So who was that guy at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy?

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

And here we are once again. Though this will be more Marvel reference housekeeping than speculation because this newest stinger didn't really tease anything new. But it did deliver one hell of a bizarre, unexpected appearance that will confuse the heck out of all but the most hardcore Marvel zombies.

Make no mistake, this stinger is effectively Marvel crossing the Rubicon. You wanted the Marvel universe on screen? Well damn if that doesn't mean all of it. You bought the ticket, here's where the ride's taking you. There's no going back now.


As always, here's a description of the teaser. During the course of the film, the Guardians try to sell the Infinity Stone they've picked to Taneleer Tivan, The Collector, so that it will stay out of the villain Ronan's hands. I brought up the Collector and the stones here. But the Collector's put-upon assistant decides to take revenge on him at that moment and grabs the stone, vaporizing herself and blowing up most of Taneleer's collection. At the stinger, we catch up with the Collector sitting dejected in the ruins of his collection and sipping a fruity drink. One of the pieces of his collection, a Soviet space dog, comes over and licks his hand trying to cheer him up. Off screen a gruff voice asks, "Gross. Why did you let it lick you?" Cut to an anthropomorphic duck in a suit smoking a cigar and holding a drink on top of a broken display case. Black out.

Now those with who don't memorize comic minutiae are probably asking "What the hell?" But this is not just a random non sequitur, this duck is actually a classic Marvel character. A rather infamous one in fact. Because this is Howard the Duck.

Howard from the comics

Now most of you probably know Howard the Duck as an infamously terrible movie from the 1980s produced by George Lucas, but before that cinematic atrocity Howard was practically the vanguard of Marvel's avant-garde in the 1970s. Created by writer Steve Gerber, Howard began life as a swipe at Donald Duck and other "funny animal" characters popularized by Disney. A denizen of an alternate reality called Duckworld, Howard found himself transported to Earth and embroiled in bizarre adventures. It was essentially a dark comedy in comic book form that mocked the conventions of superheroes and engaged in social commentary with liberal doses of adult humor. Think of it like if Adult Swim made a comic book. Howard was part of a company-wide experimentation Marvel went through in the 70s, expanding beyond their usual superhero fare into horror, science fiction, and many other genres. It was from this same period that most of Guardians cast was culled from. Despite how out there a concept he was, Howard was relatively popular in his day. At one point he was even a write-in candidate for President. But rights disputes between Gerber & Marvel and the threat of lawsuit from Disney (Ironic now) saw him segue into the background of the Marvel Universe. He still makes the occasional appearance now and then, usually with other comedic characters like Deadpool and the Nextwave Crew.

It's easy enough to guess how Howard wound up in Taneleer's collection, interdimensional transport and all, but I'm still shocked someone okayed this. This is a character that is still a punchline for terrible flops and was purposely made to mock Marvel's now parent company. Worse, it's raised the specter of a new Howard film. Think it can't happen? Remember, we said the same thing about Rocket Raccoon and he's about to make a fucking fortune. This is a strange and terrible aeon we've entered my friends.

Cosmo

Anyway, let's deal with a few other things from Guardians while we're here. First, that Soviet space dog I mentioned. This too is another Marvel character. This dog is Cosmo, a character from the more recent Guardians of the Galaxy comics. He was a test animal in the Soviet space program whose capsule accidentally drifted into deep space. He was later mutated by aliens so that he could talk (in Russian) and became head of security at Knowhere, the space station/severed Celestial head where the Collector is based in the film. Clearly the Cosmo we see in Guardians can't speak, but still a nice easter egg for fans.

Speaking of Celestials, we got a bit more backstory for the Infinity Stones this time out. Apparently they're the remnants of Celestial superweapons from the far distant past. Powerful enough that no single person could use them, scattered across the cosmos to protect them, we've been over this all before. But who are the Celestials? Created by the legendary Jack Kirby, The Celestials are basically space gods that go around creating and destroying entire species across the universe. Why they do this is something of a mystery because the Celestials are so far beyond ordinary mortals that even if they could speak to us, our minds would be unable to comprehend their language. They're also giants, like hundreds of feet tall. So this new origin for the Infinity Stones makes sense, as the Celestials have a habit of leaving dangerous shit like this around, and it fits with Thanos' (a.k.a. big purple guy at the end of Avengers) goal of achieving godhood so he can kill most of the universe. How better to become a god than to steal  a god's weapon?

The Celestials (picture below: superheroes)

And finally, the Kree. This is the alien species that our villain Ronan belongs to, a blue-skinned military empire that like to stir up shit all over the galaxy. They're usually bad guys. Here we have the advantage of having all this different multi-media taking place in the same universe, because it means a mystery in one series can be off-handedly solved in another. In this case, blue guy. One of the biggest reveals over on Agents of SHIELD was that Agent Coulson was resurrected in part by a transfusion of blood from a blue-skinned alien that SHIELD  was keeping in top-secret storage. There had been a lot of speculation as to what exactly the so-called Guest House subject was, especially considering that the character Skye had a much more positive reaction to his blood than Coulson apparently did, but now I think we can safely assume that he is a dead Kree. Now what that could mean is very interesting.

The dead Kree from Agents of SHIELD

It was hinted throughout Agents first season that Skye was not entirely human, but to what extent and in what way is still unclear. But given her body's reaction to Kree blood, her skin briefly turning purple, we can guess that she is part Kree. As for what superpowers that could give Skye I don't know, Ronan is really the only Kree we see in Guardians and he doesn't seem to display any powers, but it could give us some insight into Skye's mysterious father. It's likely he's a Kree, possibly even arriving on Earth with SHIELD's dead one, and it's curious that he's on Earth. My guess is that like Ronan he was considered too radical for the Kree Empire, which according to Guardians has just signed a peace treaty with their neighbors and need to at least look less imperial than usual, so they symbolically exiled him. There's also the fact that all we see of Skye's father is his hand dripping a black fluid and that the first time we see Ronan is him rising out of a ceremonial pool filled with black fluid.

There's a lot more I could mention about the Kree, particularly their connection to Captain Marvel, but let's wait for Marvel to announce that movie first. Wow, look at the places a cartoon duck has taken us. The MCU gets stranger and more exciting with every film and I love the journey it's taking us on. Go see Guardians again and I'll see you back here after Age of Ultron.