Guardians Of The Galaxy Characters We'll Sadly Never See On The Big Screen

Jack Flag was a very minor Captain America sidekick from the '90s, most notable for having red, white, and blue hair. He was branded a criminal for using his super-strength to help people during the dark days of Marvel's Civil War, and sent to a prison in the Negative Zone. He escaped from that prison in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 #10, and opted to remain in outer space rather than return to Earth as a fugitive. He soon joined the team, accompanying them on a number of adventures, and continued to be known primarily as the guy with red, white, and blue hair.

Flag was in several good Guardians stories, but he was never a very memorable character, and his time as a Guardian has been largely forgotten. But the number one reason he's unlikely to join the movie team also applies to Vance Astro, Yellowjacket, and several other characters on this list. James Gunn and the writers of the Guardians films are very committed to keeping Peter Quill as the only Earthling living out in deep space. When Star-Lord mentions Pac-Man, nobody else is supposed to know what he's talking about. This makes sense for storytelling reasons—it cements his status as a fish out of water and it keeps the MCU Earth from seeming as unlike our own as it would if interstellar travel were commonplace.

That's why characters who originally had Earthly origins, such as Drax and Mantis, have been reinvented as fully alien. But you couldn't do that to someone like Jack Flag, whose love of his country and admiration for Steve Rogers are defining characteristics. Jack can only ever be from the same world as Peter Quill, and that alone is enough to keep him out of the movies.