Writer Brian Michael Bendis is leaving Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy comic, but not before openly riffing on Star Trek IV by stranding the team on Earth. Readers of Civil War II # 5 (which is out today) will get the first indication of why the Guardians aren’t going back to space anytime soon. Now, Bendis has dropped a few hints about what to expect from his final issues on the series.
“Even though we are ending most of the last arc on Earth we are still leaving big,” said Bendis while speaking with Marvel.com “First of all, as some readers already know, Thanos is on Earth. When Gamora and Drax get ahold of this information all hell is going to break loose. We have an issue about Groot that is all told in a style that is a big tip of the cat hat to Dr. Seuss, one of those ideas that is much harder to pull off than you might think. And a big triple or quadruple sized 100-page big finale that is going to wrap up my very long, longest actually, run on Guardians. A lot is going to happen. All this plus, Ben Grimm comes back home; we discover why he went out to space in the first place and why he is going to stay on Earth. It ties right into Infamous Iron Man.”
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It should be noted that the comic book version of the Guardians of the Galaxy has a few members that aren’t in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s incarnation of the team. Namely Kitty Pryde of the X-Men, Fantastic Four co-founder Ben Grimm a.k.a. the Thing, and Venom – Spider-Man’s former nemesis which is now bonded to his former frenemy, Flash Thompson.
“Peter [Star Lord] gets to see what life would be like as an Earthbound superhero,” teased Bendis. “Kitty gets to go find the X-Men… And then there is Rocket and Groot. That is an entirely different story…They are almost all fish out of water and those who aren’t, like Venom, have changed so much from their travels that it’s a whole new world to them.”
The final storyline by Bendis and artist Valerio Schiti will begin in Guardians of the Galaxy # 15, which will be released in December. Marvel has also teased a relaunch of the title with a new creative team some time next year. If we had to guess, it would probably come just in time for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in May.
Are you eager to see the Guardians spend time on Earth? Let us know in the comment section below!
