Another summer, another superhero movie.
It's becoming something of a habit. So whose turn is it in 2014? Batman again? Spider-Man? Thor? What's that? It's none of those, you say. Then who? The Guardians of the what? Who in the name of Stan Lee, you might well be asking, are the Guardians of the Galaxy?
The short answer is a walking tree (voiced by Vin Diesel), a talking raccoon with homicidal tendencies (Bradley Cooper), a green female assassin (Zoe Saldana, who at least appears on screen), a space monster (Dave Batista) and Chris Pratt, who some of you may know as Andy in American sitcom Parks and Recreation playing a human called Star-Lord.
The Guardians of the Galaxy have never been A-list Marvel heroes. Created in 1969 by Arnold Drake and artist Gene Colan, the Guardians was a 31st-century space opera strip. In some ways they are representative of Marvel's weirder 1970s fringe, an era which saw the company produce nearly as many horror comics, sword and sorcery comics and kung fu comics as superhero comics. (Personally, I reckon Master of Kung Fu 114 is one of the great masterpieces of world literature. But I was a teenager when I read it.)
It's notable that one of the writers most associated with the Guardians was Steve Gerber, better known as the creator of Howard the Duck, a talking mallard. They made a Howard the Duck film too, but no one remembers it. The question now is whether the Marvel brand will be enough to get the general movie-going public in to see Guardians of the Galaxy when it wasn't for Howard the Duck way back when. On the upside, those fanboys who have seen the new film are hugely positive. But then they usually are. As for the rest of us, are we ready for a machine-gun-toting furry mammal called Rocket Raccoon?
Rocket Racoon's creator was another writer called Bill Mantlo, a familiar name for anyone who read Marvel comics in the 1970s and 1980s. Mantlo stopped writing after he became a public defender in the late eighties, but tragically in 1992 he was hit by a car while rollerblading. The impact caused brain damage that left him institutionalised. He was 41 at the time, the father of two children.
Mantlo is still with us, but he will never get to see his creation on the big screen. That's the problem with real life. You're not guaranteed a Hollywood ending.
Guardians of the Galaxy opens in cinemas on Thursday.
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