#This concept is so good it might just become Mantis' mean deal here

[themonolithicmystique]

Cruel Macro Mantis Empathy Manipulation!

With TheMegaMaryam!

GargusToday at 1:58 PM Any Mantis thoughts maybe? MegamaryamToday at 1:58 PM hmmst mantis trying to calm down drunk rockette and getting violently sloshed via empathy GargusToday at 2:00 PM Gets the GREAT idea to reverse her intentions and make Rockette go even more out of control MegamaryamToday at 2:00 PM "She will get it out of her system if I turn off all of her inhibitions!" -Mantis, having the worst (best) idea ever GargusToday at 2:03 PM Good thing they live in a universe where complete galaxies spring into existence all the time MegamaryamToday at 2:03 PM or Groot's just snatching them from other universes to make up the difference GargusToday at 2:04 PM Mantis big enough to hold them like toys Easily amused by the terror her looming face inspires MegamaryamToday at 2:06 PM more drunk on that power and fear than alcohol at that point doing everything she can to make them feel helpless and doomed because it feels so fun~! GargusToday at 2:07 PM Mantis acting like this while retaining her sweet and innocent persona is my favorite thing actually MegamaryamToday at 2:08 PM same she's secretly the scariest and cruellest giantess in the entire group, but never drops her adoring eager and innocent peronsliaty actively evil in some ways and not just hedonistic GargusToday at 2:10 PM She just lives for the despair, because she can latch onto it and intensify it a thousandfold And STILL promise them that she hasn't even gotten started MegamaryamToday at 2:12 PM Mystique dominates and tortures billions because she likes that it makes her feel good Unhinged mantis dominates and tortures billions because it makes them feel bad. Those promises are truthful as can be of course, and everyone who hears her innocent voice knows that it's absolutely sincere. And she's so, so eager to show that. GargusToday at 2:12 PM And of course Rockette does it because they're in her way Mantis getting big is probably the worse thing that could happen to the universe, because when her powers could only influence one person at a time and required direct physical contact, inducing fear and agony reflected directly back onto her and was too much to do except as a very last resort Whereas the larger she grows, the less the individual experience matters over the sheer power rush of feeling all those hearts and minds feeling what SHE wants them to feel And on such a tiny impulse too! If she actually focused hard enough to replicate what she had to do to achieve the same effects when she was smaller, she'd easily drive an entire galaxy to madness MegamaryamToday at 2:17 PM very, very very good. A single person's emotions can provide her with untold exctasy. The more that's magnified it becomes impossible to describe. And she'd drive that whole galaxy to madness when still probably only barely planetary in size. If she gets galactic scaled, the radius only gets exponentially larger and able to drink in every single iota of fear and pain and horror GargusToday at 2:17 PM I mean, pretty much any emotion she tries to make people feel is overwhelming to the point of feeling like it's physically crushing Even if she tries to make people feel positive and uplifted, the command from her power is like if an entire planet's worth of happiness were forced into your head all at once In which case she's giggling with glee over the storm of internal darkness she's holding back just because she can Likely in anticipation of how good it'll feel when she lets them go and it all comes flooding in Mantis' favorite game: Are You Afraid of Me Enough? MegamaryamToday at 2:20 PM Just a microfraction of what she's capable of inflicting would make AM from I have no mouth and I must scream look like a literal saint in comparison. And she'll inflict that on every living thing in her grasp with the most absolute ease. The answer to that game is always very much "No." and each level of fear makes the previous look laughable. GargusToday at 2:20 PM This raises the question, does she ever turn it on Mystique (And of course all this done with the biggest of smiles and the sunniest of demeanors!) MegamaryamToday at 2:24 PM QUite possibly. Making her feel more powerless than before she ever even grew in the first place. Times about a trillion. (Naturally. She is the epitome of joy and angelic kindness concievable while inflicting these unfathomable horrors on quadrillions) GargusToday at 2:25 PM Oh that would be a great use of her powers Bringing alllllll your insecurities to the surface MegamaryamToday at 2:27 PM and of course her powers cause considerable time dilation. So Mystique could experience the absolute pinnacle of pathetic painful and terrifying existence for years in the span of seconds GargusToday at 2:27 PM Mystique's lucky it's ONLY years since she's somewhat close to Mantis' size Ordinary people... MegamaryamToday at 2:30 PM plus it gets exponentially more dilated the longer it goes on. mystique only got a relative blink at her size. For regular mortal lifeforms, they wish they could escape into insanity. but she ensures they fully conciously experience every microinstant GargusToday at 2:32 PM To do otherwise would be TREMENDOUSLY unkind And what is she if not a paragon of virtue and kindness? MegamaryamToday at 2:33 PM Exactly! If she could fit a hundred googolplex eons of torment into a single picosecond, but chooses not to, that'd be such an incredible waste for their sake! GargusToday at 2:34 PM and of course it means any time she chooses to mush them into galactic dust between her tits, the experience lasts all the longer! MegamaryamToday at 2:35 PM Exactly~! She couldn't deprive them of that incredible joy, could she? That would be so...cruel! GargusToday at 2:36 PM It's part of the reason she rides with Rockette so much So she's a chance of catching as many galaxies and giving them a PROPER treatment rather than the sad, short fate of being entangled in her fur and obliterated that way You ask her, this is far, FAR more important work than anything she did while a conventional superhero! What good is your pitiful suffering if it doesn't last as long as she can make it last? (She's VERY condescending too) (Even towards Rockette) MegamaryamToday at 2:39 PM The concept of mortality is so unfair to her, so she'll fit in as much time and dpeth into their short sad lives as possible. Even if she stretches an instant of suffering into trillions of googolplexes. She's the greatest hero to ever live in her own mind with what she's doing! The apex flea bringing the gifts of torment and pain. And absolutely the case. It's just the reality of the situation she's mentioning! No fliter as ever GargusToday at 2:40 PM "Congratulations! You are being rescued!" "Now suffer" MegamaryamToday at 2:41 PM Of course, she is the source of all this suffering in the many many many functional eternities she stuffs into each picosecond And is equally smug in each torturous iteration GargusToday at 2:42 PM oooh, how so? MegamaryamToday at 2:42 PM kind of like a magnetism where their thoughts springing from these hellish emotions come back to her. THey never, ever forget who's causing all this naturally she's absolutely high off this sensation she's getting GargusToday at 2:43 PM Her judgement impaired evermore with each passing instant Takes GREAT offense if anyone dares call her evil or even think about her as such She hasn't changed a tiny whit! MegamaryamToday at 2:46 PM exactly! She is the epitome of all that is good, and to think otherwise is the epitome of evil! these poor little fools will eventually realize, she's sure GargusToday at 2:47 PM Her only regret is that sometimes she misses a galactic collision and can't help the poor defenseless specks within it MegamaryamToday at 2:51 PM She'll see if one day she can train her powers to work on those who have already died. Her dream would be for her powers to affect all creatures living and dead across all time and space. Oh how wonderful that would be~! GargusToday at 2:52 PM An undying hell of Mantis dictating how everyone feels at all times Mostly geared towards making them cower before her MegamaryamToday at 2:54 PM Time would become a flat circle of endless unfathomable suffering and horror under her kind and loving influence she gets giddly just imagining it~ GargusToday at 2:54 PM Even Rockette caught in her maelstrom~! MegamaryamToday at 2:59 PM though rockette most likely would be given nothing but joy and eternal drunkeness beyond what's physically possible Groot of course completely above this but casually enjoying it GargusToday at 3:00 PM Mantis is nothing if not a loyal little flea~ MegamaryamToday at 3:03 PM her view on this for certain. No hypocrisy at all just love for all living things expressed differently~ GargusToday at 3:03 PM This is a great cruel gts scenario we've cooked up MegamaryamToday at 3:04 PM it really is and that's saying something considering some of the cruel but lovely stuff we've come up with

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #130: The Reality Problem!

December, 1974

Not sure what this title means.

And I think “one of the greatest battle issues ever!!” is maybe overselling it a bit. But I appreciate that your own stories excite you, Steve Englehart.

Last time: Kang kidnapped Mantis, Scarlet Witch, Agatha Harkness because one of them was destined to be the Celestial Madonna (it was Mantis) and Thor, Iron Man, and the Vision to stuff into Macrobots to cause World War III. Swordsman, Hawkeye, and Pharaoh Rama-Tut freed the other Avengers but at the cost of Swordsman’s life and Rama-Tut and Kang disappeared into the time stream after slightly nudging a lever.

This time: A bunch of villains interrupt a perfectly good funeral.

But the splash page was a bit ahead of where the story actually starts. After thwarting Kang in China, the Avengers have returned to Avengers Mansion to catch up.

Hawkeye tells the Avengers (and Agatha Harkness who is sitting in on the meeting and distracting Wanda with her cat) that Captain America has become Nomad. They’re all just thrilled that Cap is getting back out there into the game of punching people in the face after he was so disillusioned post-Secret Empire.

Iron Man assumes that Hawkeye is going to be rejoining but Hawkeye is non-committal.

Then Mantis comes in and tells them that this is goodbye. She doesn’t feel she can remain with the Avengers after her actions dishonored them. She’s going to return to Vietnam and try to figure out her past. And she only asks she be allowed to take the Swordsman’s body to bury it in Vietnam.

As far as she knows, it is where he was the happiest.

It occurs to me that because of the nature of the biz, they are going to bury him without knowing his real name (Jacques Duquesne). Or his life outside the mask at all. It actually turns out that he had a daughter and although he never really raised her, apparently swording is genetic because she became a master of the blade too. But because Swordsman never told even Mantis anything outside the swashbuckling persona he wanted for himself, the Avengers don’t learn about her until 2014. And who knows how many years that is in sliding timescale time.

Just goes to show. If you’re a superhero with a secret identity, make arrangements. You could die during the next big event. Although it might later turn out that you weren’t dead or you may be resurrected so it could be hard to make any kind of arrangements you’ll be happy coming back to.

Anyway.

Thor says that they were holding off on burial arrangements because they were waiting to see what her wishes were. And says thee nay to goodbye. Obviously the Avengers are going to the funeral.

Mantis is shocked that the Avengers are sticking with her after the terrible way she acted but Thor says “thy chastened demeanor doth reflect a penitent soul.” I guess as long as you know you goofed up?

Scarlet Witch can’t go though. Agatha Harkness insists that she get back to her witchcraft studies. And although she doesn’t say anything out loud (because it would be in poor taste) she wishes Vision would stay with her because she still doesn’t trust Mantis around him.

Vision does initially decide to remain. But because he no longer trusts himself. He has frozen up in the middle of battle three times now: once against Dormammu, once against Zodiac, and now once against Kang. He doesn’t feel fit company for the Avengers.

But Iron Man and Thor talk him into coming. Its better that he be along where they can aid him if necessary than cooped up alone in the mansion, since Wanda is going to be sequestered.

ELSEWHERE, the Saigon Diamond Exchange. A probably-ex-GI has covered himself with razor blades and called himself the Slasher. I’m not sure how he feels about shipping but he’s slashing prices down to nothing!

... he’s stealing the diamonds.

And he means business. When a security guard tries to intervene, the Slasher back hands him across the face, causing several spurts of blood.

And then he runs off with the diamonds. And since nobody can block his way without getting cut, he escapes easily. THE PERFECT CRIME.

Hours later, the Avengers Quinjet over to the abandoned temple of the Priests of Pama.

Mantis chose this spot for the Swordsman’s burial. BUT ONLY BECAUSE IT FILLS HER WITH AN OVERWHELMING SENSE OF TRANQUILITY. Its not like she believes that she was raised here.

(I think there’s a somewhat darker reason she chose this location but we’ll get to that a moderate amount down the line)

And then the burial.

Hawkeye thinks something that I had been thinking. That Swordsman was basically a Hawkeye that never got the breaks. And with that realization, Hawkeye is sorry for giving him so much grief.

Mantis lets her feelings out in a chant of lament and then asks Thor to speak for Swordsman as a god, despite not knowing Swordsman’s chosen faith. But hey, if he was Norse, he definitely earned a place in Valhalla. Died in battle.

Thor: “All Father Odin, we who be immortal are ofttimes tempted to forget the meaning of mortality -- that life is but a temporary gift for most. A man cannot exist without the knowledge that he may forfeit that gift whenever he places himself in the path of peril... yet men do risk their lives, and sometimes lose them, for many and varied reasons... and the greatest of these... is love.”

And then they bury the Swordsman.

So he’s gone forever.

And then the Avengers hear a scream from outside the temple and go rushing into action. They’d have liked to mourn the Swordsman much longer but being an Avenger means running towards the screaming.

And they find Iron Man foes the Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo and Thor villain and Master of Evil the Radioactive Man chasing a man out of the jungle.

The man sees the Avengers and hopes they’ll save him but he doesn’t make it before Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man start blasting him.

But they’re not killing him. They say they are only teaching him a lesson. For this man, Sen Fa, struck his wife so hard that she died of it.

The Avengers run to intervene but Crimson Dynamo goes Red Light. This is their business, the business of the Titanic Three. And the Avengers have no authority here.

See, this is after the Vietnam War cease-fire but before the fall of Saigon. And in North Vietnam (which is where the temple is, I guess) the Titanic Three are the superheroes.

Radioactive Man recaps their origin. He was sent to America by his Chinese masters and then joined the Masters of Evil but he met defeat each time. Likewise, Titanium Man fought Iron Man several times for the Russians and always lost. His final mission was to persuade the exiled Crimson Dynamo to return to Russia. Instead, Titanium Man joined Crimson Dynamo as an independent agent. And hearing about it, Radioactive Man broke out of prison to join them.

The three allied themselves with the Viet Cong, the only popular front in Vietnam, because none of the superpowers could touch them without political complications. And together they became the TITANIC THREE!

Here, they are the LAW. And the Avengers are trespassers. So kindly gtfo.

Now this is a fascinating concept. I always like for non-America countries to have their own superheroes. Because you’d think that logically, the same amount of weird lab accidents, mutations, and inventing would happen outside America and create superheroes and villains.

Failing that, during the Cold War, a lot of comic villains were enemy agents sent by Russia or China to America to steal plans or sabotage or fight American superheroes or whatever. If they would just stay home, they could be the Russian Avengers. (The Russians do get a superhero team later which includes a guy who turns into a BEAR!)

But with the Titanic Three you get the added wrinkle that they’re all devoted communists but tired of how their homelands treated them so they all moved to Vietnam to be superheroes there. Still half-communistic but independentish from China and Russia.

And they may not act like the Avengers would view superheroes (clearly torturing a helpless captive) but on the other hand, they tracked an abuser and murderer through the jungle to bring him to justice. On some level, they do seem committed to the idea of being heroes. Maybe if only to put some tallies in the win column for a change.

I expect it only to last until someone wants to use one of the three as a villain of the month.

Anyway, Iron Man takes great exception to being told to leave. Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo were responsible for the death of a woman he loved and the Viet Cong was responsible for him becoming Iron Man. So he is itching to pick a fight.

Thor holds him back.

Thor: “‘Tis their land now, and even as we may not follow Dr. Doom into his kingdom of Latveria -- so are we powerless here!”

Well, the Avengers did go into Latveria once, although they were lured into a trap so it probably doesn’t count.

Iron Man then attacks Thor to get him out of the way.

It goes about how you’d expect.

Thor is mostly embarrassed that Iron Man is making him settle this dispute so publicly. And in front of their villains, no less! Geez, Tony.

Anyway they agree to leave and head for Saigon to investigate Mantis’ past. Since Captain Marvel is Kree, they broadcast a worldwide signal for him or Rick Jones but they’re both busy in Captain Marvel’s own book so the Avengers go to do some legwork.

Mantis goes to a house she remembers living in when she was young but the inhabitants tell her the house was only built two years ago.

Leaving Mantis to realize she may be mistaken about her whole life and being.

Hawkeye asks whats the deal with Mantis anyway and Vision recaps all the Mantis highlights, which is handy for any readers just tuning in. Although because he’s a gentleman he doesn’t share that Mantis was aggressively flirting with him before Swordsman’s death.

Mantis leads the Avengers to other landmarks from her youth but nobody at those places remembers her. And her spirits sink lower and lower.

The tour just so happens to go by the Slasher’s hiding spot (oh yeah, he was set up in this issue, wasn’t he?) and he instantly assumes that they’re looking for him. Because he has an over-inflated sense of his own importance and a little bit of paranoia.

Initially, he plans to just lay low until his fence arrives so he can palm the jewels off on him. But then he happens to spot the Titanic Three walking around on another street.

Because they can just visit Saigon whenever they want because nobody can prove they’re with the Viet Cong and they probably beat up anyone that accuses them.

But that gives the Slasher an idea.

Meanwhile, some brief Mantis self-doubt. Her whole life as she knows it is probably a lie, implanted memories by the dead Kree priests. And she doesn’t see herself as any kind of Madonna, not after how she treated Swordsman and tried seducing a man already in a relationship. And if she is the Celestial Madonna, then who is her mate supposed to be?

And then this character moment is interrupted by an action scene.

The Titanic Three show up with the Slasher yelling about the Avengers abusing their privileges. And now that they’re not in North Vietnam, Thor has no problem throwing down.

Thor gets into it with Titanium Man who blasts Thor and then tries to hold him down, accusing him of bothering a Viet Cong sympathizer. Thor just hammers him.

Crimson Dynamo tackles Iron Man claiming that the armored Avenger only blames him for Janice Cord’s death to spare himself. And then Iron Man blasts him in the face.

Crimson Dynamo realizes that Iron Man is even stronger than last they fought and decides on a strategic retreat down an alley but a hooded figure swings from a rooftop and kicks him off his feet. Which Crimson Dynamo is kind of befuddled by. Dude knocked him on his ass with his bare feet.

Meanwhile, Hawkeye shoots Radioactive Man in the face with a FOOM! arrow because he’s bored of talking politics.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Mantis engages the Slasher. But she’s out of sorts what with Swordsman’s death and learning that her past is a lie. In a brief exchange, the Slasher gets the better of her, BOP!ing her across the face. Thankfully without using any of the many blades glued to him.

And then Vision steps in.

Slasher tries to tackle him but Vision just goes diamond-hard and Slasher bounces off. Some of his little blades even break off in the impact. It’s pretty great.

It’s stuff like this why Vision has one of my favorite power sets.

Anyway, Vision then uses Solar Beam which was Super Effective because it knocked Slasher’s diamond sack loose. The not-so-sharp sharp guy goes scrabbling for the diamonds.

But Titanium Man calls the fight to an end. See, the Slasher told the Titanic Three that the Avengers were harassing him with trumped up theft charges. But he really did have stolen jewels!

Plus, Thor says that the Avengers didn’t even know of the Slasher’s existence until his fight.

Titanium Man: “So! We have been duped! He is a thief -- and as such, he deserves no aid from any decent man!”

The Slasher: “Decent man? You? YOU’RE A COMMIE!”

Titanium Man: “Come, comrades. We need not listen to this filth. We have no further business here.”

The Slasher: “No! Come back! You can’t leave me -- to them!”

Thor: “This man did precipitate battle most foul between two bands of super-beings! To think that one such as he could do that.”

The Vision: “But isn’t that always the way, Thor? Whenever a war is fought, it is never the people who must fight it -- who have any reason to bring it about.”

You sure said a thing, the Vision. A thing that is probably relevant to the country you’re currently in. A thing about a Western guy causing a war in Vietnam after trying to rob the country.

Anyway, the issue felt kind of fillery. Like Englehart needed some Mantis exploring her past before what happens next issue but didn’t want an issue with just with that. So we get a little engineered conflict between the Avengers and the Titanic Three so the action buffs have something.

Still, it gave us the Titanic Three.

Oh. Also, back in the post for issue #126, I said I’d never find out why Klaw teamed up with Solarr. I was wrong. The letters page included in this issue has what I guess was the winning fan theory.

“While Klaw was in a Rudyarda prison, he requested for privileges to get American newspapers, seeking perhaps, an ally to free him. The permission granted, strangely, he read of Solarr’s battles with Cap. Solarr, a maniac with no scruples, who would murder without remorse, was the perfect ally. Calling a human contact on the outside, Klaw set up the freeing of Solarr. Solarr, grateful and anxious for another chance to kill and pick up a few thou, springs Klaw from the Rudyardan slammer, and the end result, AVENGERS #126!”

[helloworlddemo1122-yahoopar-blog]

The Guardians of the Galaxy Promise a Bigger, Bolder and Baby Groot-ier 'Vol. 2'

Twenty-five miles outside Atlanta, down a nondescript rural road and past a security checkpoint where proper credentials, I assure you, are absolutely required, a spaceship has landed. The arches and flooring that make up the ship are pristinely white, like some sort of cosmic Apple store, and yellow-orange light glows from all directions, as if the whole thing had been dropped inside a lava lamp. Its passengers include a space outlaw wearing a shirt with a candy bar logo emblazoned on it, a blue-ish, tattooed alien meathead, a woman with green skin and another woman in skintight green spandex with antennae sprouting from her head, and Kurt Russell.

Russell affably welcomes three-fifths of the so-called Guardians of the Galaxy aboard his ship, a wide grin spreading across his scruffy face. The alien with the antennae, Mantis, looks on skeptically, however, as Peter Quill, Gamora and Drax survey the ship in wonder. Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" swells as Russell pats Quill on the back. And if you don't love me now / You will never love me again / I can still hear you saying / You would never break the chain...

"Chris, keep looking at your dad, even if it feels too long!" a deafening voice booms over the music. This voice of God belongs to director James Gunn, whose spiky head is hunched over a monitor, a microphone hovering near his mouth as he watches the scene unfold.

It's late in April and production is currently more than halfway complete on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 at Pinewood Studios, which Marvel has established as its home base for the foreseeable future. Today, one behemoth soundstage has been transformed into the spaceship to film scene 113. Production moves on to shoot a close-up of Mantis (played by newcomer Pom Klementieff) as she announces in a loopy, slow drawl, "We are here." The orange lava turns blue. "They're taking a trip on Kurt Russell's spaceship. His freaky, creepy, '60s, pop-art spaceship," Gunn tells a group of reporters, ET included, on set. That's all Gunn will say about this scene, though he and his cast are happy to speak to how the next volume in their operatic space adventure will push the furthest edges of the Marvel universe.

"It's a different type of pressure that we're under now. Before the pressure was, 'No one knows you. What's it going to be like to be the first Marvel movie that fails?'" Chris Pratt, who plays Peter Quill, admits during a break from shooting. Pratt is tanner in person, his floppy hair a lighter shade of blond and tight, gray shirt accenting his muscles. He laughs that good-natured Chris Pratt laugh as he recalls, "I can't even tell you how many times I answered that question. I was like, 'Oh, god! This is not looking good!'"

That pressure, at least, has lifted. As Pratt puts it, "People really liked it!" which undersells exactly how much people liked it. Guardians of the Galaxy was liked by critics to the tune of a 91 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and the movie-going public made it the third-highest grossing film of 2014. (And Marvel's third highest-grossing film ever, after Avengers and Iron Man 3.)

"I think the pressure we're feeling now is, How do we do the same thing in terms of wowing an audience?" Pratt, who has only become a bigger movie star himself due to the success of Jurassic World, explains. "Getting people to come in thinking they know what they want but leave having got what they want, but it wasn't what they wanted to begin with."

That message is clear and Gunn echoes it wholly. "I think there's a trap a lot of sequels fall in, where they say, 'OK, we had that beat where there was a dance-off, so what is our dance-off in this movie? And we had that 'We are Groot' moment, so what is our 'We are Groot' moment?'" he says, his forehead setting. "I'm like, 'Screw all of that! This is its own thing.'"

Which doesn't mean that Vol. 2 is throwing out what audiences loved about the first movie. The entire rag tag team, from Pratt, Zoe Saldana and Bradley Cooper's voice as Rocket, down to Glenn Close's Nova Prime Irani Rael, will return. Instead, the movie is doubling down on everything that worked and wagering that good will to take even bigger risks.

"I think this is perhaps even more unique and more daring than the first film," Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, boldly proclaimed earlier in the day, seated in the studio's "war room," a conference room decked out in concept art for the film. "In terms of there's maybe an easy way and a hard way, but the hard way maybe could be more interesting."

The easy way might have included re-growing fan-favorite Groot, the sentient tree voiced by Vin Diesel, back to his adult size before the events of Vol. 2. And Gunn discloses that he "totally, one hundred percent" almost did that, before asking himself, Why not Baby Groot?

"He can kick some a**. He's also an idiot. He's a baby! He's not very smart," Gunn teases of a "very different" Groot. "He's a unique little fella. And he's pretty great in the movie, even though he's not even there! We got the guy on a stick and people are laughing." (Though Baby Groot was not filming during our visit, prop master Russell Bobbitt held court by a protective case from which he pulled out the 10-inch Baby Groot figure used on set. As Bobbitt passed around Baby Groot to a chorus of cooing, he said even the crew members "just die" when he brings Groot out. All of which is to brag: yes, I have held the real Baby Groot.)

Gunn can't help but laugh. "All the time Chris is like, 'Godd**mit. He's going to steal the f**king movie!'"

Marvel Studios

Then there is the extensive roster of new characters joining the Guardians, characters who might just be stranger and more alien than even the talking tree and gun-wielding raccoon -- like Klementieff's Mantis, an actual alien. The Mantis found within the pages of Marvel comics has often been painted Gamora green and is a master martial artist who can communicate with plants and has special empathic abilities. The latter, it seems, may be the only part that holds true for Gunn's adaptation, as his Mantis is also able to manipulate and change others' emotions.

"You're going to think that I'm crazy, but I haven't read the comic books," Klementieff says sheepishly, revealing Gunn instructed her not to. On set, wires protrude from the actress's forehead where her antennae will later be CGI'd in and special effects markers dot her face. "I knew James' version was so different from the pictures and drawings that I saw, that, you know, it would kind of f**k up the [result]...I didn't want the character to be, like, sexual and usually they're always like that. I think we are creating something different."

"I can tell you that Pom is somebody who will be on your radar for the rest of your life after this," Pratt predicts, though neither he nor Klementieff is willing to give away details about how their characters interact. "Like Dave was born to play Drax, I feel like Pom was totally born to play Mantis."

It's not completely coincidental that Pratt should mention Dave Bautista, the former WWE wrester-turned-actor, as Feige hinted that Drax develops a special bond with Mantis over the course of the movie. "At the very core of Drax, he's really just heartbroken," Bautista, taking a break in full Drax makeup with an Under Armor hoodie casually draped around him, reiterates. "There's a real innocence about Drax and I think Mantis has that as well. There's just a very child-like innocence with both characters."

Mantis' introduction comes hand-in-hand with Kurt Russell's, playing Peter Quill's father. The character was teased in the first movie as "something very ancient we've never seen here before" and, in comic lore, Quill's father is the Spartoi alien J'son. Ahead of the press day, Gunn had announced that he was diverging from the source material and that Quill's biological father would not be J'son. Yet in the war room, artwork for a spaceship was labeled as "J'son's Ship" and a planet in another was branded J'son, giving the impression that J'son might not be a person in the movie, but a location. On set, Russell sat in a chair with J'son sewn into the back.

So, what does Gunn have to say for it? "I say the same thing. There is no J'son in the MCU," he coyly protests. "He isn't J'son. He isn't named J'son in the movie. That's just flat out the case. But here's the thing. We'll probably all know who the father is by the time this movie comes out, because the movie really isn't about that."

Three short months later, Gunn was ready to let that mystery go. J'son being a planet and not a person might have been a better clue than anyone could have guessed at the time, as Gunn revealed at Comic-Con that Russell plays Ego the Living Planet. (Gunn also admitted to taking extra precautions to keep us in the dark, writing on Facebook, "When our online press day happened on set, Kurt Russell sat in a chair that read 'J'son,' and all of our script pages and artwork featuring him used the same name.") With that knowledge in place, the movie will deal with Quill being pulled between his biological father (yes, a living planet) and his adopted father, the Ravager, Yondu (Michael Rooker).

"You get to find out who he hopes his father is and who he wishes his father is, and you get to find out whether or not that is the reality," Pratt weighs in. Revealing any further details would surely enter spoiler territory, so Pratt turns the conversation to what he can safely confirm: Kurt Russell is very cool.

"There are actors that I loved growing up, there’s a handful of them, and he is absolutely right at the top of that list and has not once done anything to disappoint the inner child in me," Pratt, who was later spotted laughing with Russell at craft services, gushes. "We're really kindred spirits, I think. Me and Anna [Faris] and Kurt and Goldie [Hawn], I feel like we are the same in some parallel universe. Anna's oftentimes been compared to Goldie Hawn. I guess some people have made that comparison with me and Kurt, kind of like a blue-collar type of dude. He loves to hunt and be outdoors and he's-- I don’t know. I just really, really love him." Pratt chuckles and leans in. "I'm in love with Kurt Russell!"

Perhaps it is the only all-out proclamation of love heard on the Guardians of the Galaxy set, but quite frankly, the thesis of the movie seems to be all about it. With Marvel continuing to test the limits of superhero fatigue -- 2017 marks the first year the studio will release three movies, with Spider-Man: Homecoming in July and Thor: Ragnarok in November -- the Guardians team is focused on making a movie that is as personal as it is action packed.

"For as fun as it is, for outrageous as it is, with characters named Taserface and with Baby Groot killing people and throwing them around, it is very, very emotional and not cynical in the least. It is very, very truthful and sort of unabashedly so, in its emotions," Feige reveals, leaning back in his chair. "It's a very special combination. That's sort of the crux of this whole movie."

Saldana puts it another way. "[Other movies] are all about jokes and punch lines and lubricated muscles and good shots and bigger muscles and other sequels and great f**king hairdos that never come undone," she laments. "And nobody cries. Nobody bleeds. Nobody feels a tremendous loss or void. And these guys are aching all the time. They're just trying to not be so f**ked up. Every day, they're trying to do one less bad thing. And they're trying, because they are a**holes by nature."