Comics 101: Who Are the New Guardians of the Galaxy?

(SPOT.ph) Filmmaker James Gunn may now be the new co-head of DC Studios, as well as the writer and director of the next iteration of Superman on the big screen, but this summer, he brings the Guardians of the Galaxy home to cinemas for the final chapter in their first trilogy.

Despite Gunn’s insistence that this is the final film of “this iteration” of the Guardians, the Marvel Content Universe will undoubtedly bring back all these characters in one form or another—hell, even Zoe Saldana’s Gamora is back in this film after dying in Avengers: Infinity War.

Those who have seen the film will know that, while the story started in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy is definitely over, there’s certainly narrative room for all these characters’ journeys to continue, both individually and as a ragtag “bunch of A-holes.” Let’s break down where all the original Guardians end up and who’s populating the new team in the film’s post-credits scene. Spoilers ahead. “Obviously.”

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Post Credits and Ending Explained

By the film’s end, the main Guardians team introduced in 2014 decide to split up, as Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner would say, “like a band.” 

Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) leave to go on their own soul-searching journeys, new Gamora returns back to her new family in the Ravagers, Drax (Dave Bautista) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) step down from being active members of the Guardians in order to focus on making their headquarters a safe haven for all the galaxy’s outcasts and misfits, while Rocket (Bradley Cooper) takes on the role of leading the new Guardians of the Galaxy.

This new Guardians of the Galaxy team is not comprised of many unfamiliar faces. The aforementioned Rocket has embraced the title of captain, with an adult Groot (Vin Diesel) still by his side. The arrow-wielding Kraglin (Sean Gunn) and the telepathic Russian space dog Cosmo (Maria Bakalova) both take on active roles in the team, a promotion from just protecting the team’s headquarters Knowhere. More self-explanatory membership explanations as they’re all major characters within the film.

 Now, we get to the new team’s more eclectic members: Adam, a.k.a. “the Warlock,” (Will Poulter) and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it new character introduction, Phyla-Vell (Kai Zen).

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Who is Adam Warlock?

After being first teased in the post-credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Adam Warlock is finally birthed into the MCU in Vol. 3, but merely in a supporting capacity. He does kick off the inciting incident of the film by attacking Rocket at Knowhere, but he then spends most of the runtime fumbling around the villain’s side before finally getting accepted by Groot into the Guardians of the Galaxy during the film’s climax.

While the bumbling idiot is not an entirely accurate adaptation of the character, who was an original member of the 2008 Guardians of the Galaxy (which the films primarily source material from), it’s not far from what Adam Warlock was entirely about in the comics.

In the comics, Adam Warlock was closer to the way the Vision is depicted in the films. Comics Adam Warlock had an Infinity Stone embedded in his forehead (the Soul Stone, to be exact), which put him at primary odds with Thanos during the comics’ Infinity Saga. He was also fairly objective due to the Soul Stone and he’d die often, only to be reborn each time from a giant living cocoon. Comics are weird, just roll with it.

This seems to be where the film draws its adolescent idiot depiction of the character and we could see that becoming “the thing” for this character going forward. It could be a running gag where the character keeps dying, coming back more powerful but initially more idiotic than his previous self.

However, we’re more sure that Adam Warlock’s archnemesis, the Magus, will play a large role in the future of this new Guardians’ team. In the comics, the Magus is Adam Warlock’s evil future self who set up a cosmic church to worship him and take over the galaxy. Comics are weird, but we can only hope future Guardians movies follow this route.

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Who is Phyla-Vell?

Compared to Adam Warlock, Phyla-Vell is a less complicated character. She’s the artificially created child of Mar-Vell (who Annette Benning already portrayed in Captain Marvel) and the Eternal from Titan, Elysius. In the film, though, she appears to just be one of the High Evolutionary’s child experimentations, who the Guardians rescued at the end of the movie.

In the comics, Phyla-Vell did take on the role of Captain Marvel at a point as well (don’t put too much stock into this, a lot of people did). Along with Adam Warlock, she was also one of the original members of the 2008 Guardians, where she went on to develop a romantic relationship with Drax’s reincarnated alien daughter. While we probably won’t see that in any of the future films, it is interesting that we now have a teenage girl personality thrown into the family dynamics of the team.

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Where will Star-Lord and Mantis go?

As for the two Guardians who’s fates are left unclear, we’re only left to speculate based off their comic histories. Mantis is a bit of a blank slate when it comes to being a leading character. In the comics, she became an Avenger decades before she became a Guardian, so we could see her heading to Earth and joining the new Avengers before they eventually face off Kang the Conqueror in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

While an Avenger in the comics, Mantis did marry the ghost of fellow Avenger the Swordsman (who Tony Dalton portrayed in the Hawkeye series), before she went on to become the “Celestial Madonna” and give birth to Space Jesus. Comics are weird. No, we will not expound.

Meanwhile, the story of Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord, is all but wrapped up, with him having found closure with his parenthood and returning to Earth to reunite with his biological family. It would’ve been simple to call that the perfect ending to the character, but the film does end with the tag, “the Legendary Star-Lord will return,” so we’re definitely looking at uncharted space and a new frontier when it comes to the continuation of this story.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now playing in cinemas.