Cosmic spoilers contained herein, obviously.
We’re about to talk about the news of a rather amazing Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s If you want to be surprised, then definitely do not read further.
No, seriously, stop reading. Spoiler warning.
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Ok, I guess you’re going to keep reading, so here we go.
The full cast list for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy has been revealed, and it’s a goldmine of information about the cameos director James Gunn has packed into the film. We learn, for instance, that contrary to fan speculation, Nathan Fillion apparently will not be voicing Cosmo. That role is credited to Fred the dog, while Fillion is credited as “Monstrous Inmate”. Meanwhile, horrible 90s musician/awesome schlock horror director Rob Zombie can be heard as the voice of “Ranger Navigator,” James Gunn himself shows up briefly as one of the “Maskless” Sakaaran (they’re Ronan the Accuser’s crack troops in the film), and of course Stan Lee has his obligatory cameo as a “Xandarian ladies’ man”.
But the best and greatest news: confirmed by text at the very end of the Guardians of the Galaxy credits (see it here ) is an appearance of an unspecified nature by Howard the Duck.
Hold on for a second while pull my monocle out of my martini.
OK, done. I’m guessing most of you are more than familiar with Howard, but for those of you who’ve never heard of him or, worse, those of you who only know him from the very iffy 1986 movie directed by Willard Huyck and produced by George Lucas, here is some background.
Howard is, for lack of a better way to put it, Marvel’s Ambush Bug (or more accurately, Ambush Bug is DC’s Howard the Duck). First appearing as a secondary Man-Thing character on the pages of Adventure Into Fear in 1973, he’s an anthropomorphic, foul-mouthed, chain smoking duck from the planet Duckworld, an alternate universe version of Earth where sapient beings evolved from waterfowl. Ripped from his homeworld by Thog the Overmaster, he initially fights alongside Man-Thing, until he ends up stranded in Cleveland, Ohio, which would generally remain his home base from that point on.
At first just a weird character in the already-weird Man-Thing family of stories, Howard was quickly mined for increasingly absurdist comedy that ultimately evolved into straight-up metafiction. He got his own series starting in 1976 that ran for 31 issues, was cancelled, then revived for a couple more issues, then cancelled again, and since then he’s been brought back for small cameos, including a hilarious moment during the Civil War storyline in which he attempts to register as a superhuman but is denied, as the government officially doesn’t acknowledge his existence. Over his various incarnations, he’s battled enemies like Man-Frog and Bessie the Hellcow, a vampire cow. The series was notable for overtly satirizing 1970s American culture (the public panic about cults, and the 1976 presidential election among several targets), and for his increasing awareness that he is a comic book character, which allowed him to serve as a mockery of comic tropes and specific Marvel storylines.
A lot of the series’ humor definitely doesn’t hold up, largely because the weird cultural circle-jerk that was America in the 1970s immediately became ridiculous as soon as the decade was over. Trust me on this, there are too many disco jokes and too many Carter-era political reference jokes, and you can sometimes almost feel yourself growing a combover as you read old issues. But, the character and series were groundbreaking, particularly for preceding the deconstructionist movement in mainstream comics, exemplified by the likes of Alan Moore, by almost a decade, albeit from a comedic rather than serious perspective. You can probably see why James Gunn is a fan.
Anyway, we don’t, of course, know precisely how Howard appears in the film. Given the way these things work, it’s likely that we’ll just see him as a clever background moment. My money is on it happening while the Guardians are in prison early in the film, though because this would amount to nothing more than an Easter Egg, (like the appearance of ET’s in the Galactic Senate during The Phantom Menace), I’m hoping at least that it’s a proper cameo and we hear Howard talk. After all, there’s literally nothing at this point, especially given how wacky Guardians of the Galaxy looks to be at times, that would keep Marvel from deciding that Duckworld is indeed a location within the MCU.
Then again, it looks like Cosmo won’t be talking. Unless, of course, the fact that no voice is credited is misdirection. This wouldn’t be the first time a “fun cameo” – which by the way is how James Gunn described Nathan Fillion’s appearance in Guardians – was kept a secret until after the film’s release, which is why I think it’s possible that one of the people credited here does double duty and voices Cosmo. Sp, maybe there are two uncredited voice cameos. Or, maybe there are none and I’m just wildly speculating out my ass.
We’ll find out soon enough.
Source: Bleeding Cool
