Why was Cosmo gender-swapped in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3?’

Complaints about the Marvel Cinematic Universe have seen a major uptick in recent months, but not all of them are valid.

Yes, the franchise has gone down hill over the last few years, its new lead villain is broadly failing to impress, and it can’t seem to get its Disney Plus formula down, but occasionally the MCU gets things right. Across the board, the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy is seen as one of the franchise’s clear success stories, but that doesn’t shield the releases from criticism. Some criticism is more unfounded than others, of course, and few people are really all that concerned with a side character’s gender swap.

A side character who also happens to be a dog, don’t forget. While it is true that James Gunn made the decision to change Cosmo the Space Dog from male to female, it wasn’t an issue for most fans. For those that care, however, the change was absolutely unforgivable — despite Gunn’s valid reason for doing so.

Why is Cosmo female in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3?

Quite a few characters appear across Guardians of the Galaxy releases, and — of them all — Cosmo is relatively inconsequential. She played a far more important role in Vol. 3, but overall the cheery pupper is little more than a charming side character. She’s also female, in the MCU, diverting from her comic book origins.

Except, Cosmo didn’t truly originate in Marvel comics. Sure, the character did — back in 2008 — but the telepathic space dog is actually based on a real-life hero. Cosmo serves as a nod to Laika, one of the first animals to ever travel to space. The Soviet space dog flew aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft back in 1957, before she was tragically killed by overheating on her fourth orbit.

Laika’s survival was never expected, given the limitations of technology at the time, but she’s since become a hugely necessary step in discovering the biological effects of spaceflight. Her sacrifice paved the way for human space travel several years later, and she’s remembered as an unfortunate, but necessary, sacrifice in exploring the perils of space.

Cosmo was always a reference to Laika, so — when James Gunn decided to incorporate the character into the Guardians story — he wanted the connection to be as clear as possible. As such, he altered Cosmo’s gender from male to female, in hopes of better honoring the actual dog behind her character.

That’s it, that’s the whole explanation. It isn’t about feminism or the “woke” agenda, its about actual historical accuracy. Obviously a telepathic (and telekinetic) dog that argues about whether she classifies as “good” or “bad” has tenuous connections to reality, but that tiny nod from Gunn pays respect to an unsuspecting pup more than 50 years after she was sacrificed for the sake of scientific advancement.