Marvel Cosmic Old School...
- "Earth shall overcome!"
The Guardians of the Galaxy first appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (January, 1969), created by Arnold Drake and Gene Colan. They are a science fiction comic series set in the future, the 31st Century. An alien race known as the Badoon have conquered Earth in the year 3007 A.D., leading a telekinetic astronaut from the 20th Century (preserved by 1,000 years in suspended animation) to gather a team of heroes to free Earth. They eventually do, and go on to do other stuff.
The series ran in various Marvel Anthology books in the 1970s, with guest appearances in The Defenders and The Avengers in between anthology runs. The characters' most notable appearance during these early years was in The Avengers, during The Korvac Saga.
The characters vanished into limbo during the 1980s, but were revived and given their own book in 1990. Originally written and drawn by Jim Valentino (with only one fill-in artist, Mark Texiera, for a single issue), Valentino revived the book with gratuitous continuity nods to existing Marvel characters: these included a new Phoenix, Wolverine's evil great-great-great-granddaughter Rancor and her army of evil mutants, a revived Church of the Universal Truth, "The Punisher" militia, Doctor Doom (whose brain was implanted into Wolverine's body), and Mephisto's daughter among other things. The series was popular, but ultimately around issue #28, Jim Valentino jumped ship to go found Image Comics after the other founders made a surprise offer to let Valentino come with them.
The book was then turned over to Michael Gallagher, who resolved Valentino's various storylines before introducing a new opponent derived from elements of another 1970s sci-fi book (Killraven) into the franchise, causing the Guardians to fight the last Martian, Ripjak. The series lasted for 62 issues (June, 1990-July, 1995). It also had its own spin-off mini-series: Galactic Guardians, which featured a lot of future versions of Marvel characters, including: Phoenix IX, the Spirit of Vengeance, Mainframe (The Vision) and Hollywood (Wonder Man).
They hadn't seen much use for a long time, before making the occasional appearances in the present day team's series and eventually a revival of the original team starred in a new series called Guardians 3000 launched in Fall of 2014. It only lasted about eight issues, before being cancelled at the start of Secret Wars. After that, some members of the team reappeared in Guardians of Infinity alongside their modern-day counterparts. While the movies focused on the modern-day version of the Guardians, Yondu appeared as Peter Quill's father figure, as a reference to being one of the team's predecessors. In Vol. 2, it's revealed that Yondu is a disgraced member of a group based on the original Guardians (though in the movies they never called themselves as such). At the end of the film this team decides to reunite.
Guardians of the Galaxy (1969) Contains Examples of:
- All for Nothing:
- Vance Astro spent a thousand years travelling to Centauri IV, giving up everything and everyone, and going a teeny bit mad on the way there... only to find mankind beat him to it by several hundred years.
- Alternate History: When they go back in time to team up with The Avengers, they change Major Victory's history, making their future an alternate timeline. The Earth-616 version of Vance Astrovik goes on to become Justice of the New Warriors. Incidentally, this makes him the only person to be an Avenger twice as two separate people rather than just having one person with multiple identities. They've even technically met in JLA vs. Avengers, although we don't see them talking to each other.
And for some reason, they have slightly different powers and even different hair colours. - Anime Hair: Rancor, being Wolverine's descendant, has inherited his hairstyle, albeit taken up to eleven.
- Artificial Limbs: Yondu, after Interface from Force uses his power to transmute matter to turn Yondu's hand to gas. Yondu gets a replacement, and still managed to remain an archer despite missing a hand.
- Ascended Extra: The whole freaking team. From a one-off story in Marvel Super-Heroes, they didn't reappear for several years after, when Steve Gerber took a liking to them and gave them several appearances in Defenders.
- Ax-Crazy: Yondu tends to go ax crazy at the drop of a hat. This concept has been quietly dropped in his modern depictions, though he's still pretty ruthless.
- Bad Future: By and large averted, but the late 21st century sucked, what with the Martian invasion killing off most of Earth's heroes, and the Badoon invasion of the 31st century dramatically reducing mankind's numbers and turning Earth into a crapsack world.
- Beast Man: The first issue of the 90s series has the team saving a planet of dog-people from the Stark.
- Big Bad: Usually the Badoon, but if not them then it's Michael Korvac.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- The Ancient One and Kruugarr save the Guardians from Korvac in this fashion.
- Body Surf: Korvac manages to cheat his first death by doing this, throughout multiple eras of history. It takes four tries for the Guardians to finally catch him.
- But Now I Must Go: Starhawk, immediately after being separated from Aleta, takes off. In the middle of a fight with the Stark. It's so he can get Fire-Lord's attention, but he doesn't bother explaining these things ahead of time.
- Casual Time Travel: The team can hop back and forth between the 30th and 20th century easy.
- Cat Girl: Talon is a Cat Boy.
- Catchphrase: "Earth shall overcome!"
- Clingy Costume: In order to survive a thousand-year space journey, Vance Astro had to be vacuum sealed for his freshness. If his suit is breached, he'd age and die in seconds.
- Cool Spaceship: The Guardians get around in The Captain America. Except when it's being shot out of the sky. Then it was replaced with the Freedom's Lady. Which also got shot out of the sky. Then they replaced it with a stolen Stark ship, The Captain America II.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: When the Stark attack the Guardians, they have a harder time fighting them than the scout that attacked the team only the issue before.
- Crapsack World: It's a Marvel Comic. The 30th century is pretty awful.
- Crossover: The 90s series had The Korvac Quest, spread through the annuals of Fantastic Four, Thor, Silver Surfer and Guardians, as the team tracks Korvac's attempt to cheat death across time.
- Cute Monster Girl: Despite her ridiculous hair and bad temper, Rancor is actually good-looking when she takes her mask off and stops snarling.
- Cyborg: Michael Korvac, one of the more dangerous enemies of the Guardians, had his legs removed by his Badoon overseers and replaced by a computer bank.
- The Dark Age of Comic Books: It was the nineties, so some of the mores of the era do tend to crop up. Rancor, for example, is a walking poster-child of nineties clichés (ridiculous costume, ridiculous hair, misspelt name, Wolverine-knock off). That said, see Lighter and Softer.
- Deadpan Snarker: Charlie gets very snarky when Starhawk's around.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Stakar's response when Martinex points out marrying your adopted sister and having kids with her is pretty messed up.
- The Dividual: Starhawk and Aleta, on account of their sharing a physical space. She wasn't even considered a full member of the team for years.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: A story set during the team's earliest days shows Major Victory wigging out when Charlie accidentally makes an insensitive comment, and apologising for it, about being stuck in his space-suit.
- Enfant Terrible: A baby Korvac, possessed by the essence of his future self, graphically kills his own father within seconds of being born.
- Exposed Extraterrestrials: Martinex is a crystalline transhuman from the planet Pluto. His body is composed entirely of crystal, and he never wears clothes.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Nikki believes Reptiles Are Abhorrent, thanks to the Badoon near-annihilating her people when she was seven. This somehow extends to the disguised Skrull Replica before anyone suspects she might not be human.
- Racial strife between, at least, Jovians and Pluvians is alluded to briefly in the team's first appearance, but this was dropped in later comics and never mentioned again. After the Badoon were defeated, the unaltered humans of Earth were seen to mistreat Charlie and Martinex for their inhuman appearances; this partially motivated the reformation of the team and their return to the stars.
- The reason the Badoon want to kill every other life-form.
- And even in the 30th century, the poor Inhumans still get shafted. Mankind has colonised the Moon, and the Inhumans are forced to live on a reservation, with their movements constantly watched. And then the Badoon came a'calling...
- Fiery Redhead: Nikki. Slight Aversion in that she's not quite a redhead so much as that being from the planet Mercury, the pores on her head are exhaust ports for a high, constant body heat. The result? Actual constant fire that looks like hair.
- Gang of Hats: The Punishers. Three guesses what that hat is, and the first two don't count.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Starhawk has a Groundhog Day Life.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Starhawk is the son of Quasar and Her, making him half human, half orange-skinned Artificial Being.
- Heavyworlder: Charlie-27, like all of Jupiter's inhabitants.
- Human Popsicle: Major Victory spent one thousand years, on-and-off, as one, on his way to the Centauri system.
- I Just Knew: Starhawk (Stakar, not Aleta): Starhawk's Catchphrase was 'Accept the word of One Who Knows.' What he would tell Martinex later is that Stakar was not a precognitive; he was fated to go back in time, and his disembodied consciousness inhabit his infant body to start all over again.
- Lady Land: Planet Stark is a Matriarchy where men are second-class citizens at best. Some male Stark aren't even given names, having to earn them.
- Last of His Kind: The premise starts here; the Badoon have attacked, and the four originals are survivors of their worlds. Yondu, from Centauri IV in the Alpha Centauri system, eventually discovers that a large number of his people survived and saves them from Galactus.
- Legacy Character:
- Major Victory for Captain America, amongst others.
- Rancor is a villain legacy for Wolverine.
- Let's You and Him Fight:
- Gets a Lampshade Hanging when the team travels back to the 90s. Starhawk has them teleport into the Fantastic Four's reception, rather than Reed Richard's main lab, because otherwise they'll get into a pointless fight. Since they don't, nobody fights, and Reed instead helps them. Starhawk notes it happens to them a lot.
- Lighter and Softer: The mission statement of the 90s series, surrounded by the grimness of 90s comic books, was to be a throwback to Bronze or Silver Age style stories.
- Mama Bear: Aleta is incredibly pissed off at Stakar for the death of their children (since he could've known about it or tried to prevent it). And yet Mainframe expects her to forgive him just like that.
- Mass Teleportation
- Mutant: Most of the Mutants took for the stars centuries back. Vance Astro happened to miss that particular bus.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Marshach, a friend of the Silver Surfer's in the 26th century, has this reaction when he uses his Reality Warper powers to try and kill the Guardians (who are trying to remove that power from him, since it belongs to Korvac).
- Narrating the Obvious: Given the time the first series was made, it's a given.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Very popular in the future — used by the women and some of the men.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Centuries back, Tony Stark launched all his Iron Man technology into space in an attempt to stop the Martians getting it. It crashed landed on an alien planet, and was found by the locals, who eventually figured out how to use it, and became galactic conquerors.
- Not Blood Siblings: Stakar and Aleta are a married couple with three kids. They're also adopted siblings.
- Not So Omniscient After All: Starhawk is the One Who Knows, so when he doesn't know, he tends to react poorly.
- Now What?: Happened to the team in the 70s. They'd founded to defeat the Badoon. And with the help of the Defenders, and the Sisterhood of the Badoon, they'd done just that. So what now? Fortunately, humankind solves that question by being so awful the Guardians decide to take off into space to actually guard the galaxy(s).
- Oh, My Gods!: Charlie and Marty tend to swear by Harkov, the guy who discovered faster-than-light travel.
- Old Master: The Ancient One, or as he used to be known, Doctor Stephen Strange.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: The shield of Captain America, which is guarded by Mainframe (formerly known as the Vision), who tests the Guardians to see who should wield it. Major Victory eventually gets it.
- Hollywood, formerly known as Wonder Man, initially objects to the idea of Major Victory wielding the shield, but he soon comes around.
- Only You Can Repopulate My Race: Yondu, to Photon. Unfortunately, Photon's an atheist and Yondu is sworn to murder any of his kind who are. Although it was she who was trying to kill him. No one ended up killing anyone, although he caught her off-guard and badly hurt her at one point. (Valentino intended them to eventually get together, but it never panned out.)
- Our Zombies Are Different: The Zoms, henchmen of the Badoon are created using cybernetic implants.
- Planet of Hats: The Stark are Proud Warrior Race Guys and Planet Looters.
- Playing with Fire: Firelord, Martinex, and Nikki (Nikki, who was in a relationship with Charlie-27 at one point, and had to immerse herself in water to cool down enough so they could touch).
- Poor Communication Kills: Rather than explain to the Silver Surfer that an old friend of his is possessed by Korvac's power, the team instantly demand to remove it without explaining why. Cue a fight between them and an angry Silver Surfer.
- Power Copying: The Protege can permanently duplicate any powers and skills he sees, all the way up to the Cosmic Entity level. He's also a child. This quickly leads to A God Am I.
- Purple Is Powerful: Major Victory's first outfit, the molecular shell keeping him from dying, was solid purple.
- Secret Test of Character: Mainframe gives the team one of these to see whether they're worthy enough to wield Captain America's shield. Aleta and Nikki fail theirs, Aleta because she won't forgive Stakar for the death of their children, Nikki because her Fantastic Racism lead her to try and murder Scanner the Snark.
- Sharing a Body: Starhawk and Aleta, from their first appearance. They were adopted siblings who encountered a device that made them share the same physical space, so only one of them could manifest at a time. They made the most of it by getting married. Everything seemed okay until Aleta started falling for Vance... and their children were killed
- Slasher Smile: Rancor was responsible for pulling off some positively
terrifying ones whenever she wasn't snarling or frowning. - Suddenly Ethnicity: Martinex is revealed at one point to be of African descent.
- Swiss-Army Superpower: The Silver Surfer has acquired Quasar's Quantum Bands.
- That Man Is Dead: Mainframe is very insistent that he's not the Vision any more.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted in several instances, unlike most of Marvel's heroes the Guardians aren't big on this one. In one instance, Nikki tries to kill Scanner outright.
- Timey-Wimey Ball:
- Time is unchangeable, which is why Starhawk is stuck in his "Groundhog Day" Loop. Time travel also creates alternate timelines, such as when Vance Astro went back in time and prevented his younger self from going into space without erasing himself from existence.
- Transhuman: Martinex, Charlie-27, and Nikki are all from races of humans genetically modified to live on Pluto, Jupiter, and Mercury respectively. Also Transhuman Aliens.
- Unobtanium:
- Harkovium, the mineral that allows ships to travel faster than light, named after the man who discovered it.
- At least one version of Vance Astro's outfit is made out of adamantium.
- The metal Yondu's yaka arrow is made of, which is only found on Alpha Centauri 4.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Replica (a Skrull)
- The Watcher: Uatu's still alive, still watching, still telling us he's the Watcher and that he's sworn never to interfere, and so forth.
- What Other Galaxies?: The Guardians of the Galaxy do this just by name alone, both original and modern since their remit is protecting the entire universe (whenever they can). Enforced because "Guardians of the Universe" was already taken by Green Lantern.
- Worthy Opponent: The one who sent Captain America's shield into space? Doctor Doom, out of respect for the good captain and to stop the Badoon from getting their hands on it.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Starhawk is in a stable time loop. He has tried fighting it, but due to Marvel's rules of time travel, it just creates alternate realities while his life continues repeating.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Stark planned to do this to the Badoon, once they were done controlling them.
