Hello fellow users and cheers a bunch for taking the time to even so much as look at this article. As I mentioned beforehand, Guardians is opening soon and according to the box office tracking, we're looking at some fairly decent opening figures in or around the 60-80 million dollar range. With that said, it can't be ignored that the film has the chance to be a big hit. On top of that, we've been informed that the movie will include four times more live action depictions of Marvel characters than any other movie. Taking Captain America: The First Avenger as an example, we got fourteen depictions of comic book characters in that movie, counting the Human Torch easter egg. Fourteen multiplied by four is fifty-six! Fifty-six depicitions of Marvel characters at the least! In that case, I'd say it's pretty safe to assume a good few of the characters on this list will be appearing in the film to some extent or another. It really throws the argument that Batman v. Superman: Dawn of justcie is too crowded out of the window, but y'know, they've got a bunch of major characters that need development, most of the characters appearing in Guardians will just be cameos. Before we begin, I won't be including some characters on this list (Adam Warlock, Captain Mar-Vell) as I believe thy're already in the makings within the MCU. Anyway, without any further ado, let's begin this list shall we?
PIP THE TROLL
We'll start at the bottom and work our way up, it'll be more progressively exciting that way, don't you think? Anyway, Pip the Troll is a character I've always loved and that love more or less stems from the fact that he's just an outright prick like myself, except I don't smoke cigars. Pip, for those who aren't all too familiar with the character, is a member of a race of trolls (not the Agardian ones). He's short, foul-mouthed, reeks of shit and yet, he's the best friend to none other than Marvel's answer to Jesus, Adam Warlock. In a lot of ways, you can't have Adam Warlock without Pip because they've just got too much of an interesting character dynamic between them for it not to be explored on film. Pip being the intergalactic scumbag that he is in a brilliantly stark contrast to the golden-skinned, demi-god majesty of Adam Warlock, makes for one of the most interesting character duos in all of comicdom if you ask me. Right up there with Batman and Robin, Booster and Beetle and even, dare I say it, Deadpool and Wolverine. Okay, that last one isn't all too great of a pairing unless we're talking comedy, but you catch my drift. Still, Pip is just one of those characters who I think would be a fan-favourite if more people got to know about him and if he were to appear in a Marvel movie eventually, I'd certainly be the first to leap out of my seat and cheer. On a sidenote, Nathan Fillion for Pip!
WRAITH
Anybody who's read the Annihilation: Conquest books, or indeed read his mini-series in the arc, would have to agree that this guy deserves any and all recognition he deserves. Wraith is essentially the Kree version of a ghost. As a child, Zak-Del was infected by a force known as the Exolon, a collection of lost Kree souls. Somehow, rather than be takn in by them, he withstood their attempts to draw him in and instead now wears them as that poncho you can see. His gun/sword/whip is also made up of the Exolon and is capable of taking those three different forms. He's also a favourite character of mine purely because he's the Batman of cosmic Marvel really. With his being an entirely spiritual being, he cannot be affected by cybernetics, hence his usefulness in the Annihilation: Conquest series against the Phalanx technarchy. Sadly, he's vanished and hasn't really been seen in recent times, but I'd love to see more of him in the comics. Reasons why he'd be great to see on film... He's one of those characters you can just invest in and be like, "Okay, this guy seems cool, I'm gonna pay attention to him." His look helps that because he has a very imposing look to him and with the right actor, his screen presence would just steal any scene he's in.
NOH-VARR
Say what you please about Marvel Boy and how gay he looks, he's a pretty great character to me. Though he is essentially a very poor man's Captain Mar-Vell, he's a character who can provide a nice bridge between the cosmic and earthbound stories of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He's never really out in space all too much and that's why he'd be better off as just one of those bridging characters, but then I'd feel like he's getting the shaft and I don't want any characters to get royally shafted, because that's just not right (says the guy highly anticapting a film with fifty-six characters as easter eggs). He's pretty badass some of the time too, I mean when he came in during Secret Invasion, pictured above, that was probably a highlight of his super hero life. Not only that, but the more Kree the better if you ask me. They're just such an interesting race to deal with as they're not all that different from us, considering they have a race problem with blue and pink skins as well as constantly being at war with the supposedly less civilised cultures like the Skrulls. It'd be a great way of splicing some social commenatry into the MCU, considering only Captain America: The Winter Soldier has dealt seriously with a real-life issue rather than just being a fun movie or a character piece. Noh-Varr would provide that alien perspective to things if he was brought in and kept as a mainstay character on earth. He's also the closest marvel will probably get to a potentially Silver Surfer type of character. The alien who watches over our planet due to a strange admiration for it.
BLACKJACK O'HARE
Yeah, I'd consider him more important than Noh-Varr and Wraith, what of it?! Anyone familiar with Rocket Raccoon stories will know exactly who this guy is, but for those who don't, Blackjack O'Hare is the leader of the Black Bunnies Clan. They're a clan of mercenary rabbits on Rocket's homeworld of Halfworld and in earlier stories, Rocket was th arch-nemesis of Blackjack. In more recent times however and towards the end of Rocket's old miniseries, it has been shown that the pair are much more firendly with each other than they used to be. Blackjack is somewhat essential to Rocket's lore and if he were to appear even briefly in any form during a future cosmic Marvel movie, I'd flip out. You do have to suspend belief with the cosmic stuff. You can't look at it as though the laws of this mortal curl of ours apply to the whole universe otherwise you're just not going to enjoy any aspect of the cosmic stuff. Your mind must be open and ready to accept that rabbits with cybernetic eyes and keen marksmanship skills exist somewhere out there!
IKARIS
Ikaris is a member of the Eternals and you can forget about the Sentry, this guy right here is Marvel's answer to Superman. With the Celestials pretty much confirmed for existence in the MCU, the Eternals can't be ruled off as impossible. The Eternals may be quite difficult to explain in a short period of time in a movie, so perhaps a whole movie to themselves would be best, though I doubt that's ever going to happen in a million years. Still, Ikaris is a pretty cool character. He could also be one of those bridging characters like Noh-Varr as the Eternals are mainly stationed on Earth. If we were to see them in their own movie, I think Neil Gaiman's run on them would be the best to adapt as it puts Ikaris in the spotlight as the one who knows that all these other people are Eternals but they don't remember that they are. That film would end up as more of a character piece centering around Ikaris rather than being a team movie, which is what it would be better as. I guy can dream though, right?
PHYLA-VELL/MARTYR
Crankin' it up a notch! Phyla is a core member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, in fact she's a founding member, yet nobody seems to give a shit that two of the founding Guardians aren't on the team in the movie yet there was uproar when Ant-Man and Wasp weren't in Avengers. Just goes to show the attitudes of fanboys I guess. Phyla would be a great character to have out there, not only because of her high position in the Guardians but also because she's a lesbian. It does make me wonder though, would Disney be willing to allow a homosexual relationship in one of their movies? The homosoexuality is a key aspcect of Phyla's character as pretty much everything she does revolves around her avenging Moodnragon's death during the Annihilation: Conquest arc and it would be such a shame to deprive her character of that if she were to appear on film because it's her drive. Every hero needs a drive and I'm sure if she were to appear on film, Disney would either want to pull the stunt of making her a homosexual and gain popularity from it, or, leave out the homosexuality and create a new drive for the character. Either way, I'd love to see Phyla on the big screen eventually, just so long as she's done some justice.
EGO THE LIVING PLANET
Maybe not in his traditional form as pictured above but maybe more something along the lines of his appearance on the Silver Surfer animated series. A planet that looks like it has a face but the face can be brought up on mountains and rocks and such as opposed to a giant planet with a beard, because even I'll admit, that's just strange. In fact, you could keep him comic book accurate, just lose the beard. Honestly it's the most non-sensical thing ever for a planet to have a beard! Anyway, Ego will more than likely never see the light of day when it comes to cinema, but if he did, it would be a joyous occasion for nerds everywhere. Finally a highly powerful intergalactic being that won't be portrayed as a cloud! I just think it'd be great to one day see Ego's ugly mug drifting about in space, even if only in passing as opposed to being a full on developed character. Though you can't really do him justice without him being developed somewhat seeing as how he's pretty single-minded and everything, so it wouldn't take too long to establish his aims. Maybe even just have him bickering with Id... That's the smaller living planet.
THE ORIGINAL GUARDIANS
It'd certainly be a real pleasure to see this group of individuals on screen but let's face it, that's just not going to happen unless they drastically change all of their back stories ad if that's what needs to be done, I say keep 'em off the big screen. Not only that, but in order to adapt any of their stories accurately, you'd have to set them in the future and that would just be really awakward given how any and all Marvel films would then have to pointed toward that future and it would take the surprise out of a lot of things. That's not to say at least one of them couldn't show up given Starhawk's omnipotence and the fact he relives his life over and over again. It really is a case of having to wait and see with this one.
MOONDRAGON
Given her strong link to Thanos and the Infinity Gems in the comics as well as being a key member of the Guardians, Moondragon is a strong possibility for future cosmic Marvel movies. It's not looking like Drax will be in any way comic book accurate though, so I doubt they'll be doing any father/daughter relationship between the two characters, though they may use Mentor, the father of Thanos, for that role instead as he did raise Moondragon anyway. Again, the relationship between her and Phyla would have to be called into question, but hopefully Disney would see the benefit in showing that they're all for homosexual rights and everything like that as well as supporting source material. On top of that, having her have a bond to Mentor would aslo be a great way to introduce Eros, the happy-go-lucky-bang-anything-with-a-pulse brother of Thanos. Fun fact: Thanos and Eros supposedly represent the human death and sex drives respectively.
INHUMANS
There's talk of an Inhumans movie actually being in development, but that's been going for what, nearly three years now? I'd love to see them adapted to the big screen though, mainly because it would just be cool to know that in the MCU, a cosmic team resides on our very own moon and could drop into the films at any point in time. It aslo further expands on the point I made about the Kree earlier, about they're demeaning nature when it comes to lower life forms. An Inhumans movie would solidify an already well-made platform that the Kree are a terribly evil race of people and then the idea of a Kree hero like Noh-Varr, Phyla-Vell or Zak-Del becomes even more of a shock as the audience would consider the Kree to be the main bad guy race in terms of Marvel aliens. It would also be great to see how Marvel were to handle Black Bolt. They'd obviously do him justice, but they'd need toget one hell of a brilliant actor to pull off Black Bolt effectively, I think. I genuinely don't know who'd be good in the role, because it would require so much screen presence that a lot of actors just don't have. Also, if they were to introduce the whole, Black Bolt and Medusa sign language thing, would that have to be subtitled? I think it'd be much more effective not to subtitle it, just makes it seem more powerful to me if we don' know what's actually being said. Most the time Medusa just tells everyone anyway, so it wouldn't much make a difference. Who remembers when everybody thought Marvel were announcing Inhumans at Comic-Con and when it turned out to be Guardians everybody was just like, "What? Who the [frick] are this lot?" How times have changed, eh?
KORVAC
I'm unsure where the rights are at with Korvac given that he draws his power from the powers of Galactus, so you never know, he might be at Fox. But, let's just assume for the time being he's safely tucked away under the Marvel Studios rug. If there's ever been a villain other than Thanos who could bring both the Guardians and the Avengers together, it's Korvac. Although I do doubt that they'd utilise him in an Avngers movei and may actually just leave him as a Guardians villain, which I'm completely fine with. However, I also think he'd need more than just one movie to fully develop as a villain so perhaps having him be the over-arcing villain of two Guardians film before they come together to fight him in the end would be the best way to handle him. Reading the Korvac saga I actually realised how underdeveloped Korvac is and it's not until I read more original Guardians comics that I felt satisfied with Korvac's character arc. Nonetheless, he'd be a tremendous edition to the MCU.
THE KREE SUPREME INTELLIGENCE
He may seem like a given considering the introduction of the Kree and his most loyal servant being Ronan, but despite Marvel's track record of going out on a limb with some things, I think people may relate the Supreme Intelligence with the Wizard of Oz a bit too much. That said, that could also work in its favour as it wouldn't be so weird if something like it has been done before and people weren't totally creeped out. Nevertheless, it'd be great to see the reactions of people when a giant green head in a tank starts talking and threatening people. It may come off a little goofy, but I reckon if they were to make him imposing enough, people would take the character far more seriously.
QUASAR
Last on the list is Wendell Vaughn, A.K.A. Quasar. His dad was hinted at in Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. but I'm not taking that as any indication that we'll be seeing Quasar anytime soon as it was just a namedrop. Given that Quasar and Nova are best buds in the comics, it would be great to see both Quasar and Nova adapted and paired together for a while in a movie. Not only that, but if the Guardians were ever to stop being in movies, Quasar and Nova pave the way perfectly for there to be some Annihilators action in later Marvel cosmic movie instlaments. They might even provide some character development for Ronan who could actually end up on the team like in the comics, which brings me back to the whole Kree race being the big bad race. Showing Ronan progressing would be like showing the entire Kree race progressing by expressing that through a single individual. Back on topic, I think Quasar deserves film treatment because he's got some interesting stories to tell and he could certainly provide a hell of a dynamic for Nova if there were ever to be such a film where we se them team up.
Notable mentions would have to go to the likes of High Evolutionary, Worldmind, Air-Walker (if he's not with Fox), Eros and the Elders of the universe, but I have a feeling we'll be seeing s few more of that lot outside of the Collector. Anyway, I sincerely hope you enjoyed the read and take something away from it. Maybe I've heightened your anticiapation for the arrival of Guardians, I don't know, but you can certainly tell me down in the comments section and if you really enjoyed reading this, be sure to hit the red glove down below! And if anyone fancies a wee debate:
I'll 'av ya!
Till next time, CBM!