The Guardians of the Galaxy (GotG) have had a great couple of years. The unexpectedly popular movie in 2014 launched an obscure Marvel superhero team to stardom (no pun intended), and spawned an animated TV show on Disney XD. The surefire-hit movie sequel comes out in early May, but you can get your GotG fix on starting tonight!
Read on for an interview I had with Harrison Wilcox, the supervising producer on the Guardians of the Galaxy TV show. Look below the interview for an exclusive clip from tonight’s season two premiere!
- GeekDad:
- I know the first season started right after the movie became so huge, and kind of grew out of it. But I know it’s not supposed to be canon, right?
- Wilcox:
- We definitely took a lot of motivations from the first movie. But over the course of 26 episodes we sort of have gone in our own direction, that still is true to the characters and true to the versions in the movies and also in publishing. But it definitely is our own, we’re definitely telling our own story on the show.
- GeekDad:
- Anything in particular you want to tease about the new season?
- Wilcox:
- Sure. We’re starting the season where we left off season one, where the guardians have defeated Thanos and are on Earth. The first thing they realize that they need to deal with is Thanos’s asteroid that people have seen on our show, and in other media. A big throne asteroid he rides around space on, that is still in orbit of Earth. They realize before they can leave Earth and go off into the galaxy, they need to deal with it. But it turns out that The Avengers have also noticed this giant asteroid floating around, and there’s a bit of a misunderstanding, and the guardians decide that they need to break into Avengers compound and steal the asteroid, which has been shrunk down by Ant Man.
That’s sort of where we start season two, with this classic misunderstanding. Then the Avengers and the Guardians team up. We have some fun moments with Rocket and Iron Man, Groot and Hulk. Sort of a little, “I am Groot,” “I am Hulk”: a little bit of that. Some fun stuff with Quill and Ant Man, because one’s a former, one’s a current, but they both have a history of being outlaws a little bit. There’s some fun moments between all those characters.
The best one though is the relationship that forms between Captain Marvel and Rocket. They sort of have a really fun dynamic.
- GeekDad:
- Have there been any complaints from fans about that the show has gone its own way?
- Wilcox:
- I have not seen any complaints, but I’m sure now that I’m saying this people will find me on Twitter and complain. We try to match the designs from our other shows. On Avengers, Captain Marvel appeared in season three, and she’ll appear again in the future. All the shows have a little bit of their own look, a different artist working on each show. But the core concepts of the designs, which we all pull from publishing – there’s a standard across the shows for the designs.
- GeekDad:
- Is Mantis [who is in the new movie] likely to return in the show? She was in one first season episode.
- Wilcox:
- We will see more of Mantis, season two. Basically what happens after the two-parter is, they discover that Thanos, the throne he sort of always rides around on that we’ve seen through media, is actually a case. Underneath the chair are various dangerous and powerful weapons that Thanos has collected. There will be three in particular that the Guardians will find, that will be linked together. They’re sort of ancient and powerful weapons that are linked together.
As the guardians uncover what those three weapons or items are, they’ll cross paths with characters we’ve seen before on the show, like J’son and Mantis. They’ll be forced to cross paths with some of those characters like Mantis again because of what they find in Thanos’s sarcophagus.
- GeekDad:
- What about Ego [who appears in human form in the new movie]?
- Wilcox:
- No plans for Ego right now. We did our own version of Ego season one called Mandala. Because apparently there are a bunch of floating planets, planetoids, in the Marvel universe. We sort of feel like we’ve done that story. But right now there are no plans for Ego, at least the version from publishing.
- GeekDad:
- Thanks for your time! Anything else you’d like to say?
- Wilcox:
- We will be seeing more stuff from publishing this season. Sort of classic fun space stuff. We’re going to see some more symbiotes and other stuff like that. I think fans will have fun. Fans of the Marvel universe in general, but also fans of what’s gone on in the comic books for the last few years. Hopefully they’ll enjoy what we have in store for them.
The Guardians of the Galaxy TV show’s season two premiere airs tonight on Disney XD at 9:00pm ET/PT. Both parts of the two-part episode will air back-to-back, so it will be a full hour.
Images and Video: Disney XD
