James Gunn Confirms That GoBots Are "Canon" in the MCU
Writer and director James Gunn sure did have a lot of fun with Marvel’s The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. There were a lot of great and funny moments in the Marvel Special Presentation, but one of my favorites involved Drax (Dave Bautista) having a run-in with a GoBot cosplayer on Earth.
Not long after Drax and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) land on Earth to kidnap Kevin Bacon as a special Christmas gift for Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), they find themselves walking on Hollywood Blvd. in front of the TCL Chinese Theater where they see several people dressed up in costume.
One of these cosplayers is dressed up as the leader of the GoBots, CyKill, and this sets Drax off! He ends up attacking the GoBot and Mantis explains that the reason why is because "GoBots killed his cousin."
This pretty much seems to confirm that GoBots exist in the MCU, and they aren’t just from the classic cartoon series and toy line from the 1980s. Gunn was asked about this by a fan on Twitter and he confirmed that GoBots are canon, and he explained how he ended up getting the license to use the character, which belongs to Hasbro. He said:
"I chose from the ones available to us, either public domain or Disney or in the case of GoBots, Hasbro being very nice to let us use CyKill."
He also explained the reason he chose GoBots instead of another character:
"No. GoBots was used because I thought it was funnier!"
I’m well aware that this was just a fun gag that Gunn knew the fans would flip over. I know we may never see or hear of the GoBots again in the MCU, but we know that they are out there in the MCU somewhere and that Drax hates them. I would sure like to see an adventure involving Drax where he faces off with the GoBots, but that’s a long shot.
GoBots is a line of transforming robot toys that were produced by Tonka from 1983 to 1987. They were similar to Hasbro's Transformers, and they were initially a separate and competing line of toys. Tonka's Gobots became the intellectual property of Hasbro after their buyout of Tonka in 1991.
The GoBots series featured two opposing forces of transforming robots from the planet GoBotron: the heroic Guardians and the evil Renegades. The Guardians were led by Leader-1 while the Renegades were led by Cy-Kill.
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is now streaming on Disney+ while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. is set to be released in theaters on May 23, 2023.