Hello and welcome to Comic Drake where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake.
Like many members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora was an obscure character from
the old days of Marvel comics until the film franchise’s popularity of course.
As such, Gamora has an… interesting history.
So get this.
Twenty years in the future, Gamora is the last survivor of an alien species called the
Zen-Whoberi.
In her original origin, they were destroyed by the Universal Church of Truth, a religious
cult founded by Magus, a corrupted version of a powerful cosmic entity known as Adam
Warlock.
The Mad Titan, Thanos, traveled there, brought Gamora to the past, adopted her, and trained
her so that the could eventually be sicked on Adam Warlock before he could become Magus
and therefore a threat to Thanos.
Now I’ll be the first one to admit that this is dumb and needlessly confusing and
apparently Marvel agrees with me as it was quickly retconned that Gamora’s people were
wiped out in the modern era and they replaced the evil space church with the Badoon, an
evil alien race that’s pretty universally hated.
The only reason I mention Gamora’s original past is because that’s integral to lots
of her history that wasn’t actually re-written.
Look, comics are confusing, but if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have a job explaining them to
you.
Anyway, one day during Gamora’s training with Thanos, they stopped at a spaceport.
Thanos left on business and entrusted Gamora with guarding the ship.
This ended up being the first time that Gamora ever disobeyed her father as she grew bored
and decided to explore the port.
Well… she got mugged and despite all of her training, the number of thugs ended up
being too much for her and Gamora was beaten to a pulp.
Thanos found Gamora’s bruised and battered body and augmented her during the healing
process.
Now, Gamora possessed a new skeletal system made from a nearly indestructible alloy as
well as an enhanced respiratory system and enhanced reflexes.
Apparently Thanos also rerouted her tear ducts so she was unable to cry, but that was retconned
so we could have shots of Gamora brooding and looking all sad.
Arguably Gamora’s best new feature was a healing factor so powerful that it allowed
her to survive the heat of a freaking sun!
After a few issues of healing, Gamora was back in tip top shape!
The training was also done alongside Thanos’ other adopted daughter, Nebula, who served
as a partner and rival, but ultimately it was Gamora who proved to be the stronger of
the two.
This physical prowess and skill even earned Gamora a reputation as the most dangerous
woman in the galaxy.
In fact, Thanos let Gamora slaughter hordes of Badoon which also led her to discovering
some survivors of her people.
Albeit though they were exiled criminals.
Thanos eventually deemed Gamora ready to serve her purpose and was unleashed on both Adam
Warlock and his evil doppelganger, Magus.
Though shortly after, she uncovered Thanos’ plans of galactic scale genocide.
Gamora tried to stop her father, but was defeated and left for dead until she was found by Warlock
who trapped her essence in his Soul Infinity Gem.
Gamora would later be join in the Soul Gem by Warlock’s companion, Pip the Troll, and
even Adam Warlock himself after being nearly killed by Thanos.
This “Soulworld” inside of the Soul Gem was a paradise, but when Thanos managed to
gather all of the other Infinity Gem and assemble the Infinity Gauntlet, it was time for Warlock’s
crew to return to reality.
Using his powers, Adam Warlock projected the souls of himself, Pip the Troll, and Gamora
onto recently deceased humans which over time re-shaped into their normal forms.
The three of them assisted several heroes in taking down Thanos and securing the Infinity
Gauntlet which Warlock divided up.
Multiple heroes were brought together to guard the gems as the “Infinity Watch” and as
a member, Gamora was entrusted with the Time Gem.
Over time, Gamora grew closer with Adam Warlock and even developed feelings for him.
That’s why it was so bone chilling when she had a vision of his death.
See from time to time, Gamora accidentally tapped into the power of the Time Gem and
received visions of the future with the most significant being a stranger standing over
Warlock’s dead body.
This vision started to turn into reality when a man with amnesia washed up on the shores
of Infinity Watch’s home base.
This was Maxus and Gamora immediately recognized him as the man from her vision, but Warlock
refused to heed her warnings and let Maxus stick around.
Gamora never fully trusted Maxus and the two constantly butted heads.
This ultimately culminated into an all out fight when Maxus teased Gamora regarding her
crush on Adam Warlock.
When Warlock expressed not being happy with Gamora’s actions, she threw her Time Gem
at him and quit the Infinity Watch full on.
During the mostly forgotten Infinity Abyss storyline though, Gamora teamed back up with
Adam Warlock to help him and several other heroes take down a bunch of Thanos clones
and at the end, she and Warlock got together and helped raise some sort of messiah child
that is literally never seen in comics again.
You see, Marvel’s cosmic characters fell into relative obscurity around this time and
they only popped up from time to time in small appearances and cameos and unfortunately,
this included Gamora.
It wouldn’t be until 2006 during the Annihilation event when she was be pushed back into the
spotlight.
Since we last saw her, Gamora broke up with Adam Warlock for unknown reasons and is a
member of the United Front, a resistance group dedicated to fighting against the Annihilation
Wave, an invading cosmic force led by the villainous Annihilus and Thanos… of course.
Outside of death and slaughter, Gamora hooked up with the leader of the United Front, Richard
Rider, the last living member of the Nova Corps, the space cops of the Marvel universe.
The day ended up being saved, but almost immediately after defeating the Wave, another threat arose
for the galaxy in the form of a techno-organic species called the Phalanx led by the villainous
Ultron.
The Phalanx managed to assimilate Gamora into their ranks who they then sicked on Nova,
infecting and assimilating him as well.
Thanks to the source of Richard’s power, the Nova Force, he broke away from this control
and freed Gamora as well.
They along with several other heroes defeated Ultron and the Phalanx, but now lacking a
purpose, especially considering that Nova broke up with her, Gamora joined Adam Warlock
on Star-Lord’s new team, the Guardians of the Galaxy, a group dedicated to taking on
large scale threats.
The team split up almost as quickly as it started when it was revealed that Star-Lord
had their fellow Guardian, Mantis, sort of brainwash the team into joining together.
Adam Warlock quit the team, taking Gamora along with him.
The two ended up fighting the Church of Truth before coming back to the Guardians to help
them stop a couple of warring alien races.
Though as soon as the team got back together though, they broke up… again… when Star-Lord
seemingly died.
When Star-Lord came back from... not being dead because comics, the Guardians reformed
and even introduced Iron Man into the fold.
Gamora and Iron Man hooked up for a one night stand which fun fact was actually the result
of an attraction established decades prior.
Along the way, the Guardians picked up even more teammates, but Gamora especially hit
it off with Angela, the half-Asgardian sister of Thor.
The two of them became BFFs, bonding over being warrior women.
Eventually, the Guardians of the Galaxy teamed up with the X-Men and obtained a powerful
artifact called the Black Vortex.
Gamora was the first one to submit to the Vortex’s power and was endowed with crazy
cosmic energy.
Alongside the newly transformed Beast and Angel, Gamora was under the impression that
they had gained some sort of godlike clarity and betrayed her teammates that did not submit,
seeking to convert the world and using the Black Vortex for galactic peace.
Clearly though, the Vortex messed with their brains and after some fighting with their
old teammates and rescuing an entire planet from being destroyed, all who submitted to
the Black Vortex relinquished their powers.
That is everyone except for Gamora.
After enemies of Thanos attacked the Guardians and Spartax, a planet which Star-Lord became
the president of, Gamora left the team so she could use all of her cosmic abilities
to hunt down and kill her father once and for all.
Gamora found her way back to Spartax when she was attacked by an insanely powerful warrior
named Hala who blamed the Guardians for the destruction of her planet.
After Hala’s defeat, Gamora was back to adventuring with the Guardians full time.
Gamora’s cosmic powers from the Black Vortex did fade over time, but she used the last
of it on one of the Guardians escapades to escape capture on a Badoon prison planet.
Shortly thereafter though, the second superhuman civil war broke out on Earth and the Guardians
came by to help out their ally, Captain Marvel.
The thing is though that Captain Marvel and her team had actually defeated and captured
Thanos and shared this information with Star-Lord under the strict guidelines that Gamora did
not find out.
Well… she did… and after finding out that Star-Lord was keeping this information from
her, Gamora left the team… again… and sought out her father.
Gamora was captured by Captain Marvel’s team, The Ultimates, before she could harm
anyone in her quest for Thanos.
Cap offered to release her and arrange transport off planet because in the short time that
the Guardians were on Earth, Thanos managed to escape and fled the solar system entirely.
Now, Gamora didn’t believe Captain Marvel so she broke free and investigated Thanos’
cell for herself.
Unfortunately though, Captain Marvel wasn’t lying and for spitting in the face of her
good will, Cap kept Gamora locked up in her father's cell.
But here the thing.
You know how Thanos just got free?
Well, he literally came back to Earth with an army pretty much instantly.
After being let out by Captain Marvel, Gamora helped out the Guardians and the Ultimates
take down Thanos, rejoined the team again again, and is now back to doing space adventures
with the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Like the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora is a prime example of how an obscure
comic book character can be retooled into something that the mass populace cares about
with just a little bit of love and a little bit of ignoring all the stupid stuff that
happened in old school comic books to just focus on a better streamlined narrative.
She is an amazing addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I’m glad that the Guardians
have such a bigger place in the comic book industry as a whole, but if you like this
video then I would appreciate it if you considered subscribing or maybe checking out our new
playlist on every other Guardian of the Galaxy.
All of our videos all in one place and if you really think this stuff is cool then why
not consider checking out my Patreon where you can get some awesome perks for supporting
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It’s a win-win.
But yeah, playlist, like, subscribe, comment, follow me on Twitter @TrailerDrake.
That’s about all the usual spiel.
Uh… end of video.