Nebula has experienced one of the most transformative arcs of any character in the MCU, going from secondary villain in Guardians of the Galaxy to serving as a hero alongside the Avengers in Endgame (well, she was also the secondary villain again in that due to her 2014 doppelgänger showing up – time travel, am I right?). You might think that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be the cyborg assassin’s final appearance in the franchise, then. But that’s not what Karen Gillan thinks.
While speaking to Fandom, the Scottish actress made it clear that she expects a lot more from Nebula still to come. Rather than the death of Thanos and becoming a hero being an endpoint, Gillan believes that it’s just the opposite – a new beginning for the character.
“I don’t feel like her story is over at all. If anything, I feel like her story might just be beginning. We found her in a really broken, vulnerable place and over the course of the movies, she’s had to face the source of all of her abuse. She’s just had this huge, cathartic experience and the source of the abuse has been eliminated, so what happens next? That’s something that I think is incredibly interesting. The healing can start but that’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be immediate either.”
It’s not entirely clear from Gillan’s comments if this is her personal view and she hopes that Marvel gives her the opportunity to play Nebula many more times, or whether she’s hinting that she’s already had these chats with the studio and knows that she’s got a range of projects coming up.
It’s likely the latter, though, going by what her GotG co-star Vin Diesel recently let slip. The Groot voice actor recently confirmed some of the Guardians will appear in Thor: Love and Thunder. Given Gillan’s assurance she’s not done with the MCU, we can presumably expect Nebula to be among them. Maybe we can also assume Nebula makes it out of Vol. 3 alive. Maybe even setting her up to get, say, a Disney Plus series to herself?
We’ll have to wait and see what happens, but if Nebula is in Thor 4, then we’ll see Gillan go bald and blue again as soon as November 2021.