With an episode called “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” I can’t help but wonder how many times Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy animated series has actually fooled us. Seriously this show has had more false endings than Lord of the Rings. I’m not taking bets that this is the last episode, but still, meet me after the jump, for my thoughts on “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
Hungry Heroes
The Guardians of the Galaxy are hungry. That statement alone makes me wonder about the true size (not for the first time) of the Milano, and especially its larder. Surely someone, other than the man-child Peter Quill, is responsible enough to fill the larder, right? Luckily it is unbelievably Star-Lord who is the voice of reason… let’s just stop somewhere for snacks.
Looking for a planet to get a snack, they catch a broadcast addressing the Guardians as heroes. Flood World, a place the Guardians have never been, certainly is hot for our heroes and want them to visit. Without questioning any of this, the Guardians come right over. In no time at all they are met by a pitchfork waving alien populace and tied to a machine called the ‘doom-giver.’
Trick or Treat
Of course it’s a trap. Who, besides the Guardians, didn’t see that coming? I was happy to see Gamora however be the one to save everyone from the doom-giver, finally she has something to do on this show, and it’s in character. As it turns out, the residents of Flood World had been scammed by people pretending to be the Guardians.
In a scam, proudly thought of by Star-Lord in his Ravager days, called ‘trick or treat,’ a manufactured threat is introduced, heroes arrive to dispose of it, and while the resident peoples are evacuated, their homes are looted. The obvious conclusion to even Star-Lord is that Yondu and the Ravagers are back in business and pretending to be the Guardians to pull off this stunt.
Droom
The threat manufactured by the Ravagers is a Droom, here it’s a just-add-water monster. The more water applied to the tiny dog-sized lizard, the bigger it gets. To turn it back, just dehydrate it. There is more however to these Drooms than meets the eye. Like Groot himself, and the Moombas and Fin Fang Foom from earlier in the season, Droom is one of the Atlas Comics monsters.
This Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creation first appeared in 1960’s pre-Ant-Man Tales to Astonish #9. Originally a Droomedia Rex, one of the world’s most dangerous reptiles, it was exposed to an experimental growth serum and became a major league Godzilla-sized city smashing kaiju. Droom emerged years later to fight various superheroes and similar monsters. The Drooms in this episode however bear little resemblance visually to the comics Droom.
Confrontations
As would be expected, the Guardians confront the Ravagers in their ridiculous faux hero gear. It’s hard to imagine how the Flood Worlders were fooled in the first place. The one surprise of the episode is why this barren world is called Flood World, I liked that, I just wish it could have been foreshadowed a bit more. Eventually the Guardians and the Ravagers must join forces and work together to stop a rampaging Droom, and just like on “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” everybody learns a little something in the end. Or maybe that’s a bad analogy seeing how much trouble Bill Cosby is in these days.
Or maybe it is, because sometimes life isn’t predictable, sometimes things don’t turn out how they should, and people aren’t who they should be or seem to be. During this final battle, in the belly of the Droom (don’t ask), there is a moral struggle going on – Star-Lord confronts Yondu. Yondu may be the man who raised Quill, but he was also paid to do it. As seen in previous episodes, Quill was being set up as a tool for his father all this time, and yet still he looks up to him almost as a father. If Quill could put Yondu on the right path, it would be the proper thing to do.
But Yondu won’t let it happen. It’s never mentioned in the episode, and it would have turned this fun episode into a great episode, but it may take a thousand years to change Yondu’s mind. As we know from the future, there’s a arrow-wielding Yondu in the 30th century’s Guardians of the Galaxy…
