Marvel’s ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy 2’ Villain — Ego The Living Planet???

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is currently in pre-production, with a release date set for 2017. The sequel to the highly-successful 2014 original Marvel film, has the cast of the first film returning, including Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, and Vin Diesel. The main villain of the GOTG sequel has yet to be revealed, however some rumors suggest that the intergalactic space team’s new advisory could be the strangest villain we have seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to Vine Report, the new villain could possibly be Ego, The Living Planet.

Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 writer/director James Gunn, who wrote and directed the first Guardians of The Galaxy, has recently declared that he will no longer publicly comment on speculations and rumors surrounding the film, whether they be true or false. So it looks as if the director will not be commenting on Ego, The Living Planet, leaving fans to speculate and guess among themselves.

In the Marvel comics, Ego, The Living Planet made his first appearance in Thor #132 in September, 1962, created by Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby. The strange and unique planetary villain was a nemesis of the God of Thunder. The character first began as a regular planet named Ego, but once a scientist merged himself with the planet, as soon as Ego’s sun went nova, Ego started absorbing everything in space. This soon lead to him craving power to dominate the entire universe. He later crossed paths with Thor, whom he was defeated by.

Artist Jack Kirby created the character at a time in which he was incredibly interested in space and the universe, via The Comics Journal Library, Volume One: Jack Kirby.

“I began to experiment…and that’s how Ego came about… A planet that was alive; a planet that was intelligent. That was nothing new either because there had been other stories about live planets but that’s not acceptable…. You would say, ‘Yeah, that’s wild,’ but how do you relate to it? Why is it alive? So I felt somewhere out in the universe, the universe… becomes denser and turns liquid — and that in this liquid, there was a giant multiple virus, and if it remained isolated for millions and millions of years, it would… begin to evolve by itself and it would begin to think. By the time we reached it, it might be quite superior to us — and that was Ego.”

Ego, The Living Planet returned as a protagonist in Thor #160–161, as well as making a guest appearance in #201, with the character’s origin being explored in Thor #228.

Thor: Ragnarok is on the horizon, and with Guardians 2 coming in 2017, it’s possible that Ego could make future appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if the rumor of him being in the movie is true. If the Guardians of the Galaxy cast is going to appear in either of the Infinity War films, Ego could be a villain alongside Thanos.

James Gunn, who also directed Slither and Super, took to his Facebook page in late 2015 to deliver the long message stating that he would no longer participate in talks of casting/plot detail rumors.

“All right. From this moment on I’m going to stop commenting on any rumors surrounding Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, because, eventually, someone is going to come up with a spoiler that has some truth to it. That said, the rumors surrounding Quill’s parentage at the present moment are completely false, and aren’t even close to the truth. I don’t know how people come up with this stuff, but it certainly isn’t through legitimate sources.”

A rumor hit the internet last year claiming to know the secret identity of the father of Peter Quill/Star Lord, Chris Pratt’s character and the main protagonist of the GOTG film series. Gunn took to Twitter to immediately dismiss them as untrue.

Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 opens in theaters on May 5, 2017.

[Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney]