Editing Marvel Comics (section)

===The Guardians of the Galaxy===
If you're a comics-newb who stumbled onto this website after watching the MCU, you probably think you know the Guardians of the Galaxy. They're basically the Avengers, but in space, right? Well... not ''exactly''.

====The Originals====
Debuting in January 1969 in Marvel Super-Heroes #18, the original Guardians of the Galaxy were a sci-fi team set in the far future of Marvel - the 31st century, to be precise. When a telekinetic astronaut from the 20th century wakes up after a thousand years lost in space in a stasis pod, he discovers Earth has been conquered by an alien race, called the Badoon. Deciding he's not going to have any of that shit, he assembles a team of aliens and abhumans to try and win the world back. They eventually pulled it off, and decided to keep on doing the space adventurers schtick.

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.

They vanished into limbo in the 80s, but were brought back in the 90s, and this run actually managed to go from June, 1990 to July, 1995, so not small potatoes. They've pretty much fallen off of the radar since then, save for a failed attempt at a revival comic in 2014, which lasted 8 issues.

The original team consisted of:
* '''Major Victory:''' Real name Vance Astro, the aforementioned "20th century astronaut who spent 1000 years in stasis". A telekinetic who also carries Captain America's shield.
* '''Charlie-27:'''' Last survivor of a human subrace genetically engineered to live on Jupiter. This gives him superhuman strength and toughness
* '''Martinex T'Naga:''' Last survivor of a human subrace genetically engineered to live on Pluto. This somehow is justification for him being a being of living crystal who can project energy - extreme heat from his right hand, extreme cold from his left.
* '''Yondu Udonta:''' No, ''not'' the endearing and surprisingly loveable alien gangster-dad from the MCU. This OC version of Yondu is the (presumed) last survive of the native Alpha Centurians, and is basically a blue Native American with a big red fleshy crest/fin sticking out of his head. He does use a whistle-controlled super-arrow, though. An analogue to the MCU version of Yondu was later added to the modern Marvel universe as this Yondu's distant ancestor.

They eventually added a bundle more of characters:
* '''Starhawk:''' Real name Stakar Orgod, son of the original Quasar, Wendell Vaughn, and the artificial humanoid known only as "Her". Possessed weird time connection that gave him pseudo-precognition. Married to ''Aleta Ogord'', an Arcturan alien whom he was raised alongside. They spent a large portion of their time physically merged together and fighting to see which consciousness was in control (and which body was in use), during which time they had access to a combined power set, making their individual powers harder to pinpoint.
* '''Nicolette “Nikki” Gold:''' A fire-wielding and literally flame-haired sniper, part of a human subrace engineered for inhabiting Mercury. Absolutely '''hates''' anything reptilian, due to losing her family when the Badoon conquered the solar system.
* '''Firelord:''' A flame-controlling alien best known for having been one of Galactus' Heralds during the modern era; a thousand years on his own has mellowed him out.
* '''Replica:''' A female Skrull who fights to stop the Badoon using her racial abilities of shapeshifting.
* '''Talon:''' An Inhuman from a colony on Earth's moon who looked like [[Catfolk|a humanoid cat]]. Also a disciple to Krugarr, the 31st century's Sorcerer Supreme.
* '''Yellojacket II:''' Real name Rita DeMarr, a former supervillain - she's been a member of the Masters of Evil and the Femizons - who stole the Yellowjacket suit and name from Hank Pym. Eventually repented and tried to become a heroine, in no small part due to being accidentally transported to the 31st century and caught up in the crusade against the Badoon.
* '''Geena Drake:''' A mutated human who has both the ability to sense disruptions in time and to resist having her memories altered by temporal shifts. Not so much a fighter, but useful to the team.
* '''Hollywood:''' Wonder Man, now a thousand years older and with a lot of hang-ups, but willing to help the Guardians.
* '''Mainframe:''' The AI controlling and overseeing the planet Klaatu, which a thousand years ago was operating in the chassis of the [[android]] Avenger known as the Vision.
* '''Wileaydus Autolycus:''' The Ghost Rider of the 31st century.
* '''Phoenix IX:''' Real name Giraud of Haven, the 9th host of the Phoenix since Jean Grey... yeah, this was back in the day when Jean's connection to the Phoenix Force was really something ''super'' special.
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====The Modern Team====
The version of the team everybody knows from the movies actually debuted pretty recently. Like, early 2010s recently! During the 2000s, Marvel ran a cosmic/space-focused mega-event called Annihilation, which is basically about an ultra-powerful supervillain from another dimension invading the main dimension with an army of not![[Tyranid]]s and trying to exterminate all life. Whilst ultimately defeated, he left the universe pretty ravaged, and this caused a bunch of the heroes who took him down to decide "fuck, the universe is in bad shape; it needs badasses like us to try and curbstomp any potential threats ''before'' they can blow up to this extent again!"

So it was that a bunch of virtual nobodies who had, at best, scraped by in their own comics series and in many cases been bitpart players in other, grander stories got together, formed a superteam, and tried to make a name for themselves.

...So, huh, "Avengers in Space" actually isn't that bad a description for this iteration of the team.

The rebooted GotG of the comics consist of the following characters... not counting the ones added in subsequent runs:

'''Star-Lord:''' Real name Peter Jason Quill, debuted in ''Marvel Preview #4 (January 1976)''. An arrogant, antisocial astronaut who is half-alien - but unlike in the films, his daddy isn't a cosmic entity, but just J'son of Spartoi, an alien who just happens to look like a human who knocked up Peter's mom and then abandoned her on Earth, as he's a selfish bastard. He is the king of Spartoi, which is the center of its own small interstellar empire, though, and that title did eventually pass on Peter. Has no powers; he's just an astronaut who got lost in deep space and decided to become a mercenary. He does carry a pair of "Elemental Guns", which can launch various forms of elemental matter/energy. Unlike the movieverse, he was an arrogant, antisocial but competent badass - he's since been steadily changed to make him more like his MCU counterpart.

'''Rocket Raccoon:''' Debuted in ''Marvel Preview #7 (June, 1976)''. A cyber-genetically augmented raccoon from the Halfworld; a giant intergalactic insane asylum whose robot caretakers created a civilization of semi-humanoid talking cyborg animals to aid them in looking after the crazies. Although he was the planet's primary hero for a while, and actually had his first major adventure with the Hulk, Rocket got sick of the job and took off to become an intergalactic mercenary. Unlike the MCU Rocket, comics!Rocket is a friendly, good-natured guy with a good heart... even though he really, ''really'' likes guns and has amassed an extensive network of connections throughout the cosmic underworld. He was considered a joke character (his creation was inspired by the Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon"!) and appeared only ''ten'' times in a period of '''thirty years'''. Annihilation: Conquest is where he finally hit the big leagues, becoming a supporting character to Star-Lord and gaining his now-iconic friendship with Groot. 

'''Gamora:''' A green-skinned alien space babe... who also happens to be one of the most badass [[assassin]]s in the galaxy. Debuted in ''Strange Tales #180 (Junge 1975)''. After her race, the Zen-Whoberi, were annihilated by the Church of Universal Truth, Gamora was adopted by the death-obsessed cosmic warlord Thanos, who brought her up as a living weapon to use against the Magus, the ultra-powerful being worshipped by the CoUT as a living god. Originally a villain, until a team-up with Adam Warlock made her realize that Thanos was the bad guy and she turned on him. She remained mostly tied to Adam Warlock, even having a romantic relationship with him, until the founding of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

'''Drax the Destroyer:''' First debuted in ''The Invincible Iron Man #55 (February 1973)''. Unlike the tormented alien of the MCU, Drax the Destroyer in the comics has a more convoluted origin. Originally, he was the human Arthur Douglas, until his family had the misfortune of stumbling upon Thanos during the mad tyrant's first visit to Earth. Thanos blasted the family and left them for dead; Arthur's soul was rescued by the Titans, Thanos' own race, who implanted it into an artificially designed body to create a living weapon with which to assassinate Thanos; Drax the Destroyer. He had super strength, super speed, super toughness (borderline nigh invulnerability), flight, hand blasts, and telepathy. His life force was also linked to that of Thanos; so long as Thanos is alive, Drax '''cannot''' be killed, and if Thanos is revived, a dead Drax will spontaneously resurrect too. He made repeat appearances in stories involving Thanos and Adam Warlock. Was killed by psychic attack and then revived in the early 1990s with brain damage, changing the formerly articulate and intelligent, if stoic and goal-fixated, Drax into a child-like, violently tempered "dumb muscle" character, complete with Hulk-like speech patterns. In the modern era, after spontaneously mutating into a body more like the MCU Drax, his powers also decayed; he lost everything but the super physical attributes, and even those have grown drastically weaker than they used to be.

'''Groot:''' Debuting in ''Tales to Astonish  #13 (November 1960)'', the ''Flora colossus'' (plant alien) Groot was originally one of the many invading alien scientist-warlords of Marvel's early giant monster comics. Even when he returned in Annihilation: Conquest, he was still a highly articulate, intelligent and abrasive figure - like Dr. Doom, but as a tree. His personality was subsequently retconned to make him nicer, and he gained the iconic "I am Groot!" vocabulary quirk, which originally was a result of throat/brain damage, and later was retconned into a racial thing. This ultimately culminated in the Guardians Groot ''not'' being the same as that 1960s invader Groot.

'''Mantis:''' Without a doubt '''the''' most convoluted of the "Modern Guardians" characters. The comics Mantis first debuted in ''The Avengers #112 (June 1973)'' as a non-powered Vietnamese martial artist who had been raised by a secret order of Kree monks to fulfill a prophecy in which she would be "the savior" of the Cotati, a presumed-extinct race of peaceful plant aliens, by having sex with one and giving birth to a half-human half-Cotati messiah, after which she left with her son to realize her destiny as "the Celestial Madonna". Then, after appearances by what was implied to be the same character in ''DC Comics'' (under the name "Willow") and Eclipse Comics' Scorpio Rose line (under the name "Lorelei"), she finally returned to Marvel in 1987. But now she was green skinned, nigh invulnerable, capable of regeneration, and a psyker with powers of empathy, precognition and chlorokinesis. She ''still'' has the same background as "the Celestial Madonna", with no attempt to explain the change, but one could possibly chalk it up to a side-effect of carrying an alien baby. 

'''Cosmo the Spacedog:''' A Golden Retriever/Labrador crossbreed dog who was selected as a test animal for the Soviet Space Program, Cosmo was swept through a wormhole, passed through cosmic radiation that gave him both human-level intelligence and powerful telekinetic and telepathic powers, and finally came to rest at the space colony Knowhere, a place where he become the chief of security.

'''Adam Warlock:''' The one founding member of the Modern Comics Guardians who hasn't appeared in the MCU. He debuted in ''Fantastic Four Volume 1 #66-67 (September-October 1967)'', as the artificial lifeform "Him". The basic design was then reused to create Adam Warlock in ''Marvel Premier #1 (April 1972)'', where he was a vaguely Space Jesus-like super-entity engineered by the High Evolutionary and sent to save the artificial parallel Earth that the High Evolutionary had also invented from a rebellious former creation. When Jim Starlin got his hands on him, Adam Warlock finally achieved his definitive storylines, becoming characterized as a philosopher-hero and the arch-enemy of both Thanos and the Magus; a time-traveling evil version of himself from the future.
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