SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains minor spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. If you have not yet seen the film, and don't wish to have certain post-credit details ruined, please save this page and return after your screening!
When Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 arrives on Blu-ray and DVD later this years, fans will have the opportunity to pause the movie and really take in all of its beauty and secrets. One thing certainly deserving a closer look is the original Guardians team revealed in the end credits - but today James Gunn has delivered an early spotlight on one of the oddest characters: Krugarr. Check him out below!
For those who don't fully remember him, this red serpent like alien makes his debut in the second post-credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, where he is seen alongside a few of the original Guardians of the Galaxy members/strange cosmic characters from the comics: Starhawk (Sylvester Stallone), Aleta (Michelle Yeoh), Martinex (Michael Rosenbaum), Charlie-27 (Ving Rhames) and Mainframe (voiced by Miley Cyrus). In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems that he has a history as a Ravager captain who many years ago worked alongside these heroes and Michael Rooker's Yondu - but the truth is that his history in the comics is far more complicated.
To let James Gunn tell it, here's his post on Facebook introducing the Krugarr concept art from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:
When designing creatures and spaceships and planets and prosthetics for a Guardians of the Galaxy movie, we go through many hundreds of designs - thousands in all. For instance, I woke up one morning with a realization I wanted to put Krugarr into a post-credits scene of Guardians Vol. 2 (I'll leave it at that for those of you who haven't seen the movie). Krugarr is a little-known character in the Marvel universe, but I loved the idea of an utterly alien, mute character who was only able to speak through interstellar emojis. He (she?) does speak more conventionally in the comics, but I wanted to add a more extraterrestrial strain to the character so that she (it?) could be a few more steps removed from humanity than Groot. In the comics, Krugarr is also a sorcerer, so it could be a way of adding an occult element into the cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
James Gunn actually does a good job underselling Krugarr's abilities with magic. Krugarr comes from the future in an alternate dimension, but what makes him rather significant is that at some point in the 22nd century he had an encounter with Doctor Strange, became his apprentice, and eventually succeeded him as the Sorcerer Supreme. Like many other Guardians of the Galaxy characters, we don't necessarily expect the movie version of the hero to be a carbon copy of his on-page counterpart, but it is very exciting that Gunn is considering the possibilities of introducing magic to his sci-fi-driven portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Especially since he also mentions that Krugarr was actually an easy and fun character to create.
Fans will not only get a closer look at Krugarr and the rest of the original Guardians of the Galaxy when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 arrives on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD on August 22nd, but everyone should also get excited to see his eventual return to the big screen in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - which doesn't yet have a release date.
