Avengers: Infinity War features more super-characters than you can shake a cosmically-powered stick
at.
Most of them you know, and many of them have had their own movies already.
Even the Guardians of the Galaxy crew is pretty familiar at this point, but some of the supporting
characters remain a little obscure.
For instance: What's the deal with Nebula, the bald, blue-skinned cyborg played by Karen
Gillan?
How is her comics incarnation different from her character in the MCU?
Let's explore.
Thanos' granddaughter?
When Nebula first appeared in Avengers #257, Thanos wasn't even around.
He'd been turned to stone years earlier, and although he wasn't technically dead, he was
just as out of the picture.
One of the first actions Nebula took in those comics was to claim Thanos' former headquarters,
the Sanctuary II, for her own.
When Starfox, Thanos' brother, claimed it as his familial right, Nebula made the claim
that would come to define her: the space station was rightfully hers, because Thanos was her
grandfather.
Old look
In her early appearances, Nebula looked very different from the bald cyborg she would eventually
become.
She was a fully organic humanoid alien with gauntlets that enabled her to fire destructive
beams from her wrists.
She had long bluish-black hair that rose up in big curls on the sides in one of those
hairstyles that's only possible in comics.
Nebula belongs to a race called the Luphomoids.
There are only a few of them left in the galaxy, because Galactus ate the planet of Luphom
and only those Luphomoids who were off-planet survived.
Other Luphomoids like Zorr, a villain who first appeared in Nova #1, were desperate
to find a new home world for their people.
Nebula never seemed interested in that.
Being a space pirate and the leader of a fleet of mercenaries seemed to be her truest calling.
No love from "grandpa"
Whether Nebula was being honest about her relation to Thanos was never particularly
relevant as long as he wasn't actually around.
Being a pirate and mercenary gave her plenty to do in the universe-hopping Marvel Comics
of the 1980s.
Of course, as all classic villains eventually will, Thanos returned to life, resurrected
by Death herself.
In Silver Surfer #38, he met the woman who claimed to be his granddaughter.
He was not impressed, and claimed never to have fathered children.
It was probably meant to be the truth at the time but became a lie in light of later stories
... because comics are very complicated.
Declaring Nebula's lies "unforgivable," Thanos set her on fire with beams from his eyes.
He meant to kill her, but crew members on the Sanctuary II saved her life … in a manner
of speaking.
When Thanos rediscovered Nebula after their first meeting, she had been burned beyond
recognition, profoundly brain damaged, and about to expire for real.
By this time, Thanos had assembled the Infinity Gems into the Infinity Gauntlet, giving himself
vast and godlike powers.
He used those powers to stop Nebula from croaking — without actually healing her.
She existed as a shambling, nearly mindless, charred zombie of a creature.
Thanos' downfall
A confrontation with the cosmic being known as Eternity led to Thanos leaving his body
unattended while his consciousness dealt with larger cosmic matters.
This gave Nebula, who had been repeatedly described as "nearly mindless," the opportunity
to grab the Infinity Gauntlet off of his hand and claim its power for herself, immediately
restoring her body and mind in the process.
She didn't keep the gauntlet for long, but she enabled the defeat of Thanos, and was
restored from her zombie-like state in the process.
Bald is beautiful
After the events of The Infinity Gauntlet, Nebula's physical form was restored, but her
brain was still damaged.
Her longtime first mate, Geatar, freed her from imprisonment and took her to a rogue
space surgeon who promised to restore her faculties.
When the fully restored Nebula was finally unveiled in Silver Surfer #72, she'd become
a bald cyborg who should look very familiar to Marvel Cinematic Universe fans.
Finally back to her mental and physical peak, and even beyond it, thanks to her cybernetic
implants, Nebula returned to the life of a space pirate.
Amazing Graces
In Annihilation: Ronan, one of the miniseries that was part of Marvel's larger 2006 Annihilation
event, Nebula was reintroduced as a member of a team of interstellar women warriors known
as the Graces.
The leader of the Graces turned out to be a woman with an even stronger connection to
Thanos than Nebula herself ever had: Gamora.
Whereas Nebula only ever claimed to be the granddaughter of Thanos, a claim never proven,
Gamora was actually raised by him.
When Nicole Perlman and James Gunn were writing Guardians of the Galaxy for the screen, and
figuring out how to translate all the complex mythology around Thanos to the cinematic universe,
a story emerged that was simpler and more powerful than anything Nebula and Gamora had
dealt with in the comics: a story about sisters.
MCU Update
The Nebula of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies is, like Gamora, an adopted daughter
of Thanos.
Unlike the fully organic Gamora, Nebula has been enhanced with extremely visible cybernetics,
leaving her a mix of woman and machine who suffers doubts about her own selfhood.
Her self-doubt, combined with her close relationship with Gamora, enables Nebula to turn against
Thanos and become a sympathetic character and a grudging ally to the heroes.
She refuses to join the Guardians of the Galaxy, but by the end of their second movie, she's
no longer the group's enemy.
In fact, her new stated mission is to destroy Thanos herself ...
"I will help them by killing Thanos"
… setting up her appearances in Avengers: Infinity War and its as-yet-untitled sequel.
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