‘I’d rather honor the real dog who died in outer space’: James Gunn gets into it with Marvel fans about Cosmo

It’s been a few weeks since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was released in the theaters and fans still have a lot of questions on how the film was produced. This makes sense since it was reported that the film broke the record of the “most prosthetics” used in a movie. But there was one decision made during the film’s production that got some fans riled up and James Gunn had to set the record straight.

Over on Twitter, a fan was asked why Gunn changed the gender of Cosmo the spacedog from male to female. Per the comics, Cosmo was originally a male dog with psychic powers. But in the films, Cosmo was female. Gunn revealed that the reason for the gender swap was because he wanted to give tribute to the real dog that the character was based on — the Russian space dog named Laika.

For those who don’t know who this dog is, Laika was a Soviet space dog, known for being the first animal in space and the first to orbit the earth. The dog was born in 1954 and died three years later in 1957 due to overheating. Laika was sent to space to check the effects of spaceflight on living creatures and to prove that living organisms could survive in space.

Knowing all that, it would make sense why Gunn wanted to commemorate the origins of the Marvel character. But not everyone was happy with the change. They claimed that “it didn’t make sense” why Gunn had to “change it back” when Cosmo was “never female in the first place.”

Gunn calmed the conversation down, by claiming that he would rather “honor the real dog who died in outer space” and that Cosmo wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Laika. He also argued that he’s made massive changes for other Guardians of the Galaxy characters. Some were major characters, and no one had any issues with them.

At the end of the day, there will be some comic book purists who would want characters unchanged from the source material. But Marvel Studios have the right to change the origin stories of their characters if they want to. Just look at what they did with Ms. Marvel.

Cosmo the dog was first introduced in the MCU back in 2014 in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, and later appeared in the Holiday Special and Vol. 3. This dog has a similar origin story to Laika. While she’s just a supporting character in the Guardians film franchise, she has certainly won the hearts of fans.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is now showing in theaters.