Marvel’s New Guardians of the Galaxy Team Proves the Franchise Is Broken, But There’s an Easy Fix

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Warning! Spoilers for Marvel’s Ultimates #8 ahead!

Marvel’s Ultimate line of comics just introduced a radical reinterpretation of the Guardians of the Galaxy, but in the process, the publisher highlighted the very issue that has plagued the fan-favorite franchise over the past several years. In a sense, Marvel’s Guardians have been a victim of their own success, but the latest incarnation of the team shows that there is a simple solution to this problem.

The Ultimates #8 – written by Deniz Camp, with art by Juan Frigeri – centers around the arrival of the 61st-century Guardians of the Galaxy on present-day Earth, where they reveal Ultimates member America Chavez is one of their members.

The team’s roster takes Ultimate Marvel’s reinvention of familiar characters to the next level, offering a staggeringly creative new take on heroes like Captain Marvel and Star-Lord. Even more crucially, it emphasizes the near-limitless potential of the Guardians concept, as long as the publisher is willing to stray from what MCU fans recognize.

Marvel Offers Fans A Glimpse At The Future Of The Guardians Of The Galaxy – Offering An Easy Fix To An Ongoing Problem

The Ultimates #8 – Written By Deniz Camp; Art By Juan Frigeri; Color By Federico Blee; Lettering By Travis Lanham; Main Cover By Dike Ruan & Neeraj Menon (Color)

In 2014, James Gunn’s first Guardians of the Galaxy film took a lesser-known Marvel Comics superteam and turned them into MCU A-listers, elevating the central cast of Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket Racoon, and Groot to an unexpected level of mainstream appeal. Of course, what hardcore Marvel fans know, but what more casual enthusiasts might be surprised to learn, is that this line-up first appeared together as the Guardians just a few years earlier, in 2008. In the decade-plus since their cinematic adaptation, this roster has become synonymous with the franchise – for better or worse.

That is why it is exciting news for Marvel readers that Ultimates #8 establishes an entirely new version of the squad, who are completely unlike their on-screen counterparts. This new team offers a solution to Marvel’s ongoing problem with Guardians of the Galaxy, which is that the franchise has become overly-fixated on replicating the success of the MCU team, rather than pushing the book in new directions, and taking new exciting changes with the team’s premise, which is one of Marvel’s most exciting.

The Ultimates #8 is a self-contained issue, which introduces the Ultimate Guardians, and by the end of the issue, features them leaving Earth once more, in order to continue their mission, while the Ultimates continue theirs. It is a perfect set-up for an ongoing Ultimate Guardians series, but even if that doesn’t materialize, in the span of a single issue, author Deniz Camp has done a remarkable job of highlighting the scope of the ambitious stories that the Guardians are capable of having as they traverse time and space.

The New Ultimate Guardians Are A Refreshing Reinterpretation Of The Cosmic Marvel Hero Team

If Any Marvel Franchise Ever Needed A Reboot, It’s Guardians

It is worth keeping in mind that Guardians of the Galaxy predated the incarnation of the team made famous by the Marvel Cinematic Universe by decades; the original Guardians title was published in 1969, and there have been multiple different rosters over the years. In a way, the MCU version has become “stuck” as the default for the team, but Ultimates #8 eschews that by putting together a line-up that is deliberately unfamiliar, even in the cases where the characters are the “same,” as with Star-Lord.

Of course, Marvel has incentive to generate synergy between its comic and film franchises; this is why the comic versions of characters, from Agatha Harkness to Red Hulk, undergo revivals on the page whenever they make an impactful appearance on screen. That said, Guardians of the Galaxy is perhaps the most potent example of the potential downside to this strategy, which is that careful curation of MCU characters can turn into hesitation to take franchises in new directions. It is a form of narrative stasis that is ultimately long-term harmful to properties like Guardians.

Marvel’s New Guardians Already Have A Rich History & Detailed Backstory – Highlight The Scope The Franchise Can Easily Achieve

The Ultimates #8 Raises Hopes For An Ultimate Guardians Series

The Ultimates #8 is the stand-out issue of the book’s run so far, and what makes it particularly engaging is the way that it packs in so much lore and backstory for this new, futuristic Guardians team, with their adventures portrayed as appropriately epic and Universe-spanning. It is safe to say that the issue adheres to the classic show business adage of “always leave them wanting more”; that is, it is hard to imagine a reader coming away from the issue not eagerly wanting to follow the further adventures of the Ultimate Guardians.

Ultimates #8 is akin “proof of concept” for a new era of Guardians of the Galaxy – one that could be at the forefront of Marvel’s increasingly stacked roster of cosmic heroes and villains. Right now, the franchise is lagging behind, adhering to an outdated conception of the team that, though it worked on screen, and flourished for what it was, is ready to given way to a different conception of the franchise. Guardians could, essentially, be what Jonathan Hickman’s G.O.D.S. series attempted to be, but arguably didn’t quite achieve: a new way of exploring the Marvel Universe.

Marvel’s Writers Need To Have Free Reign To Deliver The Next Great Guardians Of The Galaxy Story

Marvel, It’s Time To Move On From The MCU Version Of The Team

If Ultimates #8 offered readers a reminder of what an uninhibited Guardians story can look like, perhaps the best illustration of the franchise’s limitations came in the form of Al Ewing’s 2020-2021 Guardians run. Over the past several years, Ewing has steadily gained a reputation as one of Marvel’s most envelope-pushing writers, and while his Guardians book certainly featured its share of wild swings, it did not approach the same levels of transcendent cosmic storytelling that he has achieved in series like Defenders, Immortal Hulk, and Immortal Thor.

Deniz Camp’s Ultimates #8 actually includes at least one shout-out to Ewing’s Guardians run, in the form of a potential direct connection between Ultimate Star-Lord and Peter Quill. Moreover, the issue is gloriously reminiscent of Ewing’s work, and will have fans of the author clamoring to know what he could do with a Guardians book completely of his own design, with a roster and plot of his own choosing. While he did solid work with the characters he was given, his work was necessarily limited, and that is never the best condition for Al Ewing to operate within.

Much of Guardians of the Galaxy’s cinematic success can be attributed to the style and tone of James Gunn’s take on the franchise, and the chemistry between the film’s cast members. However, it shouldn’t be taken for granted that the core premise of the series – heroes that can go anywhere, and do anything, among Marvel’s cosmos – is still an important factor in the appeal. Only by letting its ambitious creators explore new variations on that premise, such as Ultimate Marvel just demonstrated, can the next golden era of Guardians of the Galaxy be discovered.

The Ultimates #8 is available now from Marvel Comics.

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