When the Guardians of the Galaxy exploded into theaters back in 2014, they instantly became some of the best-loved characters in the entire MCU – not bad for obscure comic book heroes that only the most devoted fan had heard of. Now, following a pretty good sequel in Vol. 2, the team’s in disarray after the events of Avengers: Infinity War.
Gamora was sacrificed by Thanos in his quest to gain the Soul Stone, while Star-Lord, Groot, Mantis and Drax all collapsed into dust after the Mad Titan carried out his promise to wipe out half of all life in the universe. It was particularly tragic, too, as the whole thing was arguably Star Lord’s fault, as if he’d have just kept his cool while they were removing Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet, we might have avoided this whole mess.
Regardless, fans are understandably pretty curious about what James Gunn has got cooked up for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. After all, unless the heroes of the MCU find some way to reverse the damage done by Josh Brolin’s villain over the course of Avengers 4, the film is going to feature the extremely slimmed down roster of Rocket Raccoon and Nebula. Now, though, we’ve received the first morsel of information about what the upcoming sequel is going to cover, with Gunn saying on Twitter that “Vol. 3 will end this iteration of the Guardians and complete the story of the three films” and also conclude the trilogy.”
Though it’s a brief statement, there’s actually quite a lot to unpack here. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the familiar team is going to rise from the ashes (so to speak) for one last hurrah. If not, why else would Gunn refer to “this iteration,” right? Then again, it’s difficult to know what dangling plot strands there are left for the characters. Star-Lord resolved his parental issues in Vol. 2, Gamora and Drax got theirs out of their system in Infinity War (and perhaps its sequel), so what’s left? Rocket to get over his inferiority complex, maybe?
Also interesting is that “this iteration” suggests there’ll be further iterations of the team. Though Gunn’s claimed central Marvel cosmic character Adam Warlock (teased in a Vol. 2 post-credits sequence) isn’t going to show up in Vol. 3, his future presence may well lay the ground for other obscure characters to take up the mantle of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Either way, it’ll be fascinating to see how this all shakes out, and with production scheduled to begin in 2019, we should have a better idea of what’s to come after Avengers 4.
