Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer: Easter Eggs and Marvel Comics References

With Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel has an entirely new property to set up--one that isn't based on comics everyone and their brother has already heard of or read, and one that has a deep, rich connection to the part of the Marvel Universe that hasn't yet made it to the cinematic side. We got our first glimpse of Guardians last night, along with our first glimpse at the "cosmic" end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Generally, the Internet has agreed that it was awesome. Besides the obvious, in-your-face ones like introducing the team and spending a bunch of time with the Nova Corps, what did we notice? Well, read on... Peter Jason Quill and the Raiders of the Space Ark While it could just be a similar sensibility in this kind of pulp-inspired adventure movie, it's hard to imagine that with a child of the '80s like Peter Quill as your main character, the similarities between the first five or so seconds of the film and the famous scene with Indiana Jones stealing the idol in Raiders of the Lost Ark are unintentional. You can check out the Raiders scene in question below to judge for yourself...

...Wow, Doctor Octopus looked young in that clip, am I right?

The Collector At 1:56 in the trailer, you see a crate marked "Tivan." For those who watched Thor: The Dark World, you got a look at Benicio del Toro's character The Collector (real name Taneleer Tivan), who doesn't get a ton of play in the Guardians trailer, though he does show up during the quick cuts at around 1:58. In general it seems that the mission statement of this particular trailer is to get people acquainted with the Guardians--and particularly with Star-Lord--and to worry about little things like working in a beat with every character later. Which makes sense, given the well-established fact that this is the first Marvel film based on characters who weren't on lunchboxes when the average moviegoer's parents were in grade school.

Ronan the Accuser At 1:59, you can see Ronan the Accuser one-arming Drax...and carrying his Universal Weapon. Really, he's so buried in shadows that the weapon is the best indicator that it is, in fact, Ronan. If you take a look at the image above, though, and at the one just below this paragraph, you'll see that the design of the weapon has been kept remarkably consistent from comics to screen.

Why's he called The Accuser? Well, Ronan was enrolled at one point in the Kree Public Accuser Corps--which marks him as a bit of an "officious prig" in the words of our contributing writer Michael Brown, who contributed generously to this article, and which also established the Kree as a race for the Cinematic Universe. Besides the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Nova Corps, Ronan has been known to give a hard time to the Fantastic Four and the Inhumans--the latter of whom is reported to have a Marvel Studios movie in the works. And with the Kree? Captain Marvel, the Kree-Skrull War and a bunch of other notable Marvel Comics stories. That weapon, by the way? He can use it for energy blasts, forcefields, matter manipulation and flight. The weapon has a built-in failsafe: only Accusers in their armor can safely wield it. So--once again deferring to Michael Brown--it's a bit like Judge Dredd's Lawgiver.

Nova Corps = S.H.I.E.L.D.? It seems to us after watching both the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer and the Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer that each of the filmmaking crews employed a similar kind of humor; the way Brock Rumlow and that other S.H.I.E.L.D. agent bounce off each other in the Cap 2 trailer isn't entirely unlike the way the Nova Corpsmen played by John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz do the same here. Xandar The Nova Corpsman played by Reilly states that the Guardians were picked up on Xandar--which is a Marvel Universe location that has a history with the Nova Corps, who have repeatedly saved it. In fact, in one of the more significant stories featuring the site, it was Nebula--the blue-skinned baddie played by Doctor Who's Karen Gillan in the film--who was responsible for endangering it. Rocket's wife Rocket's soulmate Lylla (an otter) gets a mention in his rap sheet readout. Merle Dixon in space Yondu (played in the movie by Michael Rooker) is mentioned in Quill's readout.

Gramosian Duchess One of Quill's charges is "Illegal Manipulation of a Gramosian Duchess," for which he's branded a sex offender. The inhabitants of the planet Gramos are actually best known for a storyline in which they came to earth seeking the power of Thor's hammer Mjolnir. At another point, Gramosian leader Mercurio also sought out Xorr, the God-Jewel, which paints a very particular picture of his kind of activity...and it seems he may in fact fit in well in this movie.