Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is a superhero team that is a part of the Marvel Comics universe. A film was released as a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2014. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 came out in 2017.
==Canon==
===Marvel Comics===
The team's first appearance was in Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (Jan. 1969) by Arnold Drake and Gene Colan. The Guardians are active in the 31st century in an alternative timeline of the Marvel Universe Earth-691. The team consisted first of Major Vance Astro, Martinex, Captain Charlie-27, and Yondu Udonta. They were later joined by Starhawk and Nicholette "Nikki" Gold. When they traveled back in time to the 20th Century Earth, they were helped by Captain America and The Thing. Much later, the team was joined by the Inhuman Talon, Replica the Skrull, and Rita DeMara.
The second team's first appearance (and is considered the modern version) was in Guardians of the Galaxy (vol. 2) #1 (May 2008) by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. This team consisted of Star-Lord, Adam Warlock, Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, Phyla-Vell, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot. Mantas was a supporting character and Nova was a common ally.
===Marvel Cinematic Universe===
A film version of the team based on the second team in the comics is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, taking place after the events in The Avengers (2012). The movie (titled Guardians of the Galaxy) was released on 1 August 2014. The team consisted of Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Dave Bautista as Drax, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket, and Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot. Nebula, Thanos, Ronan the Accuser, Yondu Udonta, Korath the Pursuer, The Collector, and Nova Prime were supporting characters. A sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, was released in 2017. Nebula and Yondu Udonta returned and Mantis joined the main cast. Groot is Baby Groot, having begun to regrow at the end of the first film. The film follows Quill meeting his father and learning about his mysterious alien parentage and explores his relationship with his father figure, Yondu.
The team, now including Peter Quill, Gamora, Rocket, a teenage Groot, Drax, and Mantis, appeared in Avengers: Infinity War, meeting Thor and then teaming up with other characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gamora had a prominent role in the film due to her having been adopted by Thanos and trained to be his personal assassin.
Ego the Living Planet, Quill's father, was played by Kurt Russell.
==Fandom==
The comic-specific Guardians of the Galaxy fandom is very small.As of 4 September 2014, there are only 57 fics on AO3 that use the comics-specific tag. But piggybacking on the popularity of the MCU as a whole, the movie fandom began growing even before the movie was released.The earliest fic in the movie-specific tag on AO3 was A Good Team by Thorinsmut, posted 6 March 2014. Immediately after the movie was released, the fandom exploded on tumblr, fanart and gifsets acquiring tens of thousands of notes within weeks of posting. Groot, in particular, was a very popular character, with a great deal of fanart appearing practically overnight featuring bb!Groot in its pot. Groot was also the center of the fic I Am Groot, which was posted on 4 August 2014 and became the most kudosed fic on the AO3 within a month.As of 4 September 2014, "I Am Groot" has 13,095 kudos, compared to 12,902 for DILF, the previous highest-kudosed fic.
===Relationships===
Early on, gen stories predominated.As of 4 September 2014, 193 of 397 fics (48.6%) were tagged "Gen" on AO3. The most common ships were Groot/Rocket Raccoon and Gamora/Peter Quill.On AO3 as of 4 September 2014, 49 works were tagged Groot/Rocket, 41 were tagged Gamora/Peter, 30 were tagged Groot & Rocket, 28 were tagged Peter/Rocket, and all other ships had ten fics or less tagged. The most common femslash pairing was Gamora/Nebula.On AO3 as of 4 September 2014, there were 10 fics tagged Gamora/Nebula; all other femslash pairings were tagged two times or fewer. The most common slash pairing was and currently still is Kraglin/Yondu.On AO3 as of 14 March 2018, there were 516 fics tagged Kraglin/Yondu, more than twice as many as any other slash pairing. In keeping with patterns in the rest of the MCU, some people were focused on the OT5 of Drax/Gamora/Groot/Peter/Rocket either platonically or shippily. The most common crossover pairing was Peter Quill/Tony Stark, presumably because of Tony's status as the MCU's little black dress.As of 4 September 2014 there were 24 works on the AO3 tagged Peter/Tony; all other crossover relationships had less than ten works tagged.
==Fanworks==
===Fics===
* I Am Groot, by sherlocksmyth (link). NSFW short fic from Groot's perspective. Accumulated over 13,000 kudos on the AO3 within a month,Fic was posted 4 August 2014; on 3 September it had 13,055 kudos. catapulting it to the position of most-kudosed fic on the archive (past the Teen Wolf fic DILF).
* Misadventures of Star-Lord & the Earth Girl, by GingerScoundrel & GothamGirl. A popular work of fiction, awarded the best series of Comics Amino App in 2017.
===Artwork===
* Guardians of the Galaxy - We are groot by maXKennedy
* We are Groot by Nero749
* Guardians Of The Galaxy by The30thOfFebruary
* Guardians of the Galaxy by Logunkov
* Guardians of the Galaxy by Attyca
* Guardians of the Galaxy by ramida-r
* I Am Groot by The30thOfFebruary
==Archives and Communities==
===Archives===
* Guardians of the Galaxy - All Media Types tag at AO3
** Guardians of the Galaxy (Comics) tag
** Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies) tag
* Guardians of the Galaxy Movie at FFN
** Guardians of the Galaxy Crossovers
===Communities===
====Kink Memes====
* Guardian Kink, a LiveJournal kinkmeme created on 3 August 2014.
* GotG Kink, a LiveJournal kinkmeme created on 4 August 2014.
* Cosmic Kink, a Dreamwidth kinkmeme created on 5 August 2014.
====Tumblr====
* gotg tag on tumblr.
* guardians of the galaxy tag on tumblr.
==Resources==
* Guardians of the Galaxy at Marvel Database
==References==
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