Karen Gillan’s Nebula finally got the huge role she’s always deserved in this year’s Avengers: Endgame. Since she was the one stuck out in space with Tony Stark at the end of Infinity War, the one who knew about Thanos’ “retirement plan,” and the one whose present-day self’s past memories transmitted to her past self’s memory drive and gave the Mad Titan a chance to take his cataclysmic warpath into 2023, she was a pretty important part of the plot in Endgame.
She’s not only a great dramatic character; she’s a hilarious one, too. Here are Nebula’s 10 Funniest Quotes In The MCU.
“It was either him or the tree.”
When 2023 Nebula introduces Peter Quill as a romantic interest to 2014 Gamora, Gamora is surprised that her future self is in a relationship with this guy. But as Nebula tells her, her options for a love interest were pretty limited.
Out of Quill, Rocket, Drax the Destroyer, and Groot, the most viable love interest is the roguish Terran adventurer who was raised by a band of alien thieves and never learned to properly process his emotions. Hopefully, Gamora isn’t lost forever, because it’s been interesting to see their relationship develop, culminating in Gamora telling Quill she loved him as Thanos took her away.
“It’s still wordy.”
This is what Nebula said when she wanted to criticize the name “Guardians of the Galaxy.” When Gamora told her the name of the team, she called it “wordy.” She’s not completely wrong, because “Guardians of the Galaxy” is nowhere near as snappy as “the Avengers” or “the Defenders.”
Still, the alliteration of the “G” sound and the fact that it can be shortened to simply “Guardians” and people know what you’re talking about make up for this supposed wordiness. Plus, it’s a great name to declare, like when Quill says, “You said it yourself, b****. We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“We need to get the hell off this planet.”
No one trusted Ego from the beginning. The audience certainly didn’t, and could see the villain twist coming from a mile away, and even the Guardians themselves didn’t trust him. From the moment he showed up, Gamora predicted that there was a good chance he’d turn out to be evil.
But it was still shocking to see the broken skeletons of all of Ego’s other children in the catacombs of his planet. And the second Nebula saw them, she realized that the smartest option in that moment would be to get off the planet. But they couldn’t leave Quill behind, or leave the universe in Ego’s hands.
“Rhodey, careful on re-entry. There’s an idiot on the landing zone.”
This moment in Avengers: Endgame subtly hints at the close friendship that Nebula and War Machine have developed in the five-year time jump before Scott Lang emerged from the Quantum Realm, which we see fleshed out when they travel back in time together. Lang has his taco blown away by Rocket’s ship, so Smart Hulk kindly offers him two of his.
Nebula isn’t as kind to Lang, calling him an “idiot” as Rhodey comes in for a landing and terrifies him. Nebula and War Machine actually have a lot in common: they’ve both been fitted with cybernetic parts and they both respond to situations with a sharp sarcastic wit.
“All any of you do is yell at each other!”
The Guardians of the Galaxy are not friends in the traditional sense, because as Nebula points out, they’re constantly yelling at each other and bickering and disagreeing on things. But as Drax tells her right after she says they’re not friends, she’s right, they’re not friends – they’re family.
While the familial bond means that there will be more yelling and bickering, it also means they all share a deeper emotional connection than mere friends. Then again, they say that friends are the family you choose, so maybe the Guardians are friends as well as family – who happen to yell a lot.
“I assure you, I am not as easy a mark as an old man without his magic stick or a talking woodland beast.”
A running joke in the MCU lies in how the heroes all refer to each other. Tony Stark has a pop culture-based nickname for everyone, from Thor’s “Point Break” to Loki’s “Rock of Ages,” while War Machine has called Scott Lang “regular-sized man” when he’s not wearing his costume.
When Stephen Strange introduced himself to Spider-Man as “Doctor Strange,” Spidey said, “Oh, we’re using our made-up names?” In this instance, Nebula refers to the Ravagers’ imprisoned Yondu as “an old man without his magic stick,” and Groot as “a talking woodland beast,” and frankly, she sums them both up pretty well with those statements.
“Well, hello, boys...It’s not ripe.”
This is a hilarious payoff to an earlier line. While the Guardians had Nebula tied up on their ship, she asked Gamora to grab her one of the yarrow roots from the surrounding trees, but Gamora told her they weren’t ripe yet.
When the Ravagers showed up and captured Rocket and Groot, Nebula blew Yondu’s fin off his head in order to lead the faction’s mutiny against him. To establish her dominance, she grabbed a yarrow root and took a bite out of it. But right afterwards, she spat it out and declared that it wasn’t ripe. Gamora was right!
“Out of all our siblings, I hated you the least.”
Nebula and Gamora have one of the most complex relationships in the MCU. They were raised by an abusive tyrant and forced to fight each other. They hate each other because Thanos made them hate each other. In reality, they both just want a sister, and this is covered mostly in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
In the first movie, this line is the closest Nebula came to being nice to Gamora. As shown in Avengers: Endgame, they both secretly hated Thanos and it wouldn’t take much convincing to get either of their 2014 selves to abandon their loyalty to him.
“Not all. You will already be dead.”
All throughout the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, the titular space adventurers are trying to keep the Power Stone out of Ronan the Accuser’s hands to protect Xandar from his wrath. But along with all of Ronan’s armies, Nebula is out to stop them.
At one point, Nebula has the Guardians backed into a corner and intends to return to Ronan with the Power Stone, so Gamora pleads with her, “Nebula, please, if Ronan gets this Stone, he’ll kill us all.” Nebula then quips that he won’t kill everyone, because Gamora will already be dead – because she’s about to kill her.
“Look at you, a Garden of the Galaxy!”
This is Nebula’s attempt to sneer at Gamora for going soft and joining a team whose main goal is to make the world a better place by helping good people who are threatened by bad people – possibly for a sweet, sweet profit.
But the sneer is undermined by the fact that Nebula gets the name of the team wrong, telling Gamora that she is “a Garden of the Galaxy.” Gamora replies, “It’s Guardian! Why would I be a Garden of the Galaxy?” to which Drax laughs. Nebula says that when she thought it was “Garden,” she still thought it was dumb.