In one of today’s features for our Guardians of the Galaxy Month here at Multiversity to benefit to Bill Mantlo (which you can read more about here and here), we continue our chats with various people behind the current iteration of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And, as part of a continued look back at the run that inspired the upcoming film, today we’ll be chatting with one of the writers behind the run, Andy Lanning.

Part of the duo that helmed the cosmic books in the wake of “Annihilation,” Lanning co-wrote every cosmic book post-“Conquest” alongside fellow collaborator Dan Abnett. Together they spun the characters and interpretations that would influence and inform the film, all the while revitalizing a forgotten section of Marvel’s line with new life and importance that continues to thrive today.

Read on as we talk about all things “Guardians”, the trials and tribulations of the run, the origin of “I am Groot,” and whether or not Rocket was ever actually supposed to be British.

I know it’s been a while, but your Cosmic work began before there was a “Guardians” ongoing, so can you recall how you came to start working in Cosmic with “Annihilation” and everything that came from that?

Andy Lanning: It stems back even before the “Annihilation” stuff. Andy Schmidt, the editor at the time at Marvel, an associate editor, he had asked Dan and I if we wanted to pitch a “Nova” ongoing series with Chris Batista. Chris had just come off working on “Spaceknights,” I believe he’d been working on that with Andy, and basically Andy was a big fan of the Cosmic stuff and wanted to try to develop some more Cosmic books. We worked up a whole “Nova” idea with Chris, with Chris re-designing the uniforms and the different gradings and rankings of the Nova Corps, but it didn’t come to anything at the time unfortunately.

But Andy was a great proponent and supporter of the Cosmic stuff, he managed to pitch “Annihilation” event with Keith Giffen. He brought Dan and I back to work on the “Nova” mini-series that was part of that “Annihilation” event, and Keith — who I’ve been a massive fan of ever since I was a kid, reading his “Rocket Raccoon” back in the day and his “Legion of Super Heroes” — Keith said, “He’s where I want Nova at the beginning, here’s what has happened, and here’s where I want him at the end. What you do with him in between is entirely up to you.” So we started with him on Xandar after the Annihilation Wave had hit, and ended up with him basically in place for the climax of the series, and Dan and I came up with the whole range of Xandar stuff that happened for “Annihilation,” we put the World Mind inside Rich’s helmet and made him the last custodian of the Nova Corps, becoming Nova Prime.

On the back of the “Annihilation” series, it was a big enough success that we got a “Nova” ongoing book. We basically started writing that regularly, and then were asked to develop the next “Annihilation” event; it was successful enough that they wanted to do another one the next year. That’s when we came up with “Conquest,” where we got to return the favor to Keith. We said to Keith that we had a book of the same format, that there was an over-arching series which had the main story in it and there were several minis along the way that developed other characters and stories. Keith developed a Star-Lord series in that which put together the early version of what would then become the Guardians of the Galaxy — it had Groot in there, Rocket Raccoon, Star-Lord, and it had Bug, Captain Universe and Mantis in there as well.

On the back of “Annihilation: Conquest,” they wanted to launch another regular cosmic book, so we pitched the idea of taking the name Guardians of the Galaxy and creating a new team out of the series that we’d just finished off. That’s how we started writing “Guardians.” That’s a long rambly way to getting to that, but that’s the way it happened. [Laughs]

What was your experience with these Cosmic characters? They go so, so far back, and with a team like the Guardians since your book was so different from the original, I imagine you must have fondness for the original iteration of the series?

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AL: Like I say, we were big fans of Cosmic stuff growing up, both Dan and I. We liked the same stuff. Major Jim Starlin fans, big fans of Captain Marvel. I think, from our point of view being over here in the UK, it kind of appealed to our sci-fi sensibilities because we’ve been brought up on “2000 AD” and those weekly comics that had very high-concept sci-fi quotas to them. Any books that came across as overtly cosmic-y or science fiction based seemed to appeal quite nicely to our sensibility. Books that you guys over there consider hard core superhero stuff, we actually looked at as really good science fiction romps that just happened to have superhero characters. I always say that I’m a massive fan of the Fantastic Four, and “Fantastic Four” to me is a nice hardcore science fiction book, really.

And, personally, “Nova” was one of the first books I bought issue #1 of. I discovered “Nova” at issue #1 at my local news agent on a spinner rack, and it was with book from the get go — though, it was quite difficult growing up in the UK and getting full continuity runs of comics. With the spinner racks, the guys at the news agents didn’t know what they were getting one month from the next; they got a pot-luck box of comics and you were lucky if you managed to get three or four consecutive issues of a comic, basically. [Laughs] But “Nova” was one of the books I got from issue #1, and I was lucky to get about five or six issues of “Nova” in a row before it dropped back for a bit and then came back again. Whenever it turned up it was one I picked up, so my connections with “Nova” go back quite a long way.

But I’ve always had a fascination with the science fiction and Cosmic for both Marvel and DC comics.

And you mentioned that you’d been a fan as well of Keith Giffen and Bill Mantlo’s “Rocket Raccoon” mini-series as well, but for a lot of people those characters were pretty new, pretty unique and fresh as the only take they’ve read on the character, so for a lot of fans this was the definitive take. When taking older characters, how did you find the challenge of updating them for the new, modern books? They spun out of the Keith Giffen mini-series, but they really took hold in that ongoing.

AL: Well, just to backtrack a bit, one of the other comics I found in that spinner rack was the original “Guardians of the Galaxy” as well, the Arnold Drake story drawn by Gene Colan. So I was a fan of that and I dipped in and out of the Jim Valentino run, which I was also a fan of. It was being aware of those characters and their history, which was something we wanted to dip in and out of. The whole idea of recreating the Guardians team was to use the name and have a current cosmic team running around with that name, though during the course of the story we wove Starhawk back into it and the original Guardians.

But, using those characters like Rocket and Star-Lord and getting to define them and representing them to a new audience, that was our remit for the whole thing, to take characters that no one really cared about. No one was using, no one was really doing much in the way of Cosmic books at the time, and it was quite well documented that Joe Quesada kept saying things like “I don’t get Cosmic books!” We eventually put Jack Flag in the book and actually had him say “I don’t Cosmic,” so he became our Joe Quesada. But the cool thing with Joe, though, was that he could see that there were people who do get Cosmic stuff and who really, really like that stuff, so he was quite happy to let us play with stuff that wasn’t getting much air time since people weren’t using those characters or playing in that arena at Marvel. We kept saying things like, can we use Adam Warlock? Fully expecting someone to say no, no, of course you can’t it’s Adam Warlock and he’s tied up in some other story, but it’d always come back as yeah, of course. No one was doing anything with him! [Laughs]Continued below

We just kept wishing for the stars, and we also made a big point of developing the Marvel Cosmic Universe as a backdrop, as a landscape to the whole thing. There’s a very defined and rich continuity of Marvel Space, with the Kree, with the Shi’ar, with the Badoon and the Skrulls. We really wanted as much as possible to take a tour of the Marvel Cosmic Galaxy and, whilst writing the stories, we gave readers who hadn’t necessarily been versed in Cosmic stuff a tour of the Marvel Cosmic Universe, which hopefully became an interesting place for them to explore more stuff with. And then the clincher for us was getting the Inhumans into the whole thing as well, because those are characters with massive continuity, but we got to write them and put them alongside our rather quirky Cosmic team that we developed with the Guardians.

That was the one thing at the forefront of what we were writing: to make the book fun, to make it a fun and exciting book. One of the things that made it more exciting was the fact that no one cared about these characters; there was a genuine sense of threat to them! They’re not appearing in a hundred other books. Rocket wasn’t in the Avengers and he didn’t have his own title; there wasn’t “The Superior Rocket,” “The Amazing Rocket” knocking about. This was the only book this guy was appearing in, so if they were in a dangerous situation, I think from the reader’s point of view they really believed that anything could happen to these guys since they weren’t spread out across the Marvel Universe.

And obviously, that’s changed a bit since your run. So looking back on the run now, as opposed to the kind of Cosmic Marvel overflow that we’re currently experiencing, it’s an interesting dynamic between how the two eras of books operate.

AL: Yeah, well, it is amazing, the change from when we were doing it to today. Especially in light of the movie coming out and seeing the amount of merchandise that’s knocking around and cropping up. [Laughs] Who’d have thought three years ago you’d have Lego sets with Groot and Rocket? And even more so, who’d have thought that Rocket Racoon could sustain an ongoing book? That was the sort of flight of fancy in the extreme, but to think that it would have sales of upwards of three hundred thousand copies is absolutely staggering and a testament to the popularity of Skottie Young as well.

Which I think is, well, if we’ve done anything, we can say job done. We set out to take some obscure characters and make them popular, and you can’t get more popular than a movie and toys and massive selling ongoing books. So we can sit back and smile and say “Good job.” [Laughs]

I do want to ask you more thoughts on the movie, but before we get there, one of the things that I really like about the Guardians book you did was that Nova had his tie to Earth, as right in the first or second issue had had gone to Earth to talk to Tony about the Civil War, whereas the Guardians stayed off in space, doing their own thing the whole time. You’ve said that there was a fair amount of freedom in doing the book, but in terms of the stuff you wanted to play with, that you wanted to make sure you re-introduced and worked with in the mythology, that book spanned over a lot of generations — some original Guardians, a time travel arc. Besides making niche characters popular, did you have any kind of list of Cosmic things you wanted to touch on, things you wanted to make sure you somehow got to play with?

AL: The idea that we wanted to take people on this grand tour of the Marvel Cosmic Universe, to touch on the things that we had a great affection for and to be able to tell stories about them was brilliant. To be able to tell this massive story about the Kree, about the Inhumans, to tell a future story with the Guardians of the Galaxy and to do whacky time travel stories — these were all the types of stories that we grew up reading and loving. To be able to do that ourselves with Marvel characters and to be able to say “Can we use Thanos?” and to get Marvel to say “yes, you can, help yourself!” This was amazing stuff for us, letting us do sneaky things like creating the Cancerverse so we could sneak Captain Marvel back into the fray. It was a bit sneaky because the one Marvel character who is “dead is dead” is Captain Marvel, right? So we even managed to play with that a little bit! [Laughs]Continued below

If we were doing anything, it was playing with that idea of touching on things we really loved reading ourselves as kids. The “Nova” book was the more serious book, I guess, and the “Guardians” book was more of a romp. Even when we took Nova back to Earth, which we wanted to do in the aftermath of “Civil War,” we wanted to play with the idea that Nova had been away fighting this massive galactic war while the characters on Earth were so wrapped up in their own petty squabbling, it was kind of a cool thing to do. But with “Guardians,” it was more about keeping them out in space and having fun, romping around the Marvel Galactic Universe.

I think what’s interesting too, with the Guardians, Groot and Rocket are probably the best examples now because they’ve had maybe the largest impact on the fanbase, but Groot was from “Tales to Astonish” as the Monster from Planet X, this throwaway Creature Of The Month deal. But now, through this run, people were able to connect with him, with Rocket, on such a deeper level. Do you think part of it has to do with the fact that this was a team book, using a team dynamic to bring all the characters together to pull what works out of them?

AL: I think so. When you’ve got characters like that mixing and bouncing off other characters, and such a cool array of different characters as well, then having your smart-mouthed raccoon with a giant gun becomes something a little bit more than that. We were able to delve into his character a little bit during the course of the stories, and specifically during the mini-series that we were able to do after the “Guardians” run, when we split the “Annihilators” run with a “Rocket and Groot” mini, which was kind of like our definitive re-telling of both of their origins, really. The idea that Groot that you saw in that original black and white Kirby monster story, it might not necessarily have been the Groot that we see knocking about in the comics now; there seems to be quite a lot of people calling themselves Groot on Planet X. [Laughs] It’s got a lot more to do with us not being able to understand their language than it does with them calling themselves Groot.

That in itself we thought was quite funny, and quite endearing and a sort of interesting idea to play with. People seemed to have picked up on it. I think that the mixing of Rocket and Groot has to go down to Keith Giffen, because he did that in the “Star-Lord” mini-series from “Conquest.” He’s got a great connection with Rocket, going back to his origin, but we basically just picked up and ran with the tone that he was playing with there, and were able to build Rocket’s character off of the building blocks that Keith had laid in that original series.

See, you might be able to fact check this for me, because while I don’t have a copy of the “Star-Lord” mini handy, I was not sure if Groot’s “I am Groot” recurring phrase first appeared in “Conquest” or in “Guardians,” or even before that.”

AL: Well, this is funny because I thought Keith had come up with that in the “Star-Lord” series, but he actually has Groot talking in that! So I think it was something we decided to do because it kind of just helped define him. By muting his language like that, it actually made him more interesting; we were afraid we might turn the whole idea on its head, but it kind of works. A lot of people think he’s a one-note joke and that it can get a bit boring after a while, but it still hasn’t warn thin for me so far. [Laughs] I wrote a Groot story for the 100th issue of “Guardians” where basically the only words in it were “I am Groot,” or a few squeaks.

That was the reason I did it, to see if I could actually tell a story with those limitations. I actually in fact got cold feet and added some captions for place setting, but my original idea was that it would be a silent story and the only words in it were “I am Groot.” I was also very, very lucky to have Phil Jimenez, my old colleague, working on the art for that, and he did some very heavy lifting for me there. So, yeah, I think the “I am Groot” stuff really grew out of “Annihilation: Conquest” that we did after Keith’s “Star-Lord” mini.

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I was going to ask you about the return to the character as well, as I thought it was a really… surprising isn’t the right word, but I remember thinking “Oh, a Groot story!” and my first thoughts weren’t that it would be so sweet and touching and fairly dark as well. I think what was nice about “Guardians” is that we got to visit elements about every character’s history, the “Rocket and Groot” mini as well, but in coming back to the character and coming back to Groot, was that a conscious choice that you wanted to do his origin story? How did that anniversary story come about?

AL: Steve Wacker had asked if I wanted to write a ten-page story, and to me it was a Rocket or Groot story. Those were the ones that just appealed straight away. I’d been toying with the idea, and we never really got to develop it beyond touching on it in the mini-series, of the fact that Groot had been an outcast from his planet. He isn’t the Monarch of Planet X, that’s just how he was referring to himself. He was actually a young rebel in his society! And so that was touched on in the mini but not fully explored, so I thought there was a little bit of an untold story there, and the idea of basically explaining why Groot and Rocket were such friends — from Rocket’s point of view, it’s kind of obvious; he’s a tree, Rocket likes trees. [Laughs]

But this idea, that Groot was friends with all of these animals, these guys who we’d set up as the undergrowth engineers and maintenance to the entire ecosystem, the oppressed masses and Groot was friends with them all. This was an untold story that I was able to get the chance to tell in the anniversary issue. And, also, I got to set myself the almost impossible task of telling it all with just the words “I am Groot.” [Laughs]

Looking back on your “Guardians” run, and all of Cosmic really, but is there anything that stands out to you as a particular accomplishment? Something in particular that you got to do with the Cosmic Marvel Universe during your time in it?

AL: The main thing I think was that we were able to tell the story that we’d been building right from when we took over with “Annihilation: Conquest.” We introduced a mysterious cocoon, and since we had Adam Warlock knocking around everyone was wondering what was in it since it was a Warlock cocoon. We were able to, over the course of three years, get to the point who was in the cocoon and it was Thanos. Though, what I can actually say is that we didn’t decide that for the longest time; we were questioning ourselves, who was in the cocoon? [Laughs] One of the things we used to would seed things into the book but not have a definitive story idea. We’d just think, here’s an interesting thing and we can explain that later. One of the things we didn’t get to explain was what decapitated the Celestial head that became Knowhere, but I think at the end of the day that’s kind of a mystery that can stand the test of time. At least for a while.

I think getting the opportunity to tell all these stories and bringing it around to this Butch Cassidy and Sundance moment with Nova and Star-Lord in the Cancerverse, that was really great. I think the high point from my own point of view was getting that story and bringing Thanos back into the Marvel Universe. Seeing now what has been done with Thanos in the movies and in the comics, you get the impression that he’s been moved back in as a piece in play because of us, because of our story. I’m quite proud of that.

I was actually going to ask, as the introduction of the cocoon was really early in “Guardians” and we had no idea what that was for a good long while. “Secret Invasion” happened, “War of Kings,” all these events happened to put you off thinking about the cocoon, but the reveal of who was in it came before the actual issue. I know that’s the way things work in comics when you solicit months in advance, but given that enough time has passed since when that happened and today, how did you feel about the cocoon reveal not getting to happen as a last page shocker for anyone with an internet connection?

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AL: Sure. And, well, that’s the thing. It’s always a shame. I’m a big, big fan of the cliffhanger from one month to the next, because, again, this all harks back to the comics I loved reading when I was growing up, not knowing what happens at the end of an issue. It just made you want to read the next issue. Obviously I very much like the idea of not revealing stuff out of the tracks, because you’re kind of ruining it a bit, that spoiler moment. It’s inevitable, though, and if it drives people to come and read it, great. I would like to think that there were some people who didn’t know, who went out of their way not to find out, to just read it and be surprised as it should’ve happened. The story was meant to unfold in a certain way, and these things are designed to draw people back in. The internet being what it is, it becomes more and more difficult to have secret reveals in a story.

So looking at everything that came after the “Annihilators” mini-series and how time has responded, with certain characters coming back (which is fairly inevitable in the never-ending soap opera nature of comic books), but seeing how your run has spilled out and is now affecting other things, other writers picking up the balls and running with them — particularly in the case of Star-Lord. How do you feel about seeing where these characters have gone? Because you did a great job of building up Peter Quill as a hero, and now he’s become such a big part of the Marvel Universe.

AL: You know going into any run on a book, if you’re lucky to get a decent run a book then it’s kind of like you’re getting to make your mark on the Marvel Universe — or any universe, really. We had a successful three year run on “Legion” at DC as well. You’ve only got these characters on loan to you, though, basically; you get to play with them for a little while, and if you’re lucky you’ll get to tell a big story (which we certainly did), and if you’re very lucky then what you did will have a lasting impact on the character and the popularity of the character. No one could be more proud of that fact than Dan and myself, I’m sure, because Star-Lord was a great, fun character to write, and a personal favorite as well. Same as with Rocket and Groot, same with Drax, same with Gamora — all these characters I have a lot of fondness for, and being a fan of them it’s great to see them now becoming such a big part of the Marvel Universe.

I’d be a liar if I didn’t say I wanted to be writing more stuff about them. I totally would, and I may still be getting the chance to in various bits and bobs, but it might be a little while before I sit down and have another long run with them. But, well, you look for other new challenges as well, other characters to have on loan and play with. You always have to return them back to the box, though. [Laughs]

One thing I’m curious about, and this is sort of a two part question, but tell me what was your impression when you found out that there was going to be a Guardians film based on your work here, and what was your first impression on actually seeing something from it, like the trailer for the film?

AL: We had an inkling they might be doing something with Guardians when some paperwork turned up that we had to sign about the characters and concepts that we’d created in “Guardians.” You only get that kind of paperwork when plans are being made for those characters, so obviously when that was confirmed and the news came out that they were making a film and James Gunn was attached to it — I’m actually quite a fan of James Gunn’s stuff. I’d watched “Super” and “Slither,” which I really, really enjoyed because I’m a big fan of shlocky horror films and that was a belter. I thought he was a great choice, a very left-field choice. Then getting to go and visit the set just made everything very real for us, and that was when we really got a sense that it really was our iteration of the characters being brought to the screen. James was going out of his way to say how much he was basing it off our stuff because he was such a big fan of that version of the comic, and that couldn’t have been more rewarding for us as writers.

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We got to read the script, which was very, very good indeed. Now, having seen the trailer and the TV clips and stuff that’s coming out, what’s even more exciting that I’ve got that you don’t is that I’ve read the script, so I know where all the clips come from, I know the scenes and what they’re alluding to. You get a a little taster of a bigger scene, and I’m thinking that the taste looks amazing so what’s the scene going to look like? That little tiny bit looks awesome, so I’m very proud and pleased and as keen as anybody to see the finished film.

And it must be gratifying on a whole other level because, the biggest difference between the current “Guardians” book and yours is that I feel the current “Guardians” book has to be a bit more reactionary to the film, the costume changes and things like that. Your book is what fed directly into the film that we’re going to be seeing. One thing I’m curious about, and I don’t know if you have any major opinions on this, but in terms of casting and things like that, are there any moves that were done in the film that you’re particularly pleased about? Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, for example, seems a pretty smart move on Marvel’s part.

AL: Yes, sure. Everyone loves to think of casting a movie before it comes, and I think Vin Diesel as Groot was there even when they were doing the cartoon appearances of Guardians. They wanted to get Vin Diesel to do the voice of Groot there, so he was absolutely nailed on. The fact that they actually ended up getting him was brilliant, and I was very pleased that they ended up getting Bradley Cooper to do Rocket, to tell you the truth. Not only is he a really good actor, but he’s actually a really funny guy, too.

The one for me that were particularly gratifying was getting Zoe Saldana as Gamora, because she’s been in some pretty major sci-fi franchises so far; it’ll be awesome to have her connected to yet another one. We’re hoping just the fact that she’s in here will make this a massive success! If Guardians can be half the success of Avatar I’ll be very happy. [Laughs] Same for Star Trek.

Chris Pratt as Peter Quill was just inspired as well. We got to see some filming with him where he’s in the space ship, the Milano. We got to see him doing take upon take of various shots, and he’s a really funny guy. He’s very personable, people are going to like him; he’s just a very likable guy, and he’s also really funny. So in the same way that Robert Downey Jr. made the role of Tony Stark is, and you can’t think of anybody else being Tony Stark except Robert Downey Jr., I think the same is going to be said of what Chris Pratt has done for Star-Lord. He’s Peter Quill.

Then you round it out with Dave Bautista as Drax, which is just… We were on set, and suddenly a shadow fell across the sun and we all turned around and there’s Drax standing behind us. What was really charming about it is, I was talking to him on the set and he was getting up at four in the morning to have the make-up done since he has these prosthetic tattoos all over his body, and I’m asking him, “Is this not becoming a chore at all?” And he goes, “No, I’m sitting there getting this stuff on and thinking, I’m in a film! I’m in a film!” He was as pleased and geeked out by the whole thing as anybody, which I thought was a fantastic attitude to have, especially when you’re getting up at four o’ clock in the morning having tattoos stuck to you.

So, yes. I think the casting and the flavor of the film and everything is just really spot on, and that’s credit to James Gunn and to Marvel and Marvel Studios. They were saying that after the success of the Avengers, the pressure was really on them to make the next Iron Man, the next Thor and Captain America films; the bar had been raised for them. To be fair to them, they knocked it out the park with all of them, particularly Winter Soldier. But the idea that, when they announced Guardians there was a collective question mark that had gone up, the response was “Who are they? Why are they doing this? Oh my god, this is bound to fail!” And chatting to the producers on the set, everyone is saying that the pressure is off in regards to the Guardians film because there’s no expectations. The expectation is that it will fail or fall flat on its face, so anything is better than that! [Laughs]Continued below

What I think has happened is that it put them back into the place they were at when they did Iron Man, since Iron Man wasn’t a well known superhero character to anyone who didn’t read the comics — but after the film, everyone in the world knew who Iron Man was. I think Guardians has some of that going for it. It’s introducing the movie going audience to a completely different part of the Marvel Universe. We’re going into space for a big space romp, and I think a really exciting and funny space adventure is kind of overdue at the moment. Guardians could fulfill that quite nicely.

To start wrapping up, the last major question that I have has to do with the one semi-controversial element to the Guardians film. If you could put your thumb down on this one, I think everybody kind of wants to know the truth as to whether or not Rocket was supposed to be British.

AL: [Laughs] The weird thing is, I’ve got a theory and I don’t know if this is true, and it could just be complete solipsism on my part actually, but: Dan and I wrote the Guardians of the Galaxy episode of the Avengers cartoon, when the Guardians turned up for the first time in the animated universe. I was dealing with Chris Yost at the time, and chatting to him over the phone a lot, and I’ve got a bit of a… I’m not a cockney, I’m not from London or anything, but I’ve got very estuary English. I’m very close to London, so I’m a bit “awright, mate, ‘ow’s it goin’?” [Laughs] And suddenly, in that episode, Rocket ends up with this cockney accent! He’s walking about, “awright, son,” but sounding a little bit Dick Van Dyke for my taste. “‘ello, Mary Poppins!” And part of me is thinking, I reckon Chris Yost is taking the piss! [Laughs] He’s actually having a sly little pop. But only Chris Yost will know this, because I don’t know what the decision making process was for when they voiced Rocket in that cartoon. But from that point onwards, everyone has had the expectations when Rocket appears, like when Rocket appeared on Ultimate Spider-Man, there’s this expectation that he’s got this cockney accent.

So I don’t know. I don’t know if it was Chris since Dan and I are both English, though Dan does talk a lot more eloquently than meself, I am a bit more apples and pears and all that. But that to me was the only explanation I could think of as to why Rocket would have an English accent: it’s either in honor of the fact he had two English writers, or it’s a sly piss-take that he had two English writers on him. [Laughs] Either of which, I’m quite happy with.

But then, like I say, there’s that big expectation that he would have an English accent in the film, but he could have any accent you want, really, because he’s not even technically raccoon. He’s a creature from space that happens to look like a raccoon, apparently! And — one of the things James has done with Rocket is that he’s added an extra little twist to his backstory that is really very poignant and adds even more depth to Rocket as a character. As writer/director, you know that James has gone into this and looked at the characters and given each of them their own little twist of his own personal take on them, and it’s really nice to see particularly with Rocket. There’s something, as a comic writer, once the film’s out I’d love to get my hands on doing something with Rocket that explores the aspect of this twist that James put in it. I’m not going to say anything more as it’s a nice thing to find out in the film, though.

So to conclude, we touched on this a bit earlier, but it’s nice that the Cosmic Universe at Marvel has its own continuity that’s not as muddled the stuff that takes place on Earth. There’s less balls in the air, less spinning plates. Looking back throughout Cosmic, with characters like Rocket by Giffen and Mantlo, Star-Lord by Englehart and Gan, the original Guardians from Colan and Drake — how do you feel of how your take in this corner of the universe of the bigger scene? How are you feeling about your era of Cosmic Marvel?

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AL: We’re very, very proud and privileged to have contributed to that list of continuity, because we were basically fans of all of those guys that you mentioned, fans of their stories. The idea that we got to add to that canon of work was brilliant, and what’s even more so is that what people will take from the film coming out is that our version, our run on the Guardians is the version that will go out to the world, not just comic buyers. Hopefully that will then drive around the world who don’t necessarily read comics or who haven’t necessarily got the understanding of these characters will be driven to go back and read the work of Mantlo, of Englehart, Valentino, and more. They can go back and discover that there are even more stories about these characters, that these characters have even more of a history beyond the version that we did. If it does anything, then pointing people to read more about these guys is awesome.

The version that will go around, that will get the most exposure these characters will ever have, is the version that Dan and I wrote, and you just can’t be more proud than that. That’s just awesome. It’s very rare that this happens to comic writers or artists, so you’ve just to be so proud and pleased to be part of it.