Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

You may not be able to see a dynamic duo of Rocket Raccoon and She-Hulk on the big screen yet, but therein lies the benefit of comic books.

In the tradition of Marvel Fanfare and Marvel Team-Up, Guardians of the Galaxy writer Brian Michael Bendis launches his new Marvel Comics project Guardians Team-Up in February to bring together members of the cosmic team and the rest of the Marvel Universe as well as various artists and comic creators.

Bendis sees the new title as a way to express the fundamental personalities of the characters that fans love from the Guardians movie and comic — Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Groot and Rocket — but also show how awesome the superhero medium can be.

"Part of my uber-plan was to have the Guardians be more a part of the Marvel Universe and not off doing their own thing," Bendis says.

Working on Guardians Team-Up is like "sitting in a sandbox with my favorite toys and creating new adventures with them all," adds Marvel editor Katie Kubert. "Branching out with fun ideas like Gamora and She-Hulk joining forces to make a 'Green Girls Kick (Butt)' team or the insanity of something like Rocket Raccoon and Deadpool gets me so excited it's almost more than I can bear."

Bendis is kicking off the new book with a two-part story line — and a first issue drawn by one of his favorite artists, Arthur Adams — featuring a massive meeting between the Guardians and the Avengers. It's been a while since they've seen each other, according to Bendis, and Earth's Mightiest Heroes are a much different animal now than when he was writing them monthly from 2004 to 2012.

In addition, Bendis teases the return of a "fantastic" villain that hasn't been around for a while plus dramatic tension and also kissing. "I will have to not go to Tumblr for a couple of days and everything will be fine."

(Will Rocket and Shulkie share a smooch? Bendis doesn't confirm or deny. "Everybody needs somebody," he jokes. "It's the Marvel Universe — we can't be anti-interspecies. We have to open our hearts.")

There will also be standalone chapters in Guardians Team-Up, including the third issue by Sam Humphries that strongly ties into the writer's upcoming Black Vortex crossover saga.

"These aren't just fun adventures," Bendis says. "These are going to be stories that matter to the team and matter to the cosmic landscape in general."

The writer is beginning the series and he will return to it sporadically, giving all sorts of scribes and illustrators a chance to play in the Guardians intergalactic world. "I get to work with my heroes and up-and-comers," he says. "There's literally no downside to a project like that."

Bendis is the best person to head up the book because he is the master of all things Marvel Universe, Kubert explains. "Who better to use his keen knowledge of the intricacies of each hero and villain's personalities as foils against each other?

"Brian has always written with a character's heart first, and nowhere is this clearer then when he's teaming up two different galaxies within the same universe."

Along with working with other collaborators and getting to a laundry list of story ideas, Bendis wants Guardians Team-Up to be akin to how Marvel Fanfare was for him in the 1980s, introducing different characters to kids and teenagers so they can dive in to other corners of the Marvel Universe.

"Like Spider-Man was in the '70s, the Guardians are this year to a lot of new and younger readers," Bendis says. "This is an opportunity to show off what we do and what we've got."