10 Things Marvel Wants You To Forget About Guardians Of The Galaxy

9. They Weren't That Popular

We mentioned it a little up top, but part of the reason Guardians Of The Galaxy's barnstorming success has been such a surprise is because when the film got announced, nobody knew who the heck they were. Not even dedicated nerds really had a good idea of who this bunch of jerks was, leading some of the more skeptical to suggest this might be the first big failure for Marvel Studios. Obviously that turned out to be completely wrong, and the Guardians can now count thousands if not millions of new fans amongst the cinema-going public, and that seems like the way it'll be from now on. Which is exactly how Marvel likes it. Because they are part of a huge international conglomerate that likes money. Which rather ignores the inauspicious publication history for the Guardians Of The Galaxy comic book. All of the characters have been around since the sixties or seventies, when the company started expanding into their "cosmic" line of titles. None of them were ever very popular, though - hence why you'd never heard of them - and they only got brought together in 2008 as a sort of last-ditch effort to try and squeeze some popularity out of them. Which failed, since their series got cancelled two years later. It was only when the movie version was in development that they got brought back, and its sales have only picked up with curious film goers.