Who Is Better: The Guardians of the Galaxy or the Avengers?

Sure, DC’s big two (Superman and Batman, obviously) might have a love-hate relationship, as seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but we can’t say the same for Marvel’s big two teams – the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers.  While both of their movies are great, we thought that the premiere of the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel would be a good opportunity to compare and contrast both teams.  Let’s see who’s better – the more indie Guardians or the larger, more mainstream Avengers.

Leaders:

Comparing the leaders of the teams is tricky.  There are dozens of Avengers teams and significantly fewer Guardians iterations, so who do we choose as the leaders to compare?

Because we have the movies in mind, let’s compare Captain America and Star-Lord.  While Star-Lord may not be the best (or most experienced leader), he’s done a great job of hold a team of misfits together. In contract, Cap has a lot of military experience that guides his perspective, but he’s not good at negotiating disagreements between his team.

Surprisingly, this round goes to the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Members:

This category is an unfair fight. If you’re a Marvel hero and you’re not a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, you’re associated with the Avengers.  It doesn’t matter how many knives Drax can throw when you can face off against Iron Man, Falcon, and the Vision in pretty much any battles.

This round goes to the Avengers.

Enemies:

Sure, if you’re a superhero you have to fight a ton of big bads, but whose enemies are worse? In the Avengers case, you mostly have to fight people who are related to you (Loki and Ultron, as examples) while the Guardians of the Galaxy have to fight universe-worthy foes. Yes, while the Avengers’ enemies occasionally level cities, the Guardians’ enemies can alter dimensions.  Plus, since they aren’t created by the Guardians, the Avengers are worse at this than the Guardians are.

This round goes to the Guardians.

Stories:

While the Avengers are a more established franchise and have more comics to draw from, the creative freedom that James Gunn has had with the Guardians of the Galaxy has led to better (and funnier) stories.  Will this column have to be updated after the sequel premieres? Probably, as Avengers has had two movies while the Guardians have only had one, but based on what we already know – the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are better than the Avengers ones.

In terms of comic books, the Avengers have a stronger track record than the Guardians. Their rosters and stories are more consistent, and they can attribute more classic comic book storylines to their name. (No, anything Thanos related doesn’t directly connect to the Guardians of the Galaxy, sorry.)

In this case, we’re calling it a draw.

Quippy-ness:

This is a close call… both teams are quippy in their own right (and for different reasons).  While the Avengers have the help of Joss Whedon writing for them, the jokes from the Guardians characters are more natural (thanks to the weirdness of the situations that they’re put in).  This is the one point that we can debate for days, but we say that this one goes to the team that can make three words (“I am Groot!”) into a plethora of comedic material. The winner here? Guardians of the Galaxy.

In conclusion: Both are great properties, but when you put them side by side, the weirdness of the Guardians of the Galaxy makes them stick out – especially when compared to all of the comic book properties currently in existence.  Guardians for the win!