It's no secret that James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies have been heavily influenced by the 2008 comics run with the same title, written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with Paul Pelletier on pencils, Rick Magyar inking, Nathan Fairbairn as colorist, and Joe Caramagna as letterer. (In fact, we wrote a whole article about it.)

Since the movie feels so close to the comics, Popverse figured it’d be a great time to talk to Lanning about his thoughts on the movie. About the development of the Guardians onscreen, Lanning told Popverse, “It’s been awesome to see the characters become even closer to their comic versions, so that, by this third film, we have many of the staple elements from the comic serries showing up: they are using Knowhere as their base of operations, are wearing their iconic comic uniforms and... the film Is peppered with various extra easter eggs like Drax referring to himself as ‘Drax the Destroyer’ and the introduction of Phyla-Vell in the end credit section.”

Yes, it's been a bit of a long road to hear “Drax the Destroyer” said on the big screen, but comics fans who have been following the movies know that you shouldn’t expect a direct adaptation every time, which is what makes this development in Guardians all the more special.

About that tricky adaptation process, Abnett said, “It’s always a difficult task to take comic book characters and stories and translate what could be decades of narrative continuity into a two-hour movie. You will inevitably have to jettison elements and reinvent others, but what James did so brilliantly with the three films he’s made is retain all the elements you would want to see in a film based on the Guardians comic and the wider Marvel cosmic universe and filled the screen with imagery and characters that are steeped in the cosmic lore of the comics."

"My wish now that we are done with the Guardians part of the cosmic MCU, at least for the time being anyway," he shared, "is that they turn their attention to everyone’s favorite Xandarian Centurion, Nova!”

We certainly agree with that - and note that Lanning and Abnett had an extended period writing Nova's series, from 2007 through 2010, at the same time as their Guardians run.

More Marvel Cosmic in the MCU, we say!

Guardians Vol. 3: When can you buy it, stream it, or Disney+ it?