The Guardians of the Galaxy are invading movie theatres again in May of 2017, and what better way to fill the time till then but to start a new comic series with one of the lead characters from the ragtag group of galaxy misfits. Peter Quill is not gallivanting through the cosmos, instead he is living on Earth, and he is bored.
Dethroned as ruler of his father’s planet Spartax, and broken up from his fiancé Kitty Pryde, Quill is down on his luck, without his chip, and not talking to his guardian friends. Trying to clear his head, Quill seeks solace at an art museum, where he runs into Kitty Pryde. They talk which doesn’t go well and Kitty leaves, with Quill meeting Logan, the Old Man Wolverine from a parallel Earth. Logan tells him to leave, and Quill does.
You can’t help but feel bad for Star-Lord. He’s not Star-Lord anymore, just simple Peter Quill who happens to have really cool laser guns.
Quill meets up with Logan again, and the Wolverine offers to hang out with the Star-Lord. In the whole Marvel universe there are three characters that would make great drinking buddies, Deadpool, Wolverine, and Peter Quill. In this case we get two out of the three.
There is a connection between Quill and this Wolverine. They are two people who look like they belong, but don’t. A friendship is about to blossom and soon we get Wolverine and Star-Lord kicking butt as we work towards the climax of the story.
My Opinion
Until the release of the first movie, I had never heard of Guardians of the Galaxy. I loved the movie for many reasons, one of them being the diverse characters that make the story come to life. Peter Quill is a cool guy in the vain of Han Solo. He is a rough talking, all action kind of guy that people like and would love to be for a moment.
Quill is really good when he has to hold his own against characters like Rocket Raccoon, Gamora, and Drax, but how is he alone? Pathetic, but he doesn’t stay alone for long. I think Chip Zdarsky, made an excellent choice matching Quill with this older parallel world version of Wolverine. The have a connection of being isolated, and I look forward to seeing how this plays out in the series and what affect Wolverine has on Quill.
Anyone who knows the history of Marvel knows that Quill probably won’t be stuck alone on Earth for long. He is destined to be back in the cosmos causing trouble on planets throughout the galaxy. The idea of taking him out of his element and making him a fish out of water on what should be his home planet is an interesting and intelligent way of bringing new life to a well-known character. As a reader, you would think Quill could survive on Earth easily, in reality Earth is more foreign to him then us landing on the Moon.
There is humour throughout the book. The inclusion of Howard the Duck as being one of Quill’s only friends on Earth is a nice touch of amusement. I would love to see a Howard the Duck reboot movie. Maybe they could pair him with Scrooge McDuck?
I was expecting a lengthy parallel story in the book, usually the start of series would have two distinct stories started that will eventually intersect. In Star-Lord #1 we get that parallel story of Peter’s half-sister Victoria fighting a patron in a diner way out in the galaxy because he teased her, but that’s it. It’s more of a snapshot of what may come later. I liked that, it was enough to interest me about Victoria, but it didn’t take away from the flow of what was happening to Quill.
The writer, Chip Zdarsky, is actually Canadian journalist Steve Murray. It fills me with endless joy to know that Canadians are heavily involved in shaping the future storylines of my favorite comic books.
If you want to see what a guardian of the galaxy does when he has no galaxy to guard, check out Star-Lord #1.