The Guardians Of The Galaxy we've all come to know and love have some rather long histories between them, but they were mainly as solo characters. Groot, Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax and Rocket have all been around for thirty of forty years each, but they've only been a team for less than a decade. They're a relatively recent prospect as a combined squad, but the name "Guardians Of The Galaxy" has been around since 1969. Because this lot aren't the first to call themselves by that title, have pinched it from a totally different bunch of cosmic heroes that disappeared, like, half a century ago. We knew they were criminals, but we didn't know they were identity thieves. You see, the original Guardians Of The Galaxy first appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes #18, published in January of 1969, a long time before these interlopers arrived on the seen. There's no crossover in the line-up, or any real similarities in their adventures, either. The original Guardians lived in the 31st Century in an alternate dimension and were made up of time-travelling astronaut Major Vance Astro, Plutonian Martinex T'Naga, Jupiter-born soldier Captain Charlie-27 and the blue-skinned noble savage Yondu Udonta, who hailed from Centauri-IV. Yondu appeared in altered form in the Guardians film and the team were originally brought together to fight the Badoon, who had wiped out the rest of their species, but there the similarities end. That's a pretty hearty skeleton to have in your closet, nicking your name from a bunch of dead folks from a different universe, and the comics addressed this with a brief scene where Star-Lord and company come across Astro's frozen body out in the reaches of space. They thaw him out, he gives them the name, then disappears. Meaning that nobody ever had to question it again.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
