You can have some pretty high-minded conversations about superheroes. Approaching them as modern mythology, viewing them as avatars of the military-industrial complex, or philosophically debating whether a powerful individual really has the right to impose their morality on those around them. That said, we’re always up for an extremely geeky chat about which heroes would win in a fight.
Guardians of the Galaxy director and new DCU head James Gunn has weighed into a very specific debate: fI the classic 2012 Avengers team and the Guardians of the Galaxy threw down, who’d come out on top? Speaking to Smallville star Michael Rosenbaum on his ‘Inside of You’ YouTube show, Gunn insisted the advantage lies with the crew of the Milano:
More specifically, Gunn’s reasoning is that:
“They’re [from] outer space. They have technology that is pretty advanced, so… it would be hard to beat them.”
So, how does this really stack up? On the Avengers side, we have a super soldier, the God of Thunder, a man with a suit bristling with weapons, a gamma-fueled rage monster, and two black ops operatives. Over on the Guardians’ side, there’s a cocky guy with two guns, two battle-hardened warriors, a tree man, and a homicidal raccoon. Hell, let’s also throw in Mantis and Nebula just to be sure.
Even with all that, we suspect that the OG Avengers are going to come out on top. Truthfully, Hulk alone might be able to solo the entire Guardians if he was sufficiently annoyed at them (and Rocket is nothing if not infuriating). Even if Hulk was taken down by Mantis calming him back into Bruce Banner, Thor alone presents a sizeable combat advantage, and even their high-tech weaponry is at least somewhat matched by Iron Man.
We respect Gunn’s loyalty to his team, but let’s face it, if this actually happened, Damage Control would be scraping what’s left of the Guardians of the Galaxy off the floor of Avengers Tower.
