From the very start of the opening Marvel credits, you get that festive feel with 'Fairytale of New York' playing over Christmas comic panels. The special opens with an animated flashback to a young Peter Quill trying to celebrate Christmas with the Ravagers until Yondu (with Michael Rooker returning to voice him) ruins it, tainting the memory of Christmas for the young Star-Lord. The animation style was different to the styles we have seen before in Marvel movies, reverting back to traditional 2D animation rather than the 3D animation in the What If...? (2021) series. The simplistic style of the animation did look a little strange to what we are used to seeing but it's only for a short portion of the special.
The makeshift space family have not been the headliners of a MCU project since Volume 2 in 2017 so it made perfect sense to centre a Christmas special around them. You forget that the events of Infinity War (2018) and Endgame (2019) are fresh in terms of in-universe for those victims of the Snap, but for us the audience it has been nearly five years. The special does an effective job at quickly reacquainting the audience with the characters, even (semi re)introducing new ones such as Cosmo, the telekinetic dog (gender-flipped from the comics Cosmo).
The focus this time is on Mantis, introduced in Volume 2, who truly gets a chance to shine. The special reveals early on that Mantis is Quill's half-sister, something that was unfortunately spoiled in her Marvel Legends episode a few days prior. As fans took to social media, the episode was quietly removed just hours before the Holiday Special was released onto the platform. Not having had much to do in the final Endgame battle, we finally get to see Mantis' martial arts skills and her powers are expanded upon, showcasing how her mind control abilities can have a sinister element to it.
The special is light-hearted in tone, a welcome relief after tearing up at Wakanda Forever. The pairing of a naive Mantis and literal Drax is a comedic pairing we had a glimpse of before, now getting to fully enjoy them kidnapping Kevin Bacon. One of the aliens perform a very amusing song where they completely misinterpret the meaning of Christmas.
There is a post-credit scene featuring Groot, who has a Baby Groot face and Adult Groot body (little bit disturbing to look at to be honest), decked out as a Christmas tree and Rocket saying "Now we've got to have another special". It would be great to see the Guardians in another special, but it seems likely that a few of them are going to bite the dust in Volume 3.
The special answers what have the Guardians been up to? But the one burning question I have is whether Santa Claus is a mutant and exists in the MCU like 616 Santa Claus. In a universe of talking trees, aliens and magic, surely the existence of the figurehead of Christmas is plausible.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special is now available to stream on Disney Plus.