Director James Gunn attended Dragon Con over the weekend, where he continued to promote his Marvel sci-fi adventure Guardians of the Galaxy, now the biggest movie of 2014. The subject of Guardians of the Galaxy 2 arose, specifically whether or not the character of Captain Marvel will be showing up. She won't, Gunn says, but the sequel will be used to introduce a number of new female characters.

Guardians of the Galaxy isn't without it's own strong female leads, with dueling sisters Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), as well as Glenn Close as Nova Prime. But there are a number of other female characters that have been introduced in the Marvel comics that could be making their way to the big screen in 2016.

Marvel Studios has come under fire in recent months for its lack of female driven superhero movies. Black Widow is the most prominent of the current stable, though Scarlett Johansson has yet to get her own stand-alone adventure. Elizabeth Olsen is being introduced as Scarlet Witch in Avengers: Age of Ultron. But the landscape is far from crowded. James Gunn hopes to rectify that when Star-Lord returns with his crew, which currently features only one female member.

Collider, who was at Dragon Con for the convention, reports:

"The plan, according to Gunn, is to introduce new female characters into the world of Guardians as soon as he could."

Of the many female characters present in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic book, any number of them could appear. The favorites include Mantis, a green-skinned telepath and former barmaid, Angela, an angel bounty hunter that appeared in both the Spawn and Avengers comics, Nikki, a super human genetically engineered to withstand immense heat and live on the planet Mercury, and Moondragon, a bald martial arts master and telepath. It will be interesting to see how some of these characters are brought to the screen, as it's doubtful Marvel and Disney will want two green-skinned woman as main characters or two telepaths competing against each other.

One female character that won't be showing up in the sequel is Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel. James Gunn does confirm that the character will be showing up soon, but not in his movie. It has been rumored for quite some time that Captain Marvel will appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The most recent report claims she will have a cameo at the end of the movie as Captain America assembles a whole new team of Avengers. Its also been said in recent weeks that Captain Marvel maybe scrapped from the upcoming summer 2015 release, and held for a later date.

James Gunn went onto reveal that he had a different cameo planned for Stan Lee in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. He wanted the Marvel comics icon to appear as part of the The Collector's Museum. He would have appeared alongside a Chituari soldier, Dark Elf, Adam Warlock's cocoon, Cosmo and Howard the Duck. Groot discovers Stan the Man in one of the cages, only to be flipped off by the creator of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the film already has Star-Lord giving the finger, Disney wouldn't sign off on this cameo. Instead, we get to see Stan Lee as a playboy hitting on some very colorful alien women.