In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, we paid a visit to Counter-Earth, a world created by The High Evolutionary as his utopia. The movie made it clear the villain had taken many animals from Earth to experiment on, including the raccoon that would eventually become Rocket.
However, The High Evolutionary's visit to our planet was mentioned only briefly when Star-Lord confronted him. Now, filmmaker James Gunn has clarified when exactly he travelled to the world which would eventually inspire Counter-Earth.
"[He] visited Earth in the ['80s], so it’s based on his loose memories of that," the writer and director told a fan on Twitter. That would explain its oddly retro appearance, though this is still quite a departure from the comic books.
In those, The High Evolutionary actually originates from Earth, whereas the MCU's take is a humanoid alien who simply visited the planet for research purposes. Having learned this information, though, we can't help but wonder what else the villain might have done during his travels.
In other Vol. 3 news, Gunn also justified his decision to gender-swap Cosmo.
Yes, the fact a Russian, telekinetic space dog is a "good girl" rather than a "good boy" has upset some fans for whatever reason, but as you can see below, we'd say Gunn makes a compelling argument about a) why it doesn't matter and b) why it worked better for the character's live-action portrayal.
Cosmo debuted in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy but didn't get a speaking role until The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, with Maria Bakalova lending her voice to the beloved hero.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now playing in theaters.