When supervillain Thanos sends the malevolent Ronan to capture the Infinity Stone, a gem that wields immeasurable destructive powers, the only people who can stop them are a group of criminals forced to work together: Peter Quill, or Star-Lord, a sarcastic human abducted by space pirates after his mother's death in 1988; Gamora, the green-skinned antiheroine assassin; Drax, a muscular being who understands metaphors literally and wants revenge upon Ronan for the death of his wife and child; Rocket, a genetically engineered raccoon with a fondness for guns and alcohol; and Groot, a tree-like humanoid whose entire vocabulary consists of "I am Groot".