GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 director, James Gunn, posted a couple of photos to his Instagram account, this afternoon, that offer us our first look at Kurt Russell in the role of Ego the Living Planet in human form. Now, it’s a given that viewing an in-the-flesh image would have been super cool, but hey, we’ll take what we can get, right? As you can see, the image refers to Russell’s official Ego the Living Planet Funko Pop! Dorbz Figurine. This figure, in all of his bearded glory, will join the army of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 Funko Pops expected to arrive on toy shelves in the very near future.
For those of you who are unaware, Ego the Living Planet was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and made his first appearance in the comic book issue Thor #132. Ego is an alien Kree character, whose creation followed shortly after the arrival of Galactus as a threat to the Marvel universe. As a part of Marvel’s interstellar mythology, Ego was created when a scientist merged with a nearby planet after the heavenly body’s sun had gone supernova.
I’m sure that we’ll be seeing some official photos of Kurt Russell as the human form of Ego the Living Planet real soon, especially now that his Funko Pop! Design has been unveiled. Until that time, we’ll just have to make some room on our shelves for this kick ass vinyl figurine.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 lands in theaters on May 5, 2017.