"Earth shall overcome!"
— Rallying cry of the original Guardians of the Galaxy
"In the future, a thousand years from now, there will be a state of war. Earth and its colonies will have been brought to the brink of extinction by the alien Badoon. Only one band of freedom fighters will dare to oppose them ... and we will call ourselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. Some of us will be human hybrids. A thousand years from now, humanity will have reshaped itself in astonishing ways. Charlie-27, for example, will have the enhanced bone and muscular mass of a man bioengineered to withstand the punishing gravity of Jupiter. Martinex will be a silicon being, his biology altered to endure Pluto's extremes of temperature. His crystalline structure will effortlessly channel thermal radiation. Vance Astro, a survivor of the twentieth century, will be a man out of his own time. Vance would perish of old age without the hermetically sealed protection of his body suit. Yet his physical powers will be more than compensated by his formidable psychokinetic powers. Yondu from Centauri will appear to be a bowhunter from a simple, more primitive era. But the sonic-resonant metal of his arrows will make him an elite warrior. Side by side, a thousand years from now, we will fight to save mankind."
— Starhawk's opening narration, Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2 issue 7
"I am Groot."
— His Majesty, King Groot of Planet X, all the time
Badoon: Hostile organisms have been detected. They are assaulting the war factories. Should we suspend testing?
Badoon 2: The hindbrain responses of the Zom units have not yet been tested exhaustively. We will continue. Have the organisms been identified?
Badoon: They have proclaimed themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Badoon 3: Then I pity the galaxy.
Badoon 2: The hindbrain responses of the Zom units have not yet been tested exhaustively. We will continue. Have the organisms been identified?
Badoon: They have proclaimed themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Badoon 3: Then I pity the galaxy.
"I hate cosmic stuff. I mean, I ***ing hate cosmic stuff. I just don't get it. Look at this. Who are these guys? What are they doing? Are they even guys? I mean, Captain America. I get Cap. I get the Falcon. I even get Iron Man. They belong to the regular world. A regular world I understand. But cosmic stuff? Captain ***ing Marvel and that giant freaking Galactus? Please. Does it even mean anything? I'm just a guy from Sandhaven, Arizona. I don't do cosmic stuff. But suddenly I'm slap-bang in the middle of some."
— Jack Flag
"This is how you fight when you're the Avatar of Death and The Magus is trying to stop you. This is how you fight when every black knight and cardinal and acolyte of the Church's homeworld Sacrosanct has turned out to stop you. This is how you fight when you're Phyla-Vell, the daughter of Captain Marvel, and nothing less than the survival of the universe depends on you.
This is how you fight when you're the last survivor of the galaxy's greatest freedom fighters. This is how you fight when you've lost everything including the timeline you came from, and all you've got to cling to is the cause you believe in. This is how you fight when you're called Major Victory and you were born to guard the galaxy.
This is how you fight when you're blessed with staggering psychic powers, even if you can't remember how you came by them. This is how you fight when your name is Cosmo, and your friends need you.
This is how you fight when you're allowed to cut loose with mental-powers and martial arts skills that you usually keep in tranquil reserve. This is how you fight when you're Mantis, and you can feel a billion zealous souls closing in to kill you and the people you care for.
And this how you fight when you're Gamora, and you're the deadliest woman in the galaxy.
The black knights of the Universal Church of Truth rally. The catacombs of Sacrosanct echo with their clattering steps. Strengthened by their armorweave body-plate, faith-enhanced biologies, beam weapons that discharge bolts of pure belief energy. The Church's troops can take down a planet in hours. Today they're going to find these five misfits more of a challenge."
This is how you fight when you're the last survivor of the galaxy's greatest freedom fighters. This is how you fight when you've lost everything including the timeline you came from, and all you've got to cling to is the cause you believe in. This is how you fight when you're called Major Victory and you were born to guard the galaxy.
This is how you fight when you're blessed with staggering psychic powers, even if you can't remember how you came by them. This is how you fight when your name is Cosmo, and your friends need you.
This is how you fight when you're allowed to cut loose with mental-powers and martial arts skills that you usually keep in tranquil reserve. This is how you fight when you're Mantis, and you can feel a billion zealous souls closing in to kill you and the people you care for.
And this how you fight when you're Gamora, and you're the deadliest woman in the galaxy.
The black knights of the Universal Church of Truth rally. The catacombs of Sacrosanct echo with their clattering steps. Strengthened by their armorweave body-plate, faith-enhanced biologies, beam weapons that discharge bolts of pure belief energy. The Church's troops can take down a planet in hours. Today they're going to find these five misfits more of a challenge."
— Narration, vol 2 issue 24
