Ego was an antagonistic character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the primary villain of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. He was a primordial, immortal being of immeasurable power known as a Celestial as well as the father of Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord. He was portrayed by Kurt Russell.
History[]
Birth and early life[]
The entity known as Ego came into existence millions of years in the past. Ego remembered his birth, being born from nothing, unaccompanied and without a physical body, but aware that he was one of a race of entities known as the Celestials. For many long years, Ego was alone and spent his time learning to control molecules and matter, eventually forming a protective shell around himself. Eventually, the many layers he added came to resemble a planetary body.
After creating his planetary form, Ego pondered as to why he existed, what purpose he served in the universe. To search for purpose and meaning, Ego created a biological humanoid avatar, which was an extension of his consciousness, to explore the cosmos and dwell among galactic civilizations to learn and experience all of the species he encountered.
During his exploration into the cosmos, he found his discoveries "disappointing" when it came to dwelling among civilizations in all of the thousands of planets he explored. Upon reaching a realization, Ego conjured up seedlings and implanted them on thousands of planets. At an appointed time, each of these seedlings would begin rapidly terraforming the worlds they had been planted upon, turning them into extensions of Ego himself. Ego called this plan the 'Expansion'. He only had one problem; the seedlings could only be activated with the combination of two Celestials' powers. Therefore, he impregnated thousands of female alien species then hired Yondu Udonta to deliver the children; on the other hand, the children all failed to inherit the Celestial gene so Ego killed them painlessly and buried their skeletal remains in the depths of his self-constructed planet.
Life on Earth[]
In the late 1970s, Ego visited Earth to plant his seedling in the wooded areas of Missouri, United States. Later, he met human Meredith Quill and awed her almost instantly, under his disguise as a "spaceman". During their romantic relationship, in 1980, Ego and Meredith conceived their first child named Peter Quill, who would successfully inherit Ego's Celestial DNA, becoming his first offspring to grant the power of the Celestials.
Ego realized that he was genuinely infatuated with Meredith and that his feelings for her could put him off-task to settle with her instead of forwarding his plans to conquer the cosmos. Because of this distraction, Ego deliberately (yet reluctantly) implanted a brain tumour on her, leading to her death in 1988, before leaving Earth. In the hospital before her death, Meredith described Ego to her son as 'an angel' and 'a being composed of pure light', which her entire family regarded as a delusion.
Over the weeks leading to Meredith's death, Ego instructed Udonta to deliver his son to him. Udonta, however, realized that Ego had been recently killing all of the previous children that he had delivered to him. Horrified and guilt-ridden, Yondu decided not to deliver the boy. Instead, Yondu trained Quill to become a Ravager and his protégé, becoming a surrogate father to him in the process. Yondu never revealed the truth about Ego to Quill so as not to frighten him, and always told him that he kept him as part of his clan because he needed a small boy who seemed useful enough to sneak through tight places to steal items. Over the following years, Yondu and his First Mate Kraglin Obfonteri admitted that it was probably good to not deliver Quill to the "jackass" of Ego just as they were hired to do. In between Meredith's death and the Quest for the Orb, Ego took up a new protégé, named Mantis, and the two resided on Ego's planet.
Family reunion[]
While Peter Quill didn't think much about his father even by his early adulthood, he became aware that Ego was alive and well after the Battle of Xandar. As the battle reached its end, along with his newfound allies, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Quill used the Orb to destroy Ronan the Accuser despite nearly being ripped out of existence. Following the battle, Irani Rael from the Nova Corps informed Quill that his survival was given due his mysterious father, who wasn't human but from an strange and ancient race she didn't know about.
Two months following the Battle of Xandar, when Sovereign High Priestess Ayesha dispatched hundreds of fleet drones on the Guardians because Rocket Raccoon stole the Sovereigns' Anulax batteries after defeating the Abilisk, Ego appeared unseen and shot immense projectile blasts to hundreds of the Sovereign fleets before the Guardians crashed on the local planet known as Berhert. As the Guardians remained stranded on the planet, Ego's ship arrived then landed, where Ego, along with Mantis, introduced himself to the Guardians and revealed himself as Quill's biological father.
When Ego, Mantis and the Guardians spent time camping, Ego attempted to convince Quill to return to his home and show him his special heritage. While Ego relieved himself, Gamora expressed her suspicions about Ego's true intentions. However, Quill went aboard to the ship with Ego and Mantis, accompanied by Gamora and Drax the Destroyer while Rocket and Groot stay to keep an eye on Nebula.
Upon arrival, Ego gives Quill, Gamora, and Drax a tour of his planet. As Gamora questioned him, Ego explained that he was a Celestial, and existed in the planetary form they were walking on. He assumed a humanoid guise to explore the universe and interact with other sentient species, eventually meeting and falling in love with Quill's mother Meredith. After Meredith's death, Ego compensated Yondu Udonta to collect the young Quill, although Undonta never delivered the boy, and instead, Ego had long been searching for his son ever since.
While gazing at a statue of Meredith and Ego conceiving him, Peter stated that his family back on Earth thought that Meredith was delusional because she thought Ego was from the stars, but they blamed the tumour for making her delusional. Quill and Ego both got into a heated argument about why Ego never returned to see Meredith, to which Ego explained that his humanoid form must return to his planet regularly otherwise his planet will decay if he didn't return; most importantly, he could not stand Meredith's death, claiming Quill could not understand how this felt. Quill angrily exclaimed that Ego never suffered as much as he did because he had actually watched her pass away. Ego grievously stated that, despite him making countless mistakes for eons, Quill was not one of them and he wished to be a father to him, stating it was what Meredith wished for. He taught Quill to focus on Ego's essence within the planet to harness energy to conjure up an energy ball, which Ego and Quill used to play a game of catch, thus resulting in a bonding between father and son.
Meanwhile, Drax and Gamora met with Mantis, Ego's assistant, and began questioning her about Ego himself, as well as why she is with him. Nebula arrived on Ego's planet and attempted to kill Gamora, who survived and defeated her sister, however, the two sisters began to reach an uneasy alliance. Gamora and Nebula delved into a cavern beneath the surface of the planet where they discovered thousands of skeletons hidden inside, confirming Gamora's fears regarding Ego's intentions.
The Expansion[]
Ego once again bonded with his son over their mutual love for Earth music, especially those which were Meredith's favourites. Ego, after Quill had an argument with Gamora, then explained to his son that they both were immortal beings who had a purpose to fulfill. Ego revealed his plans, during which he hypnotized Quill, unlocking a Celestial state inside Quill that was willing to help him take over the universe. He continues to reveal his plans to Quill then shouts out he's not alone for the first in years or in his life.
Ego noticed Quill starting to fight off his control, as Quill was still able to maintain control over his senses due to the bond he had with his friends. Ego tried to sway Quill back to his control by tricking him, and it almost works until Quill asked Ego about his mother and why he never went back for her. Ego stated that he really did love Meredith, but because of this feeling, he almost abandoned his Expansion plans. Ego would have stayed on Earth forever if he had visited her one more time, and it was at this point that he admitted to Peter that he had put the tumour in Meredith's brain. This was an error on Ego's part as Quill immediately came to his senses upon hearing his father's confession and drew his blasters, shooting Ego.
Ego then reformed himself, briefly taking the form of Quill's role model David Hasselhoff just to mock him. Realizing that Quill was firmly against him, he attacked Quill with tentacles of blue energy that erupted from the floor to restrain him, one of them phasing through Quill's torso. Ego began to draw power from Quill to activate the seedlings, which expanded and began to terraform planets across the galaxy. At this point, Mantis overcame her own fear of Ego and warned Drax, Gamora, and Nebula of Ego's plan just as Rocket, Yondu, Groot, and Kraglin arrived.
The reunited Guardians headed towards the core of the planet, where Ego's brain was housed, and fought the Sovereign's arriving drones, having been alerted to the Guardians' location by the doomed Taserface, as well as Ego himself. Rocket made a bomb out of the stolen Anulax batteries that Groot proceeded to plant in Ego's brain, while Mantis uses her empathic power to cause Ego to sleep. The Guardians fought the Sovereign's drones until all of them were destroyed.
They enjoyed a brief moment of victory before a piece of falling debris struck Mantis, reawakening the furious Ego. Ego easily subdued all of the Guardians with his power and restarted the Expansion while furiously demanding that Quill side with him since because they were both "gods", the only beings that matter in the universe. With Undonta's encouragement, Quill discovered his Celestial power and battled Ego to allow the other Guardians to escape and for Groot to finally plant the bomb on Ego's brain.
Death[]
Both Star-Lord and Ego were about equally matched, however, Quill gained the upper hand through Groot's help with the bomb. Ego sensed the bomb on his brain and pleaded with Quill, telling him that if he let Ego die, he would lose his godhood and be normal like everyone else. As Quill had already made his decision, he accepted to be normal as the bomb went off, much to Ego's horror. The bomb destroyed Ego's brain, while Quill watched his father's avatar disintegrate right in front of him. Without Ego's essence, his planet began to break down in a string of massive explosions, ending his plans of universal conquest.
Trivia[]
- Ego is based on the Marvel Comics character, Ego the Living Planet. Unlike the film version, the comic version of Ego did not normally create humanoid avatars of himself and was not bent on becoming the universe; instead he searched the cosmos in the hopes of finding another sentient planet like himself.
- In the comics, Ego was not a Celestial, nor was he at all related to Peter Quill. Quill's father in the comics was J'Son, the ruler of the planet Spartax.