Did 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Writer Just Confirm A New Member of The Team?

As Gerry Dugan and Mike Deodato Jr.'s Infinity Wars begins to dwindle down, the mini-series will have a last impact on the Guardians of the Galaxy. Duggan — who happened to write the last volume of Guardians of the Galaxy — will hand the cosmic torch over to Donny Cates for the time being as the fan-favorite Venom writer will start his own run on Guardians of the Galaxy in January with frequent collaborator Geoff Shaw.

The House of Ideas slowly rolled out "finalists" for the new team lineup, and when all was said and done, 11 characters were revealed for a team that will only have six spots. While there's no inkling on who the final six members will be, Cates might have let the identity of one of the final team members slip on Twitter earlier this week.

"Not a sales issue whatsoever," Cates tweeted to a fan about his Cosmic Ghost Rider mini-series. "Cosmic Ghost Rider was always intended as a mini, as I have plans for him in the future in Guardians of the Galaxy."

Having Cosmic Ghost Rider as one of the founding members of his iteration of the team makes sense — Cates did, after all, create the character to appear in one of the first comic issues he ever wrote for Marvel.

The character — a future version of Frank Castle that sells his soul to Mephisto to become the Ghost Rider — was created by Cates and Shaw and first appeared in Thanos #13 (2018) as the two kicked off their "King Thanos" story arc. After six appearances in Thanos and a quick appearance in Thanos Legacy, The Rider went on to get his own five-issue mini-series — a title which ComicBook.com's Charlie Ridgely called "delightfully delicious mayhem."

In addition to Cosmic Ghost Rider, other potential members of Cates' team include Groot, Moondragon, Nova (Richard Rider), Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator, Darkhawk, Phyla-Vell, and Star-Lord. While several of the characters — Star-Lord, Groot, Nova,, Moondragon, Phyla-Vell, and Adam Warlock — have been a member of the team in the past, Cosmic Ghost Rider, Silver Surfer, Beta Ray Bill, and Darkhawk would be entirely new additions.

It should be noted too, however, that the Moondragon and Phyla-Vell displayed in the promo art are presumably the versions of alternate-reality characters that were first introduced in Infinity Wars thanks to Gamora's Infinity Stone-wielding antics.

According to Cates, his run on Guardians with Shaw will be "insane."

"Geoff and I have some INSANE plans for our first Guardians arc," Cates said. "This arc is called 'Endgame,' and as seen in Thanos Legacy, it begins with the reading of Thanos's last will and testament. An artifact that Thanos's brother Eros dug out of his late brother's heart, which very well may spell doom for the entire universe. What horrid secrets are contained inside the will of the titan?!!"

"Find out this January!! And oh yeah... our new lineup. Well, that's a surprise as well. Use the hashtag #WhoAreTheGuardians online and maybe we'll give out some teases as we get closer! See you all in space!"