Meet the Guardians of the Galaxy

Courtesy of Marvel, the first official team photo

What a bunch of Assholes.

From left to right:

Zoe Saldana as Gamora, the so-called Most Dangerous Woman in the Universe. The lone survivor of a slave species, Gamora was taken in by Thanos (the big purple dude at the end of The Avengers) and trained as his deadliest assassin. Eventually she turned against him and has been using her skills to aid Anti-Thanos movements throughout the galaxy. Saldana appears to, understandably, be wearing more than Gamora usually does.

Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, Star-Lord. The illegitimate heir to a galactic superpower, Quill is the only normal Earth person on the team. He's a former astronaut who was whisked into deep space by a high member of the aforementioned superpower. They gave him some nifty gadgets like a special helmet and guns to defend them from evil aliens. He took those gadgets and went off to have space adventures instead. Think Jack Sparrow in space. Star-Lord is the Guardians' nominal leader, but how much they actually listen to him varies.

Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket Raccoon. Here's where things get weird. Rocket Raccoon is an escapee from Halfworld, an asylum planet for animals genetically engineered with human-level intelligence and bipedality. He is a talking raccoon with a machine gun. And he's the Wolverine of this team.

Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer. Drax started life as Arthur Douglas, a regular dude from the Earth that Thanos abducted and killed. But Arthur was brought back to life by Anti-Thanos aliens who transformed him into a killing machine called Drax. Now he seeks vengeance on Thanos for killing him. Some of this may be changed for the movie but I should also mention that Drax had a daughter before Thanos killed him. A daughter Thanos also abducted and made into a servant of his.

Vin Diesel as Groot. A tree-like alien from Planet X who once tried to invade Earth in the comics. Groot has control over wood and can grow and shrink at will. Also, the only thing he can say in English is "I am Groot!" but can inflect it to mean different things. He's BFFs with Rocket Raccoon.

The picture above shows the Guardians in a lineup for the Nova Corps, an intergalactic police force. Presumably they'll be wrangling these weirdos into going on whatever adventure is planned for the movie. Like in a "Go on this adventure together or go to space jail" kind of deal.

So that's the team; a lost Earthman, two assassins, a machine-gun toting raccoon and a talking tree. This is going to be fun.