Guardians of the Galaxy are a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Guardians first appear in Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (January 1969). The initial roster consisted of Vance Astro, Martinex T'Naga, Captain Charlie-27, and Yondu Udonta. Later members included Stakar Ogord, Aleta Ogord, and Nikki. Publication history Roy Thomas recounted The team first appeared in the partial reprint title Marvel Super-Heroes with issue #18 (January 1969), written by Arnold Drake and penciled by Gene Colan. Despite strong sales on this issue, the Guardians of the Galaxy would not appear again for over five years, in Marvel Two-In-One #5 (June 1974). The story's writer, Steve Gerber, liked the team enough to use them again in Giant Size Defenders #5 and The Defenders #26–29 (July–November 1975). In each case, other heroes such as Captain America, the Thing, and the Defenders aid them in their war against the alien Badoon, necessitating the liberal use of time travel in these stories. The Guardians were finally given their own series in the existing title Marvel Presents, starting with issue #3 (February 1976). Steve Gerber, still handling the writing, reflected, Gerber left the series after seven issues, and Roger Stern took over with Marvel Presents #10. The series was cancelled shortly afterwards due to poor sales, with the final issue being #12 (August 1977). The team then made guest appearances in Thor Annual #6 (1977), The Avengers #167–177 (January–November 1978) and #181 (March 1979), Ms. Marvel #23, Marvel Team-Up #86 (October 1979), and Marvel Two-in-One #61–63 & #69 (November 1980). Marvel Two-in-One #69 drastically changed the Guardians of the Galaxy's story; due to changes made to the past of one of the members, the future which the Guardians of the Galaxy come from and the mainstream Marvel Universe are permanently separated, becoming alternate timelines to each other. After this, the Guardians of the Galaxy were absent from published stories for over a decade. In 1989, Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco revived the Guardians of the Galaxy in order to cash in on the popularity of the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. DeFalco worked out a series concept using a new team of Guardians, but when he saw a series proposal for the original team that writer/artist Jim Valentino had coincidentally been working on at the same time, he green lit Valentino's idea instead. The Guardians' first self-titled comic launched in