The transition from comic book to big screen is always a tricky one. With years of history behind the pages, it’s difficult to squeeze a coherent and exciting story into a two hour film. Many ideas get rejected in the process of trying to make a hit. But just because they’re gone, does not mean that they have been forgotten. One very memorable piece has been shared online which shows a very different look for the Marvel character Ego from Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2.
The work by concept artist Michael Kutsch was posted on reddit and is quite a change from how Kurt Russell looked. While Russell’s portrayal was awesome, it’s still interesting to see what we could have seen.
Unused early concept art for Ego under the codename J’Son – by Michael Kutsche
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Rather than Ego, the character is instead named J’Son and appears to be somewhat older. J’Son appears to be holding the cosmic cube, which is featured in the Guardians of the Galaxy animated series. In the series the cosmic cube creates quite a bit of drama between Star Lord and his father, and perhaps Marvel considered taking this route for the cinematic adaptation before opting to use Ego. We do know that they were considering having J’Son as Star Lord’s father even after they cast Russell.
This is not the only character to get some wicked concept art as the film prepares for its release on home media. Though the character was barely present for five seconds, there was concept art released for how Mainframe (voiced by Miley Cyrus) could have looked.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is available on digital services, Blu-ray, and DVD now.