You Don’t Need To Know The Marvel Comics To Enjoy Guardians Of The Galaxy
By Nick Tylwalk
We’ll have our full review of Guardians of the Galaxy coming later, but I just came from a 7 pm showing and I wanted to make something clear: you don’t have to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel comics, or any knowledge of comics at all, for that matter, to enjoy the film.
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Of course as the editor of a comics and super hero site, I can’t say that about myself. But my group of four tonight included a fellow comics fanatic, another person with very basic Marvel knowledge and one whose only exposure to any super heroes came from previous Marvel flicks. I’d say that covers the whole spectrum.
All agreed after seeing it that everything needed to understand Guardians of the Galaxy is contained within this particular movie. The person who knew the least going in said that the opening act was slightly hard to follow because so many characters and concepts are introduced in a relatively short period of time, but also felt that after about 30 minutes or so, it was all systems go.
Without dipping into spoiler territory, I’d even go one step further and say that there are one or two characters for whom being a big comics fan might be a hindrance, simply because their motivations seem (at first anyway) to be different from what you are expecting. I certainly felt that it could have worked as a completely standalone sci-fi film with just one or two tweaks.
If you have doubters among your friends and family who are not comics fans, tell them not to worry. Or if you’re on the fence yourself because you don’t read much from Marvel’s cosmic side, tell yourself not to worry. James Gunn and Nicole Perlman did a great job making Guardians of the Galaxy newbie-friendly, and it’s a work that can be enjoyed — or not, depending on your tastes — on its own merits.