really really liked it. As the movie was getting closer, and more drafts were coming in, they called me and said “Listen, you were so excited during the Guardians movie calls, we need to get this book back in the public eye. We really want to make it more a part of the Marvel Universe.”
In The Avengers movie Earth now has its Mightiest Heroes but became a target to hostile alien races. That awareness is part of the premise of this upcoming series Bendis explains.
“As far as what the premise of the book is, we hinted at it a little bit in AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, that it’s very clear to the cosmic civilizations of the Marvel universe—which is the Kree, the Skrulls, the Badoon, and the Chitauri—they all are looking at Earth. Earth seems to be a very important element; it’s literally the center of the universe. Here we have this one-of-a-kind amalgam of super heroes and Guardians and alien technologies and mutants, and it’s just this smorgasbord of powers and choices.
Look at it from a distance, say from the Kree’s point of view. Earth is very scary because it’s got all these things and it almost looks like a cauldron of craziness. It’s only one generation away from being able to join the cosmic civilization. From this point, it looks like they’re either going to be this warring tribe of barbarians with laser guns, or they’re going to be able to join us.
And it becomes clear to the leaders of the other civilizations that Earth isn’t being left alone to develop itself. Every five minutes, there’s some kind of alien interaction on Earth that is damaging to Earth’s development. Like the Skrull attack, the Kree experiments on us—there [are] all these things going around and Earth isn’t being allowed to be just Earth. If this continues, if people keep poking at it or attacking it, when Earth is able to join the cosmic civilizations, they’re going to come at us as a war tribe.
We have two choices: We can either blow the Earth up and put ourselves at war with Asgard; or we can make a new rule, and the new rule is that no one is allowed to touch Earth. You’re not allowed to touch it. You’re not allowed anywhere near it, and if you do, you’re breaking the number one cosmic law.
Peter’s father, who is the King of Spartax, asks Peter to lead the Spartax army to guard Earth, because Peter is half-Earthling. Peter doesn’t trust his father, and he’s right not to trust his father, so instead he takes the Guardians and makes them in charge of protecting Earth without him touching it. Tony is going to be involved in a very large terrorist attack on Earth that happens in the very first issue, and from that will decide to join the Guardians in this endeavor.”
Bendis confirmed S.W.O.R.D. (SHIELD of outer space) will appear in the first issue. For more of his interview and Steve McNiven here’s the Marvel.com link.
Guardians of the Galaxy #1 arrives this Wednesday.
By Editor