SCOTT: One of the defining moments in almost every single Guardians of the Galaxy trailer is this line right here:
STAR-LORD: Star-Lord.
KORATH: Who? STAR-LORD: Star-Lord, man. Legendary outlaw…
SCOTT: It’s a great line that gives us a feel of what to expect from the film but it does pose
an interesting question… Why does Peter Quill go by the name Star-Lord? The answer’s
a little bit more complicated than you might think at first, but don’t worry, because
we’re gonna get to the bottom of it right now.
Welcome to Comic Misconceptions, the show that takes you into detail about the things
you think you know about comics, I’m your host Scott Niswander. And guys, we’re back
from our one month vacation, less of a vacation and more of me just scrambling to move into
my new house. I'm still not all the way done yet, but thank you for bearing with us on
that. Also, you might notice that the set looks a little different. I don’t know if
have you noticed, but you should have. It was actually designed by my friend Ross, who
you might remember, this guy. Yeah, that guy. Big thanks to him for helping out, and if
you want to go check out his channel, which I urge you to do, you can go check it out
at COMIXINEMA, there’s a link in the description for you to go watch some of his comic book-related
videos. Like this one right here!
But let’s talk Guardians of the Galaxy, I am so stoked for this movie guys, I thought
about doing many different videos about many different topics related to the Guardians,
I mean, there’s just so much to pull from, the original team line-up, the new team line-up,
the Nova Corps, even, but the more that I thought about it, one question kept coming
back to me. Why is Peter Quill called Star-Lord? The trailer makes it seem like some kind of
alias he gave himself for his criminal career, but the comics tell a different story. Or
should I say, stories. Star-Lord’s origin was revealed to us in Marvel Preview #4 from
1976 and was written by Steve Englehart, who had an intense knowledge of astrology, and
really worked that into the character of Star-Lord. The planets aligned themselves the night Peter
was born. His father, Jake, takes one look at him and says, “Well he doesn’t look
anything like me!” and he takes that to mean that Meredith, the mother, had cheated
on him and Peter was the result of that affair. Out of anger, Jake takes the newly born Peter
Quill outside to kill him, but out of a stroke of luck on Peter’s behalf, Jake dies of
a heart attack then and there.
So he grows up being raised by his mom, Meredith Quill, and one day on the
way to school, Peter sees an alien spacecraft, and goes to get his mom to prove to her that
alien life exists. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work out for Meredith as once the aliens see her,
they shoot her dead. This is the one constant throughout all of Star-Lord’s origins. Peter
then grows up in an orphanage, learning everything he can about outer space, destined to be an
astronaut so that he can someday find the aliens that killed his mom and get revenge,
even though no-one believes his story that aliens exist in the first place.
He was very rough around the edges and made no friends, and it was actually because of
this that he was denied the mission to Mars that he so desperately wanted. He did get
a second chance later, on an orbiting space station. It wasn’t the trip to Mars that
he wanted, but, it was a start. And it was actually on that space station that Peter
finally got to prove that he wasn’t crazy. Alien life did exist. Some sort of Alien lifeform
appeared to everyone in a shared vision and told them that in two weeks, a person
of their choosing would become a Star-Lord. They all have a meeting and Peter steps up
and volunteers “I will be the Star-Lord!”. He thinks this will finally give him the ability
to avenge his mom’s death, but he gets denied the opportunity because they think that someone
with more experience should be Star-Lord.
Two weeks later, they choose Peter’s rival at NASA, Greg Harrelson, to take up the mantle.
Peter is outraged, and rightfully so, he had gone his whole life believing in alien life,
only to be ridiculed, and now, that he finally has proof, he is still treated like garbage.
So, he decides to take the mantle of Star-Lord, by force. A lot of force. He gets cornered
and the guards all shoot at him in unison. When the smoke clears, they believe the lasers
have vaporised Peter Quill out of existence, but that is not the case. The moment they
shot at him was the same moment that a Star-Lord had to be chosen. Peter was not vaporised,
he was transported through space to be at the feet of a being who calls himself the
Master of the Sun. The Master of the Sun reveals that Peter’s middle name is Jason, which
Peter had never told anyone before. I mean, it’s kind of out of nowhere but I guess
it proves that the Master of the Sun is the real deal. I do have a hard time believing
that you can be an astronaut, but not have written your middle name down on any paperwork
or forms or something, but I don’t know how space works. Peter’s costume appears
out of nowhere as the Master of the Sun grants him the title of Star-Lord. The only problem
is, Peter doesn’t know what a Star-Lord is. Are they supposed to just observe and
document things that go on in the galaxy? Or maybe supposed to be political representatives,
trying to unify all the planets? Unfortunately, that’s never explicitly stated in this story.
The Master of the Sun does give Peter a gun that can shoot all four elements of fire,
water, air, and earth. Then he gives Peter the satisfaction of killing the aliens that
killed his mom. There is some question about whether that experience was real, or maybe
it was just a way for the Master of the Sun to purge to urge of vengeance out of Peter,
we’ll find out later that it was, indeed, the latter.
That’s pretty much it for this story, we find out that Peter calls himself Star-Lord
‘cause he stole the title from somebody he didn’t like. And it’s probably some
sort of intergalactic police officer, because everybody likes those. But this story does
leave us with a couple big questions. Why didn’t Peter look like his father, Jake?
Why were the aliens on Earth in the first place? Why did they shoot Meredith Quill so
violently? And what’s the importance of Peter’s middle name being Jason?
So let’s next dive into Marvel Preview #11, from just one year later, where they reinvent
the character of Star-Lord, taking out the astrological aspect of it because, quite frankly,
nobody but Englehart knew enough about it to make it work. It is a fantastic read and
you should somehow get your hands on it, I encourage you to, it’s super great, but
the important part comes at the end when Peter and friends stop a coup on the empire of the
planet Sparta. The Emperor was revealed to be none other than… dun, dun, dunnnn…
Peter’s real father, Jason. Jason was on the way back to Sparta from exploring space
when he heard that there was a war breaking out. But, his ship broke down above Earth
and he was forced to make a crash landing. He was pulled from the wreckage from Meredith
Quill, who nursed him back to health and helped him repair his ship. They got to talking and
then they got to … not talking, if you know what I mean. But about a year later, Jason
had to return to Sparta, to help with the war effort. Jason’s ship readings showed
that Meredith was pregnant with his child, and he didn’t want to risk taking the love
of his life, and his unborn son, to a place of war. So, he wiped Meredith’s memory of
ever meeting him. Jason left, Meredith married Jake, and they had their son, Peter. And that’s
also why Peter didn’t look anything like Jake, because he was really half alien. Years
later, when the war was tipping in his favour, Jason sent his uncle Gareth to retrieve Meredith
and Peter, to bring them to Sparta so they could live together as a family. Unfortunately,
Gareth was the one who staged the coup to overthrow the empire, so instead of retrieving
Meredith and Peter, he sent a bunch of lizard-like aliens to kill them. Jason is relieved to
see that his son still lives, and invites Peter to take his rightful place on the throne.
Peter kind of angrily denies this, because he’s an adventurer, he wants to go explore
the universe, and not be tied down to one planet. So, he leaves abruptly to go carve
himself a legend.
So, we have all that information now, gaps filled in, and a pretty nice origin story
focused less on astrological phenomenon and more on fun sci-fi adventures. This will help
us as we uncover our latest origin of Peter Quill that was revealed to us not too long
ago, in 2013 from Guardians of the Galaxy 0.1. In it we see a simplified origin of Star-Lord
that takes away anything that’s weird and overly complicated and leaves us with the
bare essentials. Jason, now spelled with an apostrophe where the ‘a’ should be (J’son),
crash lands on Earth to be rescued by Meredith Quill. She and J’son hit it off pretty nicely
and end up doing the no-pants dance but it’s time for J’son to leave and head back to
his home planet, which is now called Spartax. Upon his departure, Meredith discovers that
she is pregnant. Instead of getting mind-wiped and ending up with Jake, she just goes about
her life, raising Peter and waiting for the day when J’son can return so they can all
be a family. One day there’s a bright light in the yard and Meredith believes that J’son
has finally returned. But unfortunately, it is an alien race called the Badoon. They shoot
and kill her. And this is where the story gets a little bit more interesting than the
other ones. The Badoon race inside to also kill off Peter, but Peter finds a shotgun
and kills them both in one blast. He then finds the gun that his mother hid from J’son
when he first crash landed there. The remaining Badoon...s...Badoons… Badoon. The remaining
Badoon blow up Peter’s house as he barely escapes. In the following issue, Guardians
of the Galaxy #1, we see that Peter is confronted by his father J’son, who tells him that
he is the firstborn of the Spartax empire, and therefore it his birthright to be named
Star-Lord of Spartax. Peter describes this as being a prince-like role.
So, there you have it. From interplanetary police officer to royal title, the name Star-Lord
is a little bit more complicated than, say, Spider-Man. It’s even spelled differently
on occasion, with and without the hyphen. From just what we’ve seen in the trailer,
I can’t imagine that they’re going to go the route of space police, that really
seems like a job for the Nova Corps, ah, but as for Peter Quill being royalty, I guess
time will tell. I’m curious to see what you guys think; which one of these explanations
for the name Star-Lord do you like more? Space cop, or royalty? Let me know, in the comments.
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I’m Scott, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram and I will see you guys here
next week for more things that you thought you knew about comics. See ya.