You Don't Know The Guardians

As if I haven't pointed it out enough, there were no non-comic book reading people who ever said "I love The Guardians of The Galaxy" before the movie. They were Z-Listers, obscure to anyone who didn't read comics, even a little less-than-obscure to people who did read comics. And know-because of their movie-they have around seven books, a cartoon, and a sequel film on the way. But the movie has been keeping secrets from you, the actual characters in the film are only simplified versions of the true characters from the comics. These are the true origins of The Guardians of The Galaxy.

Star-Lord

Peter Quill/Star-Lord was created in 1976. The comic book backstory for Peter Quill goes as such: Peter is the son of an Earth woman and an alien man who crashed on Earth. The alien man-Jason of Spartax-left Earth in fear that his enemies would come after his new human lover, but upon leaving he did not learn that the Earth woman was pregnant with his son. Alien enemies came down years later to kill the Earth woman and Peter Quill, and after killing Peter's mother they were almost successful, but the aliens were killed by Peter-who had grabbed his mother's shotgun-and Peter escaped the rest of the aliens carrying the last thing his father left behind-a gun that could shoot blasts of all elements.
Peter rose through the ranks of NASA and was deemed insane by his stories of alien invaders. When an alien approached NASA and told them to select a worthy human to represent Earth in the cosmos, Peter was overlooked and rejected by NASA to be Earth's representative in space, despite his alien stories being proven true. Peter intercepted the candidate process and stole NASA's ship to go into space.
After years traveling the alien-infested void of space, Peter eventually met his father Jason, who had become king of Spartax. Jason regarded Peter as "The Star-Lord" a title held by a Spartax prince. Peter kept the name, but rejected his royal status to become a space hero.
THAT is the simplified version.

Drax

Drax The Destroyer was created in 1973. The comic book backstory for Drax goes as such: Drax used to be a human named Arthur Douglas who had a wife and daughter. The Douglas family was on a road trip when the alien villain Thanos came to Earth in secrecy. Believing the family to have seen him, Thanos personally kills Arthur and his wife. His daughter is another can of nuts. Anyway, Thanos' father uses magic to put Arthur's soul into a super-powered body of his own design. Now as "Drax The Destroyer" Arthur is wiped of his memories and programmed with the soul mission of killing Thanos.
After years of adventures with other cosmic Marvel characters, Arthur is eventually killed only to emerge from his alien body with a newer, slimmer, indestructible body that had been developing internally in case the first body were to be destroyed. This new body gave Drax the look he associate with currently.
THAT is the simplified version.

Gamora

Gamora was created in 1975. The comic book backstory for Gamora goes as such: Gamora was once a child of an alien race wiped out by Thanos. The villain adopted Gamora and raised her to be his personal assassin. As a teenager, Gamora was regarded as "the most dangerous woman in the galaxy". However, Gamora once rejected Thanos' orders of fleeing from an outnumbered fight and was raped and beaten to near-death by a large group of alien criminals. Thanos killed each and every criminal involved and used cybernetics to revive Gamora stronger than before.
She fought on Thanos' side for many years before the truth was revealed to her that Thanos killed her people and Gamora swore vengeance on the villain.
THAT is the simplified version.

Rocket Raccoon

Rocket Raccoon was created in 1976. The backstory for Rocket goes as such: Rocket was a raccoon picked up from Earth (or a planet like Earth) by aliens on Halfworld. Along with many other captured animals, Rocket was experimented on and given human-level intelligence and operations to stand upright. He led a group of other anthropomorphic characters to defend a quadrant of space before eventually meeting Groot in a prison and becoming a space hero.

THAT is the simplified version.

Groot

Groot was created in 1960. The backstory for Groot goes as such: Coming from Planet X, this "Flori Colossus" was born from an Ennobled Sap-Line, giving him enhanced intelligence. Because of the nature of his species, this sapling-like all the others-could only utter the words "I am Groot". Thus, people outside his species would come to know him as such. Groot was never liked by other saplings for his specific birth details, and was kicked off his planet for killing another sapling who had threatened the life of one of their rodent caretakers.
Exiled, Groot went on to visit Earth only to be killed, revived to be used against The Hulk, revived again to storm New York City, tossed into a pocket dimension, recruited by SHIELD and thrown into space again to meet Rocket Raccoon in a prison and become the last member of his race.
THAT is the simplified version.

The Guardians

The first Guardians of The Galaxy team was created in 1969. The backstory for this team goes as such: This team of characters come from a possible future in The Marvel Universe. They were formed to protect other timelines from beings who would seek to change them. The team was made up from Major Victory (a mutant astronaut), Charlie-27 (a soldier from Jupiter), Yondu (a hunter from Centauri IV), and other character who's origins were either too complicated or too empty. When Major Victory was frozen in ice and sent into space, his body was eventually found by the characters who would become the modern Guardians of The Galaxy.
THAT is the simplified version.

Well, I guess now we know why the movie changed so much about the characters.
Thanks for reading!

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