In super-awesome news, rumors are swirling that Marvel is thinking of giving some screen time to its wonderful cosmic characters, starting with the Guardians of the Galaxy!

You're forgiven if you're not familiar with the Guardians, Cosmic Marvel has sort of existed as an almost separate entity from the rest of the Marvel Universe, though crossovers do occur, notably Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos has his roots in books like the Guardians, who spend their time defeating cosmic foes like Thanos, the Badoon, the mad Korvac, and intervening in high-stakes galactic conflict as seen in the recent epics Annihilation and War of Kings.

Cosmic Marvel, in addition to featuring great characters with a lot of history like Starlord, Moondragon and Rocket Raccoon, has always read like a labor of love, with incredibly talented creators like from Jim Starlin to Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning really letting loose and having fun, while showing enormous respect for the characters and their history.

So yes, I'm a fan. And so, apparently, is Marvel's Kevin Feige. From Twitch Film:

Feige first raised the possibility of a Guardians Of The Galaxy feature in an interview with MTV in June of 2010 but it appears they have now decided to move ahead with the project as sources tell Twitch the film version is now in active development. Expect the on-screen Marvel universe to get a bit bigger soon.

As far as I'm concerned, this is awesome news - and considering the presence of the Infinity Gauntlet in Odin's chamber in Thor, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Thanos appears in The Avengers, paving the way for a Cosmic Marvel movie universe. How about it, folks? Are you as enthused as I am?