By TC Phillips

Missed the previous lessons?  Tap through here:
Lesson One
Lesson Two
Lesson Three

Less than a week left until Avengers: Infinity War folks! Let’s turn up the heat.

The Earth-bound Avengers aren’t the only ones weighing in on the fight against Thanos.  Infinity War will also bring the Avengers face-to-face with their cosmic counterparts, the Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s only one way to describe how awesome that’ll be: I AM GROOT!

Meet Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord)

Half human, half Celestial (a primordial being, much like a god with a little ‘g’), Peter Quill was abducted from Earth in 1988 by the alien Ravager named Yondu and was raised under his questionable guidance, where upon he also self-adopted the outlaw moniker “Star-Lord”.  In 2014, Quill betrayed Yondu and stole an orb which, unbeknownst to him at the time, contained one of the Infinity Stones – in this case the purple Power Stone.

Before Quill could sell the stone he was arrested and sent to prison alongside the motley crew who would later escape and become the Guardians of the Galaxy.  After saving the planet Xandar from Ronan the Accuser (a radical Kree warlord working under the direction of Thanos), Quill and the rest of the Guardians were pardoned and they set about “doing a little bit of good” in the galaxy.

Fun fact: Peter Quill has a translator implanted in his neck that helps him understand nearly every known spoken language in the galaxy.

Meet Mantis

Raised by Peter’s biological father, Ego the Living Planet, Mantis possesses strong empathetic abilities which not only allow her to share the feelings of those she touches, but is also able to impart certain thoughts and suggestions.  It was for this reason she was adopted by Ego, who used the woman to help him sleep.

When Ego’s plans to overthrow the known galaxy became clear, destroying all other sentient life apart from himself, Mantis assisted the Guardians of the Galaxy in killing him.  Most recently she has also developed an attachment to Drax the Destroyer, whose own lack of social awareness perfectly complements her own.

Fun fact: In the comics Mantis was actually a human of Vietnamese/German decent who was raised by a Kree religious sect who intended to have her mate with a sentient plant species in order to produce a Celestial messiah.

Meet Gamora

When Thanos, the big bad of Infinity War, conquers a planet and slays an entire species, he usually likes to “adopt” a child of that race and raise them as his own personal assassins.  Gamora, formerly Thanos’s most favoured “daughter”, seized upon the opportunity to turn against her cruel master and her former tutor Ronan when the chance to join the Guardians of the Galaxy presented itself.

Moulded into a living weapon from a young age, Gamora is typically cold and distant, though a reluctant romance with Peter Quill is beginning to emerge.

Possibly the one hero who knows more about Thanos than any other in Infinity War, save her adopted sister Nebula, Gamora will most likely take a front row seat in the fight against her father.

Fun fact: Gamora and Nebula may have been the only “children” of Thanos that we’ve seen on screen so far, but the rest of their siblings The Black Order are going to play a big role in the events to come.

Meet Rocket and Groot

Undoubtedly the fan favourites of the Guardians of the Galaxy, it’s hard not to love the dynamic duo which is Rocket and Groot. Rocket is a quick-witted, cocksure, trigger-happy, genetically engineered racoon with a penchant for building bombs and shooting his mouth off (just my kind of guy).  Groot is a living plant that only seems capable of saying three words: I and AM and GROOT, and only in that order.

On paper they sound completely ridiculous additions to the Guardians of the Galaxy, but the two bring both humour and heart to the team, and I for one can’t wait to see what happens when Tony Stark first meets Rocket.

Fun Fact: Vin Diesel, the voice of Groot, was originally lined up to play another Marvel superhero in the form of Black Bolt (a hero who doesn’t speak at all) in the now defunct Inhumans movie.  Unfortunately Marvel TV pushed forward with their own disastrous Inhumans TV series and the plans for the movie were scrapped altogether. 

Meet Drax the Destroyer

Drax hails from a primitive world which once bore the wrath of Thanos’s puppet, Ronan the Accuser.  When Drax’s wife and child were both slaughtered mercilessly at Ronan’s hand, Drax swore vengeance and ravaged his way across the galaxy until he was arrested and ultimately imprisoned – eventually meeting the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy with whom he escaped.

Following the death of Ronan, Drax had come to realise that Ronan was only acting under Thanos’s command, and it is now against the Mad Titan that he has sworn vengeance.

Fun fact: In the comics Drax’ skin tone was changed from green to a muddier grey so as to avoid any possible confusion with the Hulk.

Alright folks, that’s the main line-up covered, now we have only one lesson left before the big day. We’ll wrap everything up in Lesson Five: What and Where Are the Infinity Stones?