Karen Gillan's role as Nebula has been one of the most unexpectedly delightful parts of the Guardians of the Galaxy films. Every time we see her we learn more about her past, and that pattern will continue into the next film where she appears. Recently, Karen Gillan was a guest at Florida SuperCon, where she revealed that not only will Avengers: Infinity War give us more answers about Nebula's enigmatic past, but we'll learn that her upbringing was even more terrible than we thought. According to Gillan...
Without giving away any spoilers, we're definitely going to continue the arc for Nebula and find out more about her past. And actually, we're going to find out that it's even worse than we know. And we're going to see her confront all of it. It's going to be like an emotional explosion.
In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 we learned that much of Nebula's hatred for both Gamora and Thnos stemmed from the fact that, as children, Thanos would force the two girls to fight each other, and every time Nebula lost, Thanos would have her cybernetically augmented in order to try and make her "better." That's...pretty awful, so the idea that it could actually be worse than that is a terrible thought. But according to Karen Gillan (via Cosplay and Coffee) that's exactly what we're going to get.
On the plus side, we won't simply get new details about Nebula's past, but we'll see her dealing with those issues, in what Karen Gillan calls an "emotional explosion." Readers of the original Infinity Gauntlet comic may be perking up at this point, as (and this is your SPOILER WARNING if you don't want to know what happens in the comics) Nebula actually has a fairly emotional explosion in the comic version of the story that the new movie will be based on. In the comic, Nebula spends most of the story a prisoner of Thanos, being perpetually tormented, but eventually, she's the one that actually gets the Infinity Gauntlet away from Thanos, and she uses it against him. It certainly sounds like Nebula may see an arc that ends in more or less the same place in the movie. Considering the path that her character has been on, it would certainly make sense, and it would make for a phenomenal moment on film.
Of course, it does make one wonder. Nebula's big moment in the comics comes at the end of the story, and if we're going to see that same moment in Avengers: Infinity War, what does that mean for Avengers 4? We'd always been of the understanding that the fourth Avengers would be a continuation of sorts from Infinity War, but this makes it sound like either that won't be the case, or Nebula's big moment is going to be something quite different on film. We'll find out for sure when Avengers: Infinity War, hits the screen next May. Until then, be sure to check out everything we know about the big Marvel crossover.
