By Nick Venable | 6 years ago

We all know that James Gunn‘s comic book romp Guardians of the Galaxy was a straight dose of humor, excitement, and flashy space travel, but the film’s more inspirational undertones may have been lost on many of those in the audience. It turns out one of the heroes here helped an autistic boy to understand that anyone under the sun can be a superhero if they want to. Relatively speaking, anyway.

Earlier today, Gunn posted an image-filled message from a fan who shared an inspirational story about his younger brother. The brother, who falls on the autistic spectrum, was extremely overjoyed when Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) first made it clear that he had no clue what metaphors were, expressing, “He’s like me! He can’t do metaphors!”

The elder sibling said his brother then “stared at Drax in a state of rapture” for the rest of the film and has been quoting Drax’s lines religiously in the week or so since they’d watched the film in theaters. It helps that one of the boy’s talents is memorization, which allows him to utter all of the big blue badasses lines without having to refer to the film’s IMDb quote page. The only one I remember at this point is him not understanding Star-Lord’s finger-across-the-throat gesture.

Now, the older brother isn’t saying that Drax is meant to be portrayed as autistic or anything, but he appreciates the hell out of Marvel and Bautista for allowing his younger bro to “identify himself with a character known for his strength, badassness and honor.” Pardon me, I’m cutting onions while I type this, so I have to wipe my eyes.

Take a look at the full post below, with another one of the film’s best gags.

This just goes to show that what may just be comic relief to some people could be a life-changing epiphany for others. I’m guessing the kid is too young to appreciate Rain Man at this point, but hopefully he knows that cinema is not averse to bringing autistic people into the limelight, though they generally aren’t hulking aliens who have dedicated their lives to avenging the death of their family. One has to assume that Rocket Raccoon helped a few antisocial people out by proving anyone can be accepted, no matter how different they are. (It helps to be able to build guns and gadgets like MacGyver, too.)

What movies have helped you guys get a handle on your personal issues? Or helped get you through a tough time?