We’re just a few months away from the return of the sub-franchise that changed the way viewers perceive the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Guardians of the Galaxy. The second Guardians flick hits theaters on May 5, and its latest trailer just hit screens and the web. There wasn’t a whole lot of new information in it, but let’s break down the new stuff we did see, shall we?
Daddy’s home
The main event for the new clip is our first glimpse at Star-Lord’s dad, Ego. Played by the inimitable Kurt Russell, this guy is, oddly enough, a living planet who can assume human form. He’s a long-standing comics character who debuted in the pages of Thor as a mid-’60s co-creation of Marvel’s greatest creative team, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He’s portrayed as being planet-sized in his printed appearances, but director James Gunn wisely chose to make him a little less unwieldy here. As you might recall, there was a tease about Peter Quill not being entirely of human heritage in the first Guardians, so here we’re gonna learn how an entire freaking planet got an Earth lady pregnant. It’s unclear who the silhouetted woman standing next to Ego in the trailer is.
The gang has two new members, perhaps
We’ve long known that two characters who weren’t Guardians in the first installment would play significant roles in the second: Nebula and Mantis. That said, we hadn’t seen any images suggesting they’d be full-fledged members of the team — but here, it sure looks like they are. The bald-but-rocking-it Nebula (Karen Gillan) had a small part in the last movie, playing an angsty daughter of space-dictator Thanos, so it seems she reluctantly turns to the side of the angels. Mantis (Pom Klementieff) is a new addition to the franchise, a psychically gifted naïf who, in the comics, is a so-called “Celestial Madonna†(as in the Jesus one, not the music one) with a universe-altering destiny. And antennae.
Who is Her?
Another new figure is Ayesha, a cosmic lord played by star of stage and screen Elizabeth Debicki. Ayesha is a D-list character in the comics, mainly known for being the superpowerful quasi-sister of C-lister Adam Warlock, and often referred to by the confusing moniker “Her.†We don’t know a ton about the role the character serves in the film, but she’s a sort of supreme priestess of a group of people known as the Sovereign. It would appear that she’s seeking the help of the Guardians, and that the Sovereign have reputations as pompous douchebags, if Rocket is to be believed.
Et tu, Yondu?
Speaking of Rocket, he seems to have run afoul of the Ravagers, the men of low moral fiber led by Michael Rooker’s Yondu. The Ravagers aren’t bad guys, per se, and Yondu’s been a paternal figure to Peter, so this is a bit of a moral reversal. It looks like Rocket’s standing next to the fallen body of a fellow Ravager, so perhaps there’s some misunderstanding about a death or a beat-’em-up? Either way, it looks like Rocket has a backup plan that effs the Ravagers up something awful. I’m sure we’ll get this all sorted out.