Hickman and Ribic started working on Secret Wars last year so they probably didn't know about all the things that were going to happen later, they just played it safe and did movie Guardians.
As for the connections, it will probably start making sense inside the authors books. I know Bendis will keep cosmic Gamora in Guardians of Knowhere and Humphries will probably give one big explanation of what happened during those eight months in 'Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde'. Sadly, there's still a whole month before the book comes out and there's not even a preview for it. That book is still a total mystery.
"Dear World: the nation of mutantkind is watching you. Do not #$%& with us." -Cable-
I know Hickman created the story a long time ago. I was talking about Secret Wars #1.
This book is full of mysteries. Sam didn't want to reveal anything about the book because it apparently spoils a lot of things about the main story so it will probably be an important book, also he said that this book is just part of the story between them so maybe there will be some other book that will be about 616 Kitty.
I don't think everyone is really dead. There are many weird things in this Battleworld that don't make sense if everyone else is truly dead. I'll wait until I see more of the story before accepting that. As for 616 Star-Lord, I don't think anyone confirmed it but Humphries always talked like only Kitty is different on his interviews, so I think it's safe to assume it's 616 Star-Lord. Maybe he will leave the raft survivors after #4? I think Thor will join the Thors later as well.
Isn't Star-Lord a lot older than Kitty. I know she dated Collossus but I'm pretty sure Quill is even older than him. I mean wasn't he a season soldier by the time she join the X-MEN at 13? I know these characters don't age in real time but still........
Star-Lord was de-aged when Bendis took over. He used to be 32/33 years old but now he's 29/30 years old. This was confirmed by Abnett in Guardians 3000 as well.
As for Kitty, they never tell her real age but if we go by Marvel time, right now she's probably 22/23 years old, so that's a 7 years gap. Same gap she has with Colossus. The gap was bigger with Iceman (at least 9 years) and specially with Wisdom (I think there was more than 15 years of difference, but I could be mistaken).
Here's something interesting. Tomorrow Wednesday May 27th, Sam will be doing a live chat on Marvel's official page. He will be answering questions about his Secret Wars books and will finally debut the preview of our much anticipated book "Star-Lord & Kitty Pryde". It will be at 1:30 PM ET. We have to be creative and ask questions without just asking for spoilers. Here's the link to the page:
http://marvel.com/news/comics/24652/..._sam_humphries