Who is Karen Gillan Playing in The Guardians of the Galaxy?

Fans that saw the recently released trailer for Marvel’s new sci-fi/superhero epic, The Guardians of the Galaxy, may or may not have noticed a familiar face. Yup, Doctor Who fans may have noticed an appearance by Amy Pond herself in tons of blue makeup! People unfamiliar with somewhat obscure Marvel Comics characters may have no clue as to who Karen Gillan is actually playing, the significance of said character, and whether she is good or bad. My goal today is to be a little help! Well, she’s definitely a bad guy, perhaps really bad depending on how the script lays her character out!

Before we get rolling, here’s that trailer, just in case anybody has been under a rock all week:

This character is named Nebula, and she is a feared space pirate that has destroyed entire planets in her various battles throughout many of the more “space-themed” comics Marvel has churned out over the years. At various points, she has claimed to be none other than the very granddaughter of Thanos. Wait, Thanos? Who’s that?

Remember that guy at the end of the Avengers that smiled at the camera? That’s Thanos. One thing many non-comic fans may be missing is that all of these Marvel Cinematic Universe films are leading up to what I can only assume is a film depicting the famous comic story The Infinity Gauntlet, where big ol’ Mr. T. up there manages to collect a series of gems that give him unlimited power. As of the end of Thor: The Dark World, Thanos has access, through his various minions, to TWO of these six gems. One can only assume that Nebula has been sent to secure the third.

I have no idea if they plan on hyping up the possible granddaughter-grandfather relationship between the two, but it would be an interesting way to sneak more info to casual fans about “who that purple dude was”. Seeing as Benicio Del Toro (The Collector) also appears in TGotG, she may just be a random assassin type character working for him.

I tried to find a video of some sort to show what Nebula has been like in other media, and sadly all I could find was an episode of this mid-90’s Silver Surfer cartoon that coincidentally also stars Drax The Destroyer, a character that also features in TGotG. You can skip to around 3 minutes in to see her.

So there we have it! Nebula could be a VERY big role for Karen Gillan, as playing someone that could feature in more movies might make her a big Hollywood action star. Then again they could kill her off in mere seconds for all I know. That’s what makes speculation fun!