I mean, if you apply this logic to literally anything else you’ve got yourself a lawsuit.

“Hey I’m making a new show called North Park, about 4 foul-mouthed middle-schoolers named Sam, Kale, Aaron Partman, and their poor friend Lenny.” Matt and Trey would not think “oh hey cool we inspired this,” they would think “hey fucker you’re literally making our show with different names.”

Or maybe I make a new video game about fighting aliens and my main character’s name is Master Chief.

The government shouldn’t get a free pass on stuff like this. If anything, the govt could’ve gone to Marvel (or bungie) and asked if they wanted to make a joint presentation of some kind if they wanted to use the name.

I don’t think Marvel/Gunn have copyrighted “Guardians,” and I doubt they have, but when they just come out like “hey our space operatives that are in charge or guarding our galax- ahem... guarding our atmosphere and general space vicinity around earth... we’re calling them Guardians,” it just seems a little... obvious?

I’ll take a real example, wherein Teddy Fresh (clothing brand owned by Hila Klein, wife of Ethan and half of H3H3 productions) released a line of colour-block hoodies, and within about a month or so, James Charles (big youtuber, makeup guru, fashion designer) released a line of hoodies of his “Sisters” merch line that looked nearly identical to Hila’s hoodies, save for the giant “SISTERS” logo on the front. It was clearly ‘inspired’ by Hila’s design, and I believe Teddy Fresh is in the process of suing James’ merch company.