New 'Guardians Of The Galaxy' Photos Reveal Michael Rooker's Yondu

James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy is less than a month away and, up until now, we've seen official glimpses of every major character save for two: Thanos and Yondu. While it's unlikely we'll see the supervillain himself until we sit down in the theater, the latter has finally been revealed.

Played by popular character actor Michael Rooker, himself a mainstay of Gunn's work, Yondu acts as sort of a father figure to Chris Pratt's Star-Lord. That much was revealed in the recent IMAX 3D presentation. But, below, see two photos of the character and read more about how he fits in with the team.

USA Today premiered the images.

The USA Today article explains, first, how this version of Yondu is different from the one in the comics:

In Marvel Comics lore, Yondu was one of the founding members of the Guardians of the Galaxy in 1969, yet this is definitely Gunn's take, Rooker says. Gone is the loincloth and large head fin of yore — this Yondu sports the smaller mohawk (a prosthetic added to Rooker's shaved head) but does borrow the character trait of using a whistle-controlled arrow from the comics.

Then there's a bigger description of both how Yondu meets Peter Quill and his relationship to him throughout the movie. This is all basic plot stuff, but also new so if you are spoiler phobic, I suggest skipping below the quote.

Yondu is connected to the charismatic outlaw at the heart of the movie, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt). Years before he would become Star-Lord, Peter was an Earth boy who endured a tragedy and then was taken off his home planet by Yondu, the kid's surrogate father figure.

Yondu raises Peter alongside the Ravagers, an outer-space biker gang of sorts usually up to no good, and as an adult, Peter schemes with Yondu to steal a mystical and powerful orb.

But Peter grabs it and goes off on his own, which leads to Yondu and the Ravagers chasing him and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy as the misfit heroes also try to keep the orb out of the mitts of space villain Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace).

Sounds like he's a pretty big part of the movie, which is great, because who doesn't love Michael Rooker?

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy opens August 1.