'Guardians of the Galaxy 2' Villain Might Be Iron Man's Fault

There are a lot of new outlaws who appear in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and chief among the newcomers is Taserface, a goofball badass played by Chris Sullivan. A Ravager, Taserface spearheads a mutiny against Yondu (Michael Rooker) and assumes control while holding Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) hostage. Described by director James Gunn as “the dumbest character of all time,” who chose his own dumb name for himself, Taserface actually has a more direct connection to Earth’s Avengers than anyone in the film.

On Friday, in a Facebook Live interview with Inverse, Sullivan told us all about how Taserface’s comic book backstory connects to Iron Man. “He is a member of the Stark race, right?” Sullivan said. “That’s the history in the Marvel comics. I don’t know if we touch on it [in the movie], but in the comic books, [he] is a member of the Stark race because this group of people came across a jettisoned pack of Stark technology that Tony Stark had shot out into space to keep away from a villain. And they came across it and figured out how to use it and call themselves the Starks.”

This origin was detailed by Jim Valentino in Guardians of the Galaxy #1, released in 1990. In Valentino’s run on the series, Taserface becomes a prominent enemy of the Guardians and later adopts the name Overkill. Because of Tony Stark’s unmatched intellect, even throughout the galaxy, an entire alien species advanced into the cosmos all because of Stark.

It’s unclear if the movie version of Taserface is still part of the Starks, or even if the Starks exist, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark hasn’t left Earth’s atmosphere since 2012’s The Avengers, and he certainly hasn’t shot anything into space, at least that we know about.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be released on May 5.