Posted in: Comics | Tagged: guardians of the galaxy, infinity gauntlet, karen gillan, Nebula, thanos

Know Your Guardians – Nebula

Published Sat, 03 Aug 2013 19:00:17 -0500

With all the news coming out of the San Diego Comic Con over the last two weeks, I had to focus on those stories and put Know Your Guardians on a bit of a break. But now I'm back to it and a piece of knows from the show… or rather an image… made me decided to do a non-Guardian member, but someone who has been a major part of the Infinity Gem/Gauntlet stories as well as the current Guardian incarnations.

I am talking of course about is the space pirate Nebula and the image in question is a head shaven shot of Karen Gillan (best known as Amy Pond in Doctor Who) from the Guardian's Of The Galaxy movie panel at SDCC. It came as quite a surprise to attendees how Gillan made Michael Rooker appear hairy.

Nebula first debuted in Avengers #257 as she lead her band of pirates in an attempt to salavage Sanctuary II, a massive spaceship previously owned by Thanos. With the world destroyed believed dead, Nebula laid claim to the ship by saying she was Thanos' granddaughter. Crossing paths with Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Nebula stated their intent to attack the Skrull Empire and asked the Captain to join her group. But the pirates true nature was revealed when Firelord learned that Nebula had annihilated the Xandarians. She attacked the Skrull space fleet but it brought her in conflict with the Avengers as well leading to her ultimate defeat.

Upon his resurrection, Thanos took great offense to Nebula's familiar claim and used the infinity gems to regain his ship and turned Nebula into a charred, mindless zombie. A symbol not to mess with the big guy. When Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to defeat Eternity, he ended up expanding his consciousness and leaving his body, we learn that Nebula was not quite as mindless as Thanos thought as she took the gauntlet from his comatose body and used it to restore herself. She then banished Thanos and set about to control the universe.

Doctor Strange put together a impromptu group of heroes including Adam Warlock, Silver Surfer, Thor, The Hulk, Firelord, Doctor Doom and Drax the Destroyer along with recruiting Thanos to help. (You know things are bad when you have to get Doctor Doom and Thanos on your side. And how come Adam Warlock only shows up for these cosmic problems?) The team then confronted her and even tricked her into undoing all the stuff that Thanos had done; all the death and destruction. Meanwhile Surfer and Warlock used the distraction to steal the Infinity Gauntlet using Warlock's connection to the Soul Gem to get Nebula to drop the weapon. She was taken to Titan and tried for her crimes.

She eventually escaped from prison and got turned into a cyborg by Dr. Mandibus, but her attempt at freeing her pirate crew from Anvil prison ended up getting all but her killed. Since then Nebula reappeared as one of Gamora's followers, The Graces.

That is the rough history of the character, but you have to ask yourself why she's in the Guardians movie? With the announcement that Avengers 2 was going to be the Age of Ultron, you have to wonder what the ending bit in the first one meant… the Thanos part, not the Schwarma part. Does that lead to the Guardians movie and if so, is Nebula's fake lineage claim going to play into it? I don't think they would have cast someone like Gillan if the role was just a cameo. We've got some interesting pieces in play. We've seen the Infinity Gauntlet in Asgard and we know the Collector is in the movie. So which side will our blue skinned pirate be on? Guess we'll have to wait and see.