The first Guardians of the Galaxy film opens in 1988, where a teenaged human named Peter
Quill is abducted by aliens following the death of his mother. Those aliens happen
to be a group of smugglers, known as the Ravagers, and the group’s leader, Yondu,
takes Quill under his wing to teach him all about the ways of the galaxy. In the present,
a now adult Peter Quill is estranged from Yondu and the Ravagers, but is continuing
to live a smuggler lifestyle. Journeying to the planet Morag, Quill steals the mysterious Power
Stone that many figures across the galaxy want for themselves. The mad titan Thanos wants to collect
the Power Stone and all of the six other Infinity Stones, which would give him the strength to wipe
out half of the entire universe’s population. Thanos sends his adopted daughters, Gamora and
Nebula, alongside the fanatical Ronan the Accuser and his army to find Quill and obtain the stone.
Meanwhile, Yondu and the Ravagers put a bounty on Quill’s head to steal the stone for themselves.
When Quill attempts to sell the stone, he is confronted by Gamora and the bounty hunting duo
Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The group are arrested by the Nova Corps and imprisoned at the Kyln,
where they must team up with a fellow prisoner named Drax to escape. Drax’s wife and daughter
were killed by Ronan, and so he wants revenge. Gamora, meanwhile, reveals that she never intended
to give Ronan or Thanos the stone, knowing they would use it for their own villainous
purposes. And so, this ragtag group band together to save not only the stone but the entire galaxy.
Ronan’s army manages to defeat the unlikely allies and steal the stone. Instead of turning the stone
over to Thanos, Ronan decides to harness the power for himself. Feeling overlooked and cast-off by
her adoptive father, Nebula decides to align with Ronan and his army. To combat the powerful Ronan,
Quill forges an alliance with the Ravagers and the Nova Corps. During the final battle,
Groot sacrifices himself to save his new friends,
while the rest of the team join together to harness the stone’s power and kill Ronan.
With the galaxy saved, Quill gives the power stone to the Nova Corps to protect,
Groot begins to regrow as a sapling, and the new found family of misfits decide to
continue working together as the Guardians of the Galaxy.
In Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, a few months have passed and the Guardians have grown into a
closer, albeit highly dysfunctional, family. Quill and Gamora have even begun to develop a romance.
The Guardians are hired by the Sovereign to protect some valuable batteries in exchange
for Nebula, who was captured after trying to steal the batteries for herself. While Nebula failed,
Rocket succeeds in going rogue to steal the batteries, angering the Sovereign’s leader,
Ayesha. They attack the Guardians, causing them to crash on an unknown planet,
and hire Yondu and his Ravagers to capture the Guardians. Yondu manages to capture Rocket,
Groot, and Nebula, but refuses to turn over Peter Quill to the Sovereign. This causes the
Ravagers to mutiny and execute those loyal to Yondu. Yondu’s right hand man, Kraglin,
manages to survive, then frees Yondu and Rocket, who kill the disloyal mutineers.
While crashed on the mysterious planet, the other Guardians meet Ego,
who reveals himself to be a god-like Celestial, so powerful that he created the very planet
they were currently stranded on. Oh, and he also happened to be Peter Quill’s father.
Ego reveals to Quill that he had traveled to thousands of planets leaving seedlings of himself
which could only be activated by the power of two Celestials. And so, Ego impregnated countless
women, hiring Yondu to bring them to him when they came of age. So far, none of those children
proved powerful enough, so Ego killed them all. When Quill appeared to possess Celestial power,
Ego gave his mother a tumor that killed her, hoping to remove any distractions from Quill’s
life. Yondu, not wanting the young Quill to die, betrayed Ego and raised Quill as a Ravager.
As an angry Quill fights Ego using his newly discovered Celestial powers,
Ego’s empath servant Mantis warns the other Guardians of Ego’s villainous
nature. They travel to the planet’s brain to plant a bomb. As the bomb explodes,
Ego dies and Quill loses his Celestial powers. Yondu sacrifices himself to save Quill,
who realizes just how much love this makeshift father truly had for him.
As the film comes to a close, Mantis joins the Guardians, Yondu is given a Ravager funeral by
leader Stakar Ogord, Kraglin takes Yondu’s signature arrow and headgear as his own,
Quill and Gamora profess their love for each other, Ayesha and the Sovereign
create a new artificial being known as Adam to enact revenge on the Guardians,
and Nebula, now reconciled with Gamora, goes off to find and kill Thanos.
And that brings us back to Avengers: Infinity War. It’s been four years since the Guardians
defeated Ego, and they’ve continued to live as a dysfunctional family of misfits.
Unfortunately, the villainous Thanos is growing closer to acquiring all of the Infinity Stones,
stealing the Power Stone from the Nova Corps, and destroying an Asgardian ship to
retrieve the space stone, leaving Asgardian leader Thor stranded in space. Eventually,
the Guardians pick up a distress signal from the destroyed Asgardian ship and rescue Thor. The
group then devise a plan to stop Thanos from acquiring all of the infinity stones. Thor,
Rocket, and a now teenaged Groot travel to a dwarf king named Eitri, who forges Thor a new weapon,
a mighty battle-axe known as Stormbreaker, using Groot’s arm as the handle. Meanwhile,
the Guardians travel to a planet called Knowhere, to prevent Thanos from stealing
the Reality Stone. While there, Thanos defeats them, stealing the stone and capturing Gamora.
Thanos takes Gamora to Vormir, homeworld of the Soul Stone. In order to obtain the stone,
Thanos had to sacrifice someone he loved, so he kills his daughter Gamora and acquires the stone.
Nebula and the other Guardians team up with Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man to
fight Thanos, but upon learning of Gamora’s death, a vengeful Quill accidentally ruins their plans,
allowing Thanos to overpower the group and escape to Earth to collect the final stone.
Thor, Rocket, and Groot arrive on Earth to join the other Avengers in their final fight
against Thanos. Despite their best efforts, Thanos defeats them all to acquire the final
infinity stone. With the snap of his finger, half of the entire universe’s population,
including every Guardian but Rocket and Nebula, are killed.
In Avengers: Endgame, the surviving Avengers kill Thanos, but remain depressed over their
fallen allies. Five years later, Nebula and Rocket team up with the surviving members of
the Avengers on a new plan to defeat Thanos. By traveling through time to
acquire the infinity stones before Thanos can, the Avengers could use the stones to
bring back all of their lost friends and defeat Thanos once and for all.
As the Avengers split up to retrieve the stones from various points in time,
Nebula travels back to 2014 to steal the Power Stone before Quill could obtain it. Unfortunately,
before Nebula can return to the present she is captured by the 2014 version of
Thanos who learns of his future success and the Avengers current attempt to reverse it.
He sends the still evil 2014-Nebula to the future to pose as the present day Nebula.
In the present, the Avengers reconvene, having successfully acquired all of
the infinity stones. While the Avengers are distracted, 2014-Nebula uses the time machine
to bring 2014-Thanos and his massive army, including the still villainous 2014-Gamora,
to the present. Meanwhile, Hulk uses the infinity stones to reverse Thanos’ snap,
bringing back all of their fallen friends, including the Guardians of the Galaxy.
The Guardians and all of their resurrected allies join together to battle Thanos’ army. During the
battle, Nebula kills her villainous past self, but manages to convince the 2014-Gamora to betray
Thanos. Eventually, Iron Man sacrifices himself to defeat Thanos, saving the world once and for all.
Following Thanos’ defeat, the Guardians are finally reunited, with Kraglin officially
becoming a member, and the 2014-Gamora decides to leave to make her own path.
In the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, the Guardians buy a space territory known as
Knowhere and make it their official new home. Also joining the Guardians is a superpowered talking
dog named Cosmo. Despite all of their successes, Quill still finds himself depressed over the death
of his love, Gamora. As his friends try to cheer him up, what ultimately brings Quill joy is the
revelation that Mantis is in fact Ego’s daughter, making her Peter Quill’s half-sister. With his
biological sister in Mantis and his found family in the Guardians, Quill is finally at peace.
How will the story of Peter Quill, the 2014-Gamora, and the rest of the
Guardians come to an end? We’ve gotta watch Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 to find out!