My Guardians of the Galaxy write ups were met with mostly positive comments despite me making an error or two. As a follow up to those I am going to introduce a few of the characters who will also be debuting August 1, 2014 when James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy comes to theaters.
Nebula, the main antagonist in Guardians of the Galaxy, is a hardcore space pirate and not a woman to be taken lightly. Though it has been stated that she will be working for Thanos alongside Ronan the Accuser and Korath the Pursuer, she is the only one of these characters who has only been portrayed as a villain. While it's possible that Ronan and Korath may fiind paths to redemption in the MCU, Nebula is likely to be portrayed as purely villainous and ruthless.
The interesting part of Nebula's backstory is not so her piracy; we can assume she spent her days in some shady places with other shady pirate-types doing that which shady space pirates do. I doubt it looked much like Jack Sparrow and his crew. What makes Nebula an interesting addition to the Guardians is her connection to Thanos, who will be playing the man behind the curtain once again in this film.
Nebula built herself quite a reputation and, after doing so, took on the challenge of pirating a massive spaceship called Sanctuary II, the former control ship of The Mad Titan, Thanos. Upon "acquiring" the vessel, Nebula and her crew accomplished some pretty naughty business including wiping out the planet Xandar, home to the Nova Corps and the Worldmind which provided the Nova Force.
Continuing her search for power, Nebula found herself in battle with the Skrulls and, eventually, the Avengers before nearly wiping out the entire universe in an effort to acquire unlimited power before ultimately being defeated. Following these events she headed back out to space and engaged in more piracy and battles before coming into contact with a recently resurrected Thanos and his ultimate weapon, The Infinity Gauntlet.
Nebula had long claimed to be the grand-daughter of the Mad Titan: something she certainly used to strike fear into the hearts of those that would challenge her, but something she would ultimately regret. Full of almost unimaginable power and angered at her claim, Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to transform Nebula into a symbol of pain and torture at his ultimate will and power...she became a twisted form of art, neither living nor dead, a space-pirate-zombie. Nebula eventually escaped and used the Infinity Gauntlet to regain her former self and battle Thanos though she was eventually defeated. She survived and, eventually, went on to serve Gamora during the Annihilation Wave as one of her Graces and fought alongside Gamora against Ronan the Accuser.
Karen Gillian, most well known in nerd circles for her work on the long running series Dr. Who, has taken on the role of Nebula. As director James Gunn has pointed out, it was clear up front that the role a shaven head and Gillian revealed just that at SDCC '13. I am very interested to see her portrayal on screen and also, just what the background of the MCU Nebula will be. I speculated previously that they will eventually do some version of the Infinity Gauntlet in the MCU and Nebula's connection to it and to Thanos make her an interesting addition to the movie.
There she be: Nebula the villainous space pirate sure to provide plenty of conflict for the Guardians next summer.
Next up, a shorter blog on Ronan's fellow Kree, Korath the Pursuer.