Guardians

I can't believe how much I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy.

I read the original comic from the 70s, and it was your normal Marvel cosmic stuff.  Way too much exposition, loony characters that made no sense, but very creative.  This new group has nothing to do with that.  It seems based on characters created by Steve Englehart, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Bill Mantlo (ROM) and Keith Giffen, and others (probably Jim Starlin, bleah).  There was no reason to bring these characters, who had nothing in common except for the "Marvel cosmic" imprint together, aside from retaining the trademarks due to inactivity of use.  Which Marvel, like DC, is kind of notorious for... "Oh, I forgot how deadly The Spot could be," exclaimed Spider-man right before knocking him out and leaving him webbed up for the cops.

Anyway.

The movie was absolute fun.  I saw it with my little brother, who was the perfect audience for this movie... no knowledge of previous characters having any at all history in the Marvel Universe... I knew them all.  Star-Lord, a kind of cosmic Indiana Jones... Drax, who was born to kill Thanos... Gamorra, his adopted daughter and lethal assassin... Groot, the Monarch of Planet X... Rocket Raccoon, genetic freak...

(I owned the 1985 mini-series, and long ago sold it, I'm sure... looking at some sites online, that newsstand edition of the mini is worth about $1600 now, before the movie is a hit.  So, yeah.)

But the movie was good.  We laughed a lot.  In the bottom of my heart I knew I wasn't supposed to be watching it with Kelly.  That was a big failing of mine.  I've simply forgotten how to be social, even within work.  In Dallas I would go out all the time.  In Boston, less but at least sometimes I'd hang with friends.  And in Dayton, the one time we decided to go to the movies, The Amazing Spider-Man, with a Wednesday July 4th crowd, I balked when I saw the throng.  Just another thread undone.

Still, I had a good time at the movie and encourage everybody to see it, especially if you know nothing about it.  It works better that way, I think.  But I think the whole Collector thing and post-credits scene will go over most people's heads, although I just have to SPOILERS say, I'm glad they used the Steve Gerber version and not the George Lucas one (although some children of the 80s might argue that point... but they are wrong).

Also I have put on ten pounds this weekend, and this is the most I've eaten in weeks and it still wasn't that much... but I now realize I haven't gone potty since Wednesday.