For a long time, the MCU’s biggest flaw was its introduction of “meh” one-time villains. Fortunately, the quality of evil has improved significantly over the last few years. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2’s Ego is just one example. Ego “The Living Planet” Quill proved to be a worthy inclusion. It could even be said that Star-Lord’s planet father resembled a weirder, less scary Darth Vader. Both ambitious rulers, and father to non-evil sons.
But, despite everything we witnessed from Kurt Russell portrayal, one movie is not nearly enough to show off all of Ego’s…ego. Especially when compared to his comic book counterpart. So, without further ado, here are 10 things about Ego that Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2 doesn’t cover.
ORIGIN STORY
GoTG Vol.2 does have a sort of origin story for Ego. He quickly explains that he is a Celestial and that he has searched his entire life for company. This is massively different from what’s in the comics. Here Ego started out as just a normal scientist named Ergos. How he went from man to planet has to do with the super-powerful being known as the Stranger. When the Stranger arrived, he did so to conduct an experiment that would cause the planet’s sun to go nova.
Basically, everything would explode and everyone on the planet would die. Egros tried to save his people by hiding them in an underground bunker, but the sun erupted before he himself had time to hide. Egros was hit by the shock wave but did not die. Instead, his body was merged with that of every single living thing destroyed by the sun and he became the Living Planet.
HYPERSPACE TRAVEL
The vast immensity of space holds many, many planets. This holds as much truth in the Marvel Universe as it does in real life. Planets float in space. The ones in our solar system orbit the sun. Now imagine a planet was a person, and space was just a place it could move around. Now imagine that planet-person could move around really, really fast. That’s Ego. One we haven’t seen on screen.
At one point in the comics, Galactus (more on him later) attached a propulsion system to Ego’s…body and sent him hurtling through space. It didn’t take long for Ego to figure out how to control it, though, and he then started using it to travel anywhere he wanted through hypertravel. That is, at a speed faster than the speed of light.
POPULATED HOME
If there’s one thing Kurt Russell’s Ego establishes in the movie, it’s how utterly alone he is (if you forget Mantis, that is). This theme is also explored on paper, but it does show us a little more. During Ego’s comic book history, there have been a few times where there were actual civilizations living on him. Usually, they don’t last very long.
They’re either beings that Ego tricks so he can them consume them, or in a few cases, people who have helped Ego, and are then gifted with the possibility of living on his surface. Unfortunately, he has very little tolerance and is easily angered, so these usually end up being devoured as well. The literal consumption of people is something else we didn’t see Mr. Russell do.
ALTER-EGO
The title isn’t an attempt at being funny. Marvel Comics really did introduce a character named Alter-Ego. Just like Ego, he/she/it is a planet. One created by the Stranger, when he gave the planet consciousness. The Stranger designed Alter-Ego to hate Ego, as his plan was always to have both planets battle each other to see who was the superior one.
After tricking Ego into searching for his “brother”, he finds him but is taken aback when Alter-Ego attacks him. They both fight, and Alter-Ego is close to killing Ego when Thor steps in to stop them. Alter-Ego is then destroyed and his remains become Ego’s moon, and they now both travel together throughout the cosmos. Very weird indeed.
AVENGERS OVER GUARDIANS
Speaking of Thor, one awesome battle that is now pretty much impossible to replicate on screen (you know, because he’s dead) is Avengers vs Ego. In the comics, Star-Lord has no connection to Ego at all. To think of it, with the exception of Mantis, the Guardians never even bumped into the planet at all. But Earth’s Mightiest Heroes did take him on…once. That is, he’s only been faced by a full Avengers roster once.
However, the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and (especially) Thor have dealt with Ego on many separate occasions. And he was bested every single time. His first appearance actually took place in a Thor comic book, where the God of Thunder was forced to stop Ego’s plans of conquering other planets.
EGO-PRIME
The cosmic Marvel stories really can get a little bit crazy. The name Ego-Prime has been used for two very similar, yet different beings. On one occasion, a sample of Ego’s DNA gave birth to something new. This new creation was basically Ego…with limbs. Not just a planet, but a giant body. Both the Living Planet and the planet-headed man existed simultaneously.
Years later, when Galactus landed on Ego, he discovered that the planet’s origin story was very similar to his own. He felt sympathy for him and so decided to give Ego a pair of arms and legs to become the second incarnation of Ego-Prime. A giant body with a planet-sized head is definitely something audiences have yet to see in the movie theater.
GALACTUS
I’ve mentioned Galactus quite a few times, and that is a part of Ego’s story that cannot be overlooked. With the Disney-Fox merger, there is now a possibility of seeing one of Marvel’s greatest villains on screen. However, it will be harder to witness a battle between the Devourer of Worlds and the Living Planet. These two have always been arch-enemies, which makes sense, seeing as one is a planet-eater and the other…is a planet.
These two have been at each other’s throats since the beginning. The was even a time when Galactus successfully killed Ego, by throwing him into the sun (yikes!), but being a planet and all, he managed to “walk it off” and continue their decades-long struggle. If there’s one thing missing from, not just Guardians 2, but the MCU in general, it’s a giant space battle between two huge, immensely powerful ancient beings.
ANTIBODIES AND OTHER POWERS
When the Guardians all banded together to fight Star-Lord’s father in the third act of the movie, we finally got to see Ego’s planet-shaping powers. He demonstrated his ability to control the world’s environment by making tentacles appear from every corner of the planet to keep the heroes at bay. He also molded his world to trap the Guardians under rocks, roots, and dirt. However, this was far as he went when it came to showing off his powers.
Comic book Ego has a few more tricks under his sleeve. Firstly, he has the ability to create an infinite amount of humanoid-like creatures to ward off anyone who sets foot on the surface. In addition to that, Ego can also sprout out giant tendrils into space, read people’s minds, blast laser-beams from his eyes and even give consciousness to other planets. Now that would be fun to see.
ID
Yes. For all you with a degree in psychology, you can marvel at Marvel’s sense of humor as they produced both an Ego and an Id. There was also a Super-Ego at one time, but he was pretty irrelevant. Id, the Selfish Moon was originally just a moon that orbited Ego’s planet but ended up also gaining consciousness. From then on, he left Ego, wishing to live a life of fun and joy with new-found friends.
Unfortunately, there were no other living moons in sight, and so, like every single powerful being, he sought to destroy every joyous being he could find. He ended up destroying a few planets but then was killed by the most unlikely of heroes. Deadpool was sent to kill Id, and he succeeded. Just when you thought Ego’s story couldn’t get any stranger…
FULL PLANET FORM
As has been stressed throughout this post, Ego. Is. A. Planet. Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2 definitely showed us something different. Yes, Ego created his entire planet. Yes, he can manipulate anything on its surface for creative, defensive, or offensive means. But Kurt Russell’s character is Ego, the Celestial, not the Living Planet. As such, we did not get to witness what would have been an incredible sight.
For a few seconds, Ego’s planet is shown with a giant face plastered on to the surface. But the face was barely visible and remained motionless. What we will never see is a giant planet opening its mouth to talk, blinking its giant eyes, and basically just moving around as a giant planet. If there was one crucial difference to both iterations of the character, this is it.
