“Why Does That Bother You So?”: James Gunn Defends Gender Reassignment In “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3”

James Gunn explained on Twitter why the character Cosmo in “Guardians of the Universe Part 3‘ (and formerly also in ‘The Guardians Of The Galaxy holiday special‘) is now female and in the original version spoken by “Borat 2” star Maria Bakalova. The director and screenwriter is very active on the short message service and in this case also had a discussion with two Twitter users.

Cosmo is now a female

When asked by a user @Logan78106803 why he made Cosmo a female dog when the character was actually always a male in the comics (and was also played by a male named Fred the Dog in her first appearance in Guardians Of The Galaxy), Gunn replied explaining:

“Because Cosmo is based on Laika, the Russian dog [der als erstes Lebewesen in die Erdumlaufbahn bzw. den Weltraum befördert wurde]that woman wasso i changed her gender back again.

Another user named @Notgoingsane then wanted to know a bit more: Gunn was asked why he didn’t just implement the character in a comedic fashion if the gender swap didn’t make sense. Cosmo was never a woman in the comics. Gunn’s answer:

“I’d rather bow to the real dog that died in space. Cosmo wouldn’t exist without Laika. By the way, I’ve made Mantis, Drax, the High Evolutionary, and others from humans to aliens, which seems like a bigger change to me. Why are you so angry about this?”

Let’s leave it at that for now. You can check out the full Twitter thread, where Gunn received a lot of applause and approval for his comments, here:

Incidentally, the gender change is by no means the only and certainly not the biggest change of the character Cosmo: Of much greater importance to the dog’s plot and development, it is revealed in the “Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special” and “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” that Cosmo has become part of the Guardians (!), can talk (!!) and has telekinetic powers (!!!). That was not the case during the mini performance in “Guardians Of The Galaxy”…

By the way, after GotG Vol.3’s mid-credits scene, Cosmo is still part of the Guardians Of The Galaxy. Further appearances of the telekinetic space dog are therefore quite possible…