Guardians of the Galaxy: Casting Bomb!

Well, fair travelers, it seems that as soon as I thought I was done with The Guardians of the Galaxy for a while there have been a number of developments that worthy of attention, mostly having to do with casting.  Let’s do a roll call of the new members shall we?

John C. Reilly as Rhomann Dey

Glenn Close as a higher up in the Nova Corps

Karen Gillan as a female villain

Benicio Del Toro possibly as The Collector

Now, what does this mean for the story?  First, it is now without a doubt that the Nova Corps will definitely be playing a major role in the story.  One does not cast Reilly and Close for easter egg cameos.  As for their roles, things are inconclusive but Reilly is rumored to be playing a character who will function as the Agent Coulson of space, acting possibly as a liason between SHIELD and the Nova Corps.  Early specualtion is that he would be a human character but given that same character in the comics is a Nova I see no reason that they couldn’t take things in that direction.  What makes sense (especially given that very not-human name) is that he could be an older Nova, more like the Dey character of the comics.  It is also notable that Dey plays a role in the origin of Richard Rider, the Nova most comic fans are familiar with.
Close’s roll is also not completely defined but it looks like she will at least be part of the Corps’ upper management and maybe even the head of the cosmic police force..  As for what the Corps itself will be doing it is possible that they will actively combat the expansion of the Kree Empire.  Or even investigating the destruction/burglary of Odin’s Vault.  It is hard to say right now but the presence of the Kree in the film is nearly assured so my money is that the Nova Corps will be fighting them on some level.
Initially, Gillan’s role was the most mysterious of the recent announcements.  Some speculated that she could be playing the personification of Death, indicating a larger than expected role for Thanos.  However, recent rumors have her playing a character named Angela.  Now, strap your super-nerd boots kids cause this one is a doosy.  Angela was originally created by Neil Gaiman as a character in Todd McFarlane’s Spawn comic series.  In that book, she was an angel who hunted hellspawn.  However, after a legal battle Gaiman got full rights to the character and offered her up to Marvel.  Marvel’s plans for her are unclear at this point but according to reports from Screenrant.com she’ll make her official debut during the finale of the Age of Ultron story arc and apparently is also being prepped to work with the Guardians as part of a reboot.  Naturally, her origin will be quite a bit different but the warrior aspect will certainly remain intact, making her quite a bit different than Gillan’s most familiar role of Amy Pond.  However as you can see, a side-by-side comparison shows that she definitely has at least part of the look to pull it off.  And Amy Pond went through enough iterations during her run on Dr. Who to suggest that she can make the transition to full-time warrior convincingly enough.

Del Toro’s casting may be the most revealing.  The most interesting part is that he is playing a villain, a villain who will apparently be around a while give that Del Toro signed a multi-picture deal with Marvel Studios.  Given this information there are two possibilities, Thanos or The Collector.  To be honest, my money was on Thanos since, while I expected latter to show up, I was expecting him to be fairly minor.  However, the website Comic Book Heroes is claiming a source that sayings Del Toro is in fact playing The Collector.  If so, what is his role?
Again, given his name,  a likely place for The Collector is to raid Odin’s Vault and collect the various artifacts within.  While tearing up Asgard, he could learn of the Avengers and decide they need collecting as well.  This has been done before in the comics so it is a distinct possibility.  It would also set him up as the major bad guy for Avengers 2 instead of Michael Korvac as I suggested last time.
But not so fast!  Some new rumors have come out regard Lee Pace’s role.  Some are now claiming that his character will have something of a redemption arc.  It would seem that his preclude him from playing The Controller after all.  Unless of course they greatly change that character.  One other possibility that could fit this description is that of Ronan the Accuser, a member of the Kree race whose arc fits that of the rumors surrounding Pace’s character.

Well, that should bring you up to date true believers!  Stay tuned as we will be sure to bring you further updates and the rumor mill continues to churn!