Last summer, following the record breaking box office success of The Avengers, Marvel Studios proudly took to the stage of Hall H it the San Diego Convention Center to promote their next film Iron Man 3, while also officially announcing the rest of Phase Two. Before The Avengers 2 there would be sequels for Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, rounded out by a new entry to the franchise: Guardians of the Galaxy.
The studio’s ambitious space-faring epic, their riskiest feature to date, would release August 2014 and while a director had not been chosen quite yet, and the casting process not begun, Marvel knew exactly who would be in the film and the core roster of Guardians of the Galaxy was confirmed via concept art.
Star-Lord (to be played by Chris Pratt) will be leading a team including Rocket Raccoon, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora and Groot (see below) but savvy comic readers familiar with the cosmic side of Marvel Comics recognized something interesting in the background, something intentionally put there by the artist Charlie Wen.
Note the glowing star-shaped shapes in the background skyline. It’s the same shape as the symbol for Nova Corps, worn on their uniforms and displayed on their starships (see below). The Nova Corps are an intergalactic police force under the command of a living computer that grants them their powers. There are obvious similarities to DC’s Green Lantern Corps, and with Green Lantern proving to be a misfire for Warner Bros., Marvel Studios has a chance to do their own version of that, weaved within the story of Guardians of the Galaxy.
When rumors of a Guardians of the Galaxy film first started gaining traction, speculation immediately pointed towards other key cosmic characters from Marvel Comics making an appearance and Nova was chief among them. Nova and the Guardians made a splash on the comics scene in the late 2000s thanks in large part to Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning who helped craft the Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest space-based crossovers which heavily featured Nova and led to the 2008 relaunch of Guardians of the Galaxy.
In them, Richard Rider AKA Nova plays a key role alongside several of the Guardians, and since we do know that the film may focus on its human characters, Rider may be one of them, if not here, then down the road. As for the official concept art, the star-shaped objects could be Nova Corps ships and the latest rumor, from AICN, lends little more credence to this theory.
An unproven new source of Harry Knowles claims to have a friend on the Guardians of the Galaxy production team and that said friend namedropped Nova, supposedly confirming the Nova Corps involvement in the film. Since is this seemingly coming from a random, convenient source, and AICN’s latest scoops on Star Wars from similar sources were debunked, this shouldn’t be taken as confirmation.
That being said, logic dictates that we can expect the character of Nova – who’s getting a lot of support from Marvel in the books and video games (again, very intentionally) – to show up and the concept art alone would be the most obvious indicator of this. Someone call up Scott Porter.
Let me know on Twitter @rob_keyes if Nova should play a role in Guardians of the Galaxy and if Iron Man should cameo!
Guardians of the Galaxy is being rewritten and directed by James Gunn and begins shooting in London this summer. It will be released in 3D. Expect many casting news reports shortly.
Iron Man 3 releases May 3, 2013, Thor: The Dark World on November 8, 2013, Captain America: The Winter Soldier on April 4, 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy on August 1, 2014, The Avengers 2 on May 1, 2015, Ant-Man on November 6, 2015, and Doctor Strange sometime after that.
Source: AICN
Hat tip to Guardian Outlaw for the extra starship pic.
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Awesome!!! As long as it is Richard Rider, I’m good. Oddly enough both Nova and Rocket Raccoon were in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, so thats not coincidence. Now there is a new Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy comic with Iron Man, so all of this makes sense. You can almost tell what Marvel is doing with their movies if you go back and look at the merchandise.
Guardians of the Galaxy has James Gunn behind it so if you ask me it has the potential to be Marvel’s best movie since the original Iron Man. That being said, I have no knowledge of anything in the Marvel cosmic universe so I’ll be going into this one with a completely open mind.
I think it’s going to be a repeat of Green Lantern. The same reasons people didn’t warm up to GL could be the same reasons GotG fails. Too much CGI, too way out of a story. Marvel will obviously have the benefit of it’s great humor and it’s consistently amazing casting choices on it’s side but still, Green Lantern is a lot more well known than ANY of the characters featured in GotG.
No one gives a crap about “well known characters” as much as you think. If Marvel makes a great movie, people will flock to see it. Guaranteed.
Hell, you could argue that after Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk and Batman, all other comic book super heroes aren’t very well known. Didn’t hurt Iron Man, and as long as they’re good movies, it shouldn’t hurt GOTG, Ant-Man and whatever else Marvel dreams up.
Except GL didn’t fail because of any of the reasons you mentioned.
I failed because they drastically changed the source material, wrote a story that was earth-centric instead of being mostly out in space (where it should have stayed), and altered the look of both the costume and the titular characters way too much (except for Sinestro which is about the ONLY thing they got right in the movie)
And I guarantee you no one outside of us geeks knew who GL was going into that movie. To the general public, GotG will be just as much of an unknown (but it has a talkin’, big ased gun toting raccoon!…makes it immediately 10x more bankable)
Also, the script was terrible. horrible even. umped from this scene, to that without any explaination (what was the use of Hector. seriously..) He was killed off even before the third act, by his own MASTER, or the alien who took over his brain!
They see him at a traffic stop and he waves and says move along.
because these aren’t the droids he’s looking for……
couldn’t resist
This is going to be so bad-ass, my second most anticipated Marvel movie behind The Avengers 2.
You should of posted a pic of the ship from the new Marvel NOW Nova #1 bcuz it is the same ship in the concept art.
This ship as seen in Nova #1 is the same ship in the concept art:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b259/Guardian_Outlaw/image_zps5d59edee.jpg
Yes, perhaps he should HAVE posted a pic.
God, thank you. Drives me nuts!
I added that pic to the gallery – thanks for sending!
@Rob, Hell yeah! Thanks man! Always love helping out and thanks for the hat tip.
The screenshot was taken and uploaded via my iPhone lol
Wow! I used to have some Nova comics. Nova #1 thru….. something.
Sold’em to a comic book shop, for a fistful of regrets. I needed money at the time.
And one more time for a bit of dream casting:
Ronda Rousey for the part of Gamora!!
@Heustis, Oooh, she’s one Sexy and tough cookie. I loves me some cookies too.
No, she has no acting ability.
Great news!!! Marvel just does things right!!
Marvel is a CBM fans dream come true. These guys GET IT!!!!
NIce i can’t wait for this because Nova is a badass
Adam Warlock is the real question mark here. If Thanos indeed does get his hands on the cube or the Gauntlet…then how can you not have Adam Warlock… unless of course the plan is for Thanos to kill everyone- that way you have excuses to keep rebooting with new actors…
lol. j/k. we’re gonna get Dr. Strange, Nova, and Adam Warlock within the next 2 years! JOY!
Most likely they are changing the Infinity stories. Which would be a mistake because Warlock is the only being powerful enough to finally beat him. Except for maybe Ryan Seacrest. He has such dreamy powers.
oh awesome! I’m already really excited about the Guardians of the Galaxy film, Nova being in it would make it even better for me!
Sounds great as long as it come true!! AND YES @ ROB KEYES IRON MAN SHOULD WITHOUT A DOUT SHOW UP IN THE GOTG MOVIE! and many more after that if Marvel has any care about their fans MAKE SURE IT IS RDJ that plays IM for the next 10 yrs just not a ton of appearances so RDJ dont get bored of TS and so the fans dont get sick of IM..
Cmon Rob with all your pull you can make this happen!! IN ROB KEYES WE TRUST
Haha!
Well its a no brainer, the synopsis clearly states that they are “cirminals on the run and have something everybody wants” I mean criminals have o be chase by the authority.. That’s always how I saw te concept art above, gotg being chased by Nova corps (and I’m sure potentially more dangerous/evil forces) Am I the only one seeying this? Wheter Nova is actually in there or not can still be debated but his Nova corps will certainly be present.
No you’re right, that’s how it looks. This movie is the big intro to the cosmic side of the MCU, so they will put as much in as they can.
Im looking forward to see how much of the cosmic they intro. Which species etc.
I would be SO into Richard showing up in this movie. Or the Nova Corps in general.
Nova, The Human Rocket…………that’s incredible. Hopefully they bring in Quasar too, that would make sense.
Yes, I love Quasar and it would also be a shame if they didn’t also include Adam Warlock.
Spaceships? Lasers? Awesome dream come true!!!
It’s Marvel’s Star Wars!
Sweet I always thought nova was a pretty cool superhero lets have at it
Steve Carell should be Rocket Racoon
BRING CHRISTIAN BALE BACK FOR JUSTICE LEAGUE!!!!! YEAH!!!!!
NO!
Nova would be awesome and would love to see a Nova movie in Marvel Phase 3
This is going to be AWESOME!!!!! And have Michael Rooker play Rocket Raccoon. His voice out of a raccoon’s body would be hilarious!!!!! xD
“The Rocket Man” XD
i bet it was there to throw us all off
I do have to say, if he does show up, he will proably look pretty awesome, good old bucket head
I would want Josh Hutcherson to play Nova.
Nova…yeah, put him in. Although I do not want them to make this film due to the silly additions of racoon ranger and treeman. It will cheapen the seriousness of The Avengers.
Do you just copy and paste the same comment you left on the last several GOTG articles?
Come on, you can be a better troll than that can’t you?
Trolls make jokes for no reason, goldilocks stated his reason for disliking it and thats all. Dont get all defensive you arent making the film
No, trolls bait others into commenting by saying the same inflammatory crap in every article. So, I felt like commenting back.
I mean, don’t get all defensive, you’re not Goldilocks.
good ‘ol goldilocks…
… god forbid we cheapen the seriousness of a movie that involves the Norse god of mischief controlling peoples minds with a magic staff as he opens a portal to another dimension to allow for an alien invasion in the middle of manhattan because a certain cosmic conquerer wants to get his hands on an all powerful cube.
… oh yes, the seriousness will be cheapened indeed if we see a talking racoon and tree. That idea is almost as silly as the idea of a normal sized man becoming an all powerful monster when he gets irritated…
Anybody think there’s a chance he’s an Avenger in Avengers 2?
possibly. When the Avengers battle Thanos, they’re gonna need more firepower. Can’t have too many characters in the movie, so I could potentially see Hawkeye and Black Widow off on some shield mission. Then having Cap, Ironman, Thor, Hulk remaining : then getting help from Nova Maybe Ms. Marvel. I don’t see this happaning until Avengers 3 .
I feel like this movie will be bad a$$
Space fantasy and science fantasy were always my favourite sub-genres and MCU is doing both now.
I love that we have plenty of science-fiction and fantasy in the MCU, along with other elements.
I am so excited for this movie. Hell, I am excited for all Phase 2 movies, but still. GotG is going to be the most cosmic movie yet.
And hells yeah Nova Corps.! Can’t wait to hear more about this movie.
Same here! Lots of potential.
Feel this film will flop – mostly due to the lack of people who actually know of the Guardians of the Galaxy.