By Mike Luoma • April 1, 2009

Cosmic Spotlight: The Origin of Peter Quill - Starlord

“The Starlord: Who He Is And How He Came To Be” - That's the title of the introduction by writer Steve Englehart in Marvel Preview Presents Star-Lord #4, the debut of Peter Quill – The Star-Lord. I picked up the first four black and white, magazine format issues from the mid-seventies featuring Starlord to discover for myself just who The Starlord is and how he came to be.

Keith Giffen reintroduced us to the character of Peter Quill in Annihilation. He and NOVA, Richard Rider, shared a great repartee as they fought the Annihilation Wave. But who was this guy? There are some clues to his past in Annihilation. NOVA says, “Mr. Sunshine's my number two, goes by the name Peter Quill. Used to be called Starlord....he could be crazy...” and “Did I mention he used to be the Starlord? Guy was a living legend. Something... happened. He won't talk about it, but it had to be brutal. Ask him about it and he'll tell you, 'The Starlord is dead.' Period. No more, no less.”

We aren't given much more to go on in Annihilation, just mysterious references like Quill saying,  “Last time I pushed my luck it went badly.” He seems to know the cosmic players, tells NOVA who Terrax, Paibok and the giant Mad Thinker robot are when they attack under Annihilus' control. He also knows Phyla when they meet up. “Phyla? Captain Marvel's daughter?” he asks. “Guilty,” she tells him, “Didn't you used to be The Starlord?” “Long time ago, darling,” he answers. Quill was well written by Giffen throughout Annihilation as a likable second in command to NOVA, with a biting, sarcastic sense of humor and a somewhat mysterious past.

The character was given his own title as part of Marvel's next cosmic event. As the four-issue Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord miniseries opens, Giffen gives us flashbacks, actual glimpses at Peter Quill's past. There's a mention of “the whole Master of the Sun thing” and Starlord's sentient ship - “Ship.” We hear how Ship helped Starlord find Galactus' former herald The Fallen One, they battled, Starlord lost, they battled again, hundreds of thousands of people were sacrificed by Starlord to try to kill The Fallen One, Ship died, and Starlord was a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment in the Kiln. By the end of the miniseries' first issue, Quill's been handed a replica of his old Starlord helmet on Ronan's orders. “The problem with having a past, Mr. Quill, is that sooner or later it WILL catch up with you,” he's informed. “You are of more use to us as The Star-Lord than as a misplaced Terran.” Quill becomes Starlord again, whether he likes it or not. And that’s all we really know about Peter Quill, the occasionally hyphenated Star-Lord, based on the most recent cosmic events in the Marvel Universe.

Peter Quill’s first four adventures took place back in the mid seventies, in the black and white Marvel magazine Marvel Preview Presents. Marvel Preview Presents carried a different character’s feature story in each issue. “Man Gods”, “The Punisher” and “Blade” filled the magazine’s first three issues. The Marvel Preview Presents Star-Lord issues are numbers 4, 11, 14 & 15, so that’s where we can turn to find out more about who the character is... and how he came to be. Steve Englehart's introduction in Marvel Preview Presents #4 is kind of an interesting new age-y read. He says he based the character's origins, in part, on astrology. The Star-Lord story in the issue is even titled “ First House: Earth!” In his introduction, Englehart said then-editor Marv Wolfman called him and said, “Steve, we're going to do a new black-and-white science fiction adventure. I want to call the lead feature Starlord, and I'd like you to come up with the concept and character. Got any ideas about outer space?” Englehart writes that he had been immersing himself in astrology and decided to bring it to bear on this story of the stars. He cast charts for the character of Peter Quill, but then admits he gave the character a worse childhood than his charts indicated! He does reassure those who might worry: “Let me also make it clear that you, the reader, need know or believe not a thing about astrology to enjoy Starlord,” but goes on to note that “all the astronomical data herein is correct.”

He gave Quill a date of birth of February 4th, 1962. Why? I got in touch with Steve Englehart to find out more. “I think it was simply to make him an Aquarius, who are more likely to stand back from the ebb and flow of life to gain a perspective on it,” Englehart said. “In other words, he was a solitary figure. But that doesn't mean all Aquariuses are. In addition, Aquarius is the traditional 'sign' of astrology, for the reason just given. And finally, there was a planetary alignment on that day.”

Another interesting note in the book's introduction – Englehart makes it clear he's not writing in regular Marvel continuity, as he finishes the introduction by writing that Quill's “future is entirely speculative. Furthermore, it's not related to any other speculative future in the Marvel Universe.” Oh? It seems who Starlord is and how he came to be aren't exactly the same as who and where he is now in the Marvel Universe!

When asked, Englehart said Starlord wasn't envisioned as part of the Marvel Universe by intention. Marvel Preview Presents' more adult, black and white format allowed him to write a “more complex” character, Englehart said. “He was designed to be an asshole because I could never do a character like that in regular comics - he wouldn't fit in the MU, where even the bad guys are somehow human - so I was taking advantage of the black and white possibilities. 'Peter' and 'Quill' both mean 'dick'.”

In this first issue, the character lives up to his name! As the first Starlord story begins, we're told Peter Quill was born at home somewhere in the Western United States on Sunday February 4th, 1962. His father doesn't think newborn Peter is his son and takes him out into the night to kill him! A heart attack fells the man and the newborn infant is left to lie alone under the stars abandoned until his poor mother crawls and retrieves him an hour later. His mother raises him alone, removed from the rest of society. Young Peter likes Star Trek and long walks. In the spring of '71 he finds a burnt clearing in the woods. His mother tells him people say it was a UFO landing site back in the '30s!

On August 11, 1973 Peter sees a ship land at the site. He gets his mother. Aliens emerge from the ship and, spotting the woman and boy, shoot at them. Peter's mother is killed by the aliens before they again take off. Nobody believes the boy when he tells the authorities what happened. Still, Peter vows to avenge his mother's death. He's placed in an orphanage, runs away on his thirteenth birthday, and then we flash ahead to November 11, 1987, when twenty-five year old Peter Quill is in the astronaut training program. He isn't well liked because he can't relate to other people. “I don't think his head's on just right,” one character says about Quill. He's smart, he's brave, saves men's lives, but is emotionally stunted and socially inept.

Two years later in the summer of '89, Quill loses it, telling his superiors, “Screw You!” when he's passed over for the mission to Mars because, as he's told, “Men who live together in a cramped capsule for days and weeks on end must be compatible above all else... And Quill, you're compatible with no one!” He learns from this to fake a concern for his fellow man and gets a second chance to go to into space in the fall, up to the orbiting space station Eve. He finds peace among the stars, until two months later during a solar eclipse on January 26, 1990 when Everything Changes. During the eclipse the image of the Starlord appears to the crew of the space station and a voice in their heads tells them, “You see before you the Starlord! As yet he is but a concept, visible only in your minds' silver eye.” The voice tells them that in two weeks, when the Moon is eclipsed by the Sun, a Terran will be taken from the space station to “assume the Starlord's glorious destiny!”

Peter Quill, of course, volunteers, and is soundly rejected for lack of experience. He doesn't take it well, breaks things and is subdued, grounded and bounced from the space service. Quill doesn't let that stop him. The day of the lunar eclipse he clubs guards and threatens to kill people as he steals a ship from Canaveral and heads to the space station. Landing on the station, he shoots the guards there with his laser rifle. He blasts his way to where the Starlord had appeared. Cornered, about to be shot by five guards, Quill suddenly disappears! The cynical senator, guards and superiors left behind don't know if they've killed him or not. He's gone.

Quill floats through space. He finds himself in a futuristic looking place in front of an old, gray-bearded man sitting on an ornate throne – who congratulates him on being chosen by his world to be the Starlord! The old man says he is the “Master of the Sun - - and thus, Master of the Solar System.” Quill wonders if he's God. No, the Master of the Sun says he might look like people's concept of God, but “perhaps I... am not what I seem. And you?” Aware the “Master” sees through him, Quill confesses that he swore to avenge his mother's death, that's he's a “fraud - - maybe a madman, and maybe a murderer!” He asks the old man, “What are you going to do to me?”

“I shall make you a Starlord!” the old man proclaims. Quill is surprised to suddenly be in uniform, goggles on, helmet in hand. When he's surprised, the old man makes a cryptic reference to the outfit suddenly appearing, “as did you, nine months before your birth!” This may just be a reference to the miracle of life, or may mean something more. Chris Claremont certainly took this kernel of an idea and ran with it when he wrote the next Starlord story. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Quill finds he can fly in the suit when he puts on the helmet. The helmet speaks to him and explains his “Element Gun.” The Starlord's gun shoots the four elements: fire, water, air and earth – at his mental command! The Master of the Sun says, “the Weapon is invincible, Starlord. The one weakness in working your will is You.” He asks Quill if he feels his vow to avenge the death of his Mother means the basis of his life is wrong. When Quill says “No,” Quill finds himself again in space, this time facing off against the reptilian aliens who killed his Mother! He lives out his revenge fantasy, killing them all, only to find himself again standing before the Master of the Sun, who tells Quill he's fulfilled his vow. But Quill isn't sure it actually happened! The Master of the Sun insists that Quill has experienced his vengeance. He's now “free” to start a new life, if he so wishes. The story ends with the Master asking Peter to walk with him, “Come, Starlord, leave your madness behind...” and we are promised, “Peter Quill's strange destiny has only begun! Where it will lead lies in the future... vast and unknown as the horizon before him.”

When Starlord next appears, in Marvel Preview Presents #11, it seems Starlord's destiny has changed a bit. Englehart had left Marvel, so the creative team is entirely different. Chris Claremont takes over writing duties. Steve Gan is replaced on pencils by John Byrne. The astrological angle is gone. Editor John Warner explains in his forward: “unfortunately, no one but Steve Englehart... could have maintained it.” Warner also says the new story is set “some bit of time after Starlord's first appearance, so that we could make some alterations on Peter Quill's character... Chris and I felt uncomfortable with Quill being quite as twisted as he was in the first story. However, I don't think we have contradicted anything in the first issue.” That may be true on the surface, but it's clear from reading Starlord's first issue that Englehart was setting up a much larger story that was then completely abandoned by the new team. Englehart said he'd planned for Quill to evolve, to become an “enlightened being”.

“I envisioned it as a 12-part series, moving Quill from asshole to Star-Lord,” Englehart explained. “Horoscopes have twelve houses, and it would have been a twelve-part series. But the real distinguishing feature between chapters would have been Quill moving outward through the solar system, having an episode on each planet in turn. Each episode would be keyed to the astrological meaning of the planet, so that on Mercury he would have a fast-action story involving twins, on Venus he would have a love story, on Mars a war story, etc.,” Englehart said. “As he passed through these different realities, he would discover his humanity, so that when he passed by Pluto he would have experienced all facets of life and be ready to take his place among the stars.” Englehart also had a unique vision when it came to the art for the series. “I probably couldn't have done it, but I'd have liked a different artist for each episode, so that each would be a sort of different reality, completely. What if the love story were drawn by Jay Scott Pike, a great DC romance artist, and the war story were drawn by Kubert or Severin, and so on?” One can only imagine! It all falls into the category of “What Might Have Been.”

Claremont and Byrne take the character in a different direction in Marvel Preview Presents #11. This new Starlord story is “in the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein” it states on the cover. (Well, some covers. After protests by Heinlein that cover blurb was removed. CBR covered that controversy in Comic Book Legends Revealed back in February: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2009/02/12/comic-book-legends-revealed-194/).  The story inside is heavily influenced by Heinlein's juvenile space adventures like Between Planets or Have Spacesuit, Will Travel! In an afterward at the end of the issue, Claremont even confesses to having had a fanboy moment, getting tongue tied in Heinlein's presence when he first met the writer.

Claremont does weave a rollicking good space yarn for Starlord in Marvel Preview Presents #11, although pacing is a little bit of a problem. The end of the issue, as Peter Quill meets his real father, seems rushed in comparison to the slow build of the early pages. Heck, as the story begins, Starlord himself doesn't show up until page twelve! Claremont instead sets the stage with the enslavement of a planet by ruthless aliens. Once Starlord appears on the scene, we're introduced to Starlord's sentient transport, “Ship”, a vaguely feminine entity with whom Starlord shares a nebulously defined, empathic bond. She is his companion and his transportation, can change shape and size and has small flying widgets that sometimes accompany Starlord, sort of a female version of Booster Gold's Skeets (although Ship has more than one Widget).

Starlord attacks the brutal slavers who are imprisoning the natives of the water world Windholme and frees the slaves they've taken from many different worlds. He befriends Windholmer Kip Holm, who's lost his family, and Sandy, another former slave. Looking for vengeance, Kip's telepathic gifts lead them to the planet Cinnibar and the home of the slave master Kyras Shakati, “whose power is said to rival that of the Emperor himself!” Shakati catches, imprisons them, and subjects them to a “Telempathic Crystal's” mental attack. They break free, but through the crystal Shakati has discovered who Starlord really is, although Starlord himself does not know. This leads Shakati to exclaim, “that makes stopping you even more imperative, even if it costs my life. There's too much at stake!” To Starlord's disappointment, Sandy's thrown dagger kills Shakati before he can tell him anything else. She explains that Shakati was about to shoot Starlord at point blank range with a finger blaster.

Shakati has set his floating palace to self destruct. Starlord, Kip and Sandy are saved by Ship, who seems impervious to the blast around her. The blast makes Peter Quill wax eloquent. This is certainly a different character from the Peter Quill of the first issue: “It's beautiful isn't it? ...I look at this, at all the wonders... the universe has to offer... and I cry inside at how easily - - how casually - - we destroy them with our wars.” Kip and Sandy don't understand, and Starlord admits he doesn't either, but that's “why I'm Starlord... because my need to know outweighs my desire to kill. I may never find the answers, but I'll never stop searching for them, either.” Here Claremont is writing Starlord as more enlightened; perhaps we can assume the character has gone through the journey Englehart said he would have put him through, now sometime in his past.

In Shakati's computers, Starlord had discovered that the slavers' profits were financing a coup d'etat to overthrow the Emperor and replace him with Gareth, his uncle. Ship takes the three of them to Sparta, fighting her way to the throneworld. Ship is knocked out, Starlord with her through his empathy. He recovers and sends Sandy and Kip down to the planet in a lifeboat before Ship crashes. Starlord brings Ship down in a blizzard. They hide out until he can capture a searcher sent after him. He interogates the man and discovers Kip and Sandy are prisoners. He takes the man's clothes. Armed with a sword by Ship, he heads into the imperial chalet where he frees Kip and Sandy... and runs right into Gareth! Gareth is accompanied by the reptilian alien Rruothk'ar “Sith Lord of the Ariguan Confedracy”(that Sith Lord reference was interesting, huh?) – and Quill recognizes him! He's the alien who shot his mother years earlier! Quill runs him through with his sword, impressing Gareth. Starlord offers to let Gareth surrender. Gareth attacks, and the two clash in an epic swordfight “on a ledge a mile above the ground.”

Gareth gets the best of Starlord. When he takes Starlord's helmet off to see his face, Gareth's shock gives Starlord his opening. Starlord disarms Gareth and corners him with his own blade, but Starlord won't kill him. Gareth throws a hidden, poisoned blade at Starlord's back. The old Peter Quill resurfaces long enough to whirl around and impale Gareth on his own sword. Gareth topples over the edge to his death, still cackling that at least Starlord will die, too, from the poison in his knife. But Starlord's body can handle the poison. Gareth's armed “warhawks” are still ready to kill him, though, until Ship shows up at the edge of the ledge as Starlord's back up!

Sandy and Kip bring the The Emperor to Starlord. When the two meet, the men are nearly identical – the Emperor, Jason, looks like an older version of Quill! Turns out Peter is his son! Jason's interstellar scout ship crashed in the Colorado mountains years ago. He was nursed back to health by and fell in love with Quill's mother. Fearing that he wouldn't make the trip home alive, Jason wiped her memories and left her with her unborn son when he headed back to his home planet, Sparta. He later asked Gareth to pick them up. Gareth betrayed Jason. He went to Shakati and set up Rruothk'ar's ambush that killed Peter's mother Meredith. He then told Jason the woman and child died in childbirth.

No sooner does Peter Quill discover his true birthright than he rejects it! He's a seeker and can't be “shackled to a throne”! He tells Jason if he wants an heir, a son, adopt Kip, and then he flies off, with Jason wishing he could go with him. As Starlord tells Ship, “My life's gone full circle. I avenged mom's murder, found my true father, and threw away an Empire... ...all in a day's work.” Ship professes her love for Starlord, who asks her “what am I?” She tells him, “You are Starlord, of course.” The issue ends with him saying to her, “C'mon, let's go carve ourselves a legend.”

Claremont's version of Starlord was evidently popular, as he returned with back-to-back new Starlord stories in Marvel Preview Presents Nos. 14 and 15. Issue 14 presents an adventure where Ship makes herself into a hot, naked woman – without letting Starlord know who she is! The plot about a bug-like alien Trinity seems thin, an excuse for artist Carmine Infantino to show Ship topless as she fights alongside Starlord and professes her... love? ...for her captain. In Marvel Preview Presents 15, Claremont and Infantino get back to telling another Heinlein-esque tale, as Ship takes the initiative to confront a giant, democratically run ship bent on preemptively attacking a helpless planet it sees as potentially threatening. Seems “Ship” has demons from her past driving her. The current situation reminds her of early tragedy.

We're treated to Ship's origin story in Marvel Preview Presents Star-Lord 15: She was once a yellow dwarf star like our Sol, she tells Starlord. A starship launched a weapon that struck her core, made her consume herself and then Super Nova, destroying that starship's enemy's ships in orbit around her and also destroying her orbiting planets – her “children”. But her consciousness was not destroyed. She grieved for an eternity, until the Master of the Sun rescued her and helped her find inner peace. Ship was there when Quill appeared before the Master of the Sun and felt a mutual need. With the help of the Master of the Sun, she shaped herself into “Ship” to live and love again, with him. Starlord talks Ship out of destroying the giant ship, thinking “I've enough blood on my hands; I want no more,” sounding a great deal like the Starlord of Annihilation. They manage to burn out the giant ship's systems, then tow it to a world where the crew and population can settle, “quarantined,” as Starlord describes it. Ship makes an appearance as Ship-Woman in the story's last couple of panels as she thanks Peter Quill for helping lay to rest her “private demons. For that, and more, I thank you,” Ship says. “Hell, woman, what are friends for?” Quill responds, which seems to keep their “relationship” somewhat ambiguous – friend“Ship” or love?

These first four black and white Marvel Preview Presents Star-Lord issues laid the foundation for an interesting and complex cosmic comic book character. Actually, they laid a couple of foundations! Steve Englehart's early vision was fascinating. It would have been something to see his proposed twelve part series unfold! The wisecracking Star-Lord of Annihilation fame we've come to know is based in part on that bitter young man Englehart named Peter Quill, but leans more heavily on the slightly later Chris Claremont version – filtered, of course, through the sensibilities of writer Keith Giffen, and those who came in between. For more information on those “ in between” appearances, check out Wayne Lackey ’s Star-Lord Appearance List here: http://www.geocities.com/mailittomarvell/starlord.htm. My thanks to writer Steve Englehart for taking the time to answer my questions about “The Starlord: Who He Is And How He Came To Be” for this Cosmic Spotlight on the Origin of Star-Lord.

Be sure to read Part Two of Mike Luoma's Starlord Spotlight featuring exclusive insights by writer Chris Claremont! And after that read Part Three featuring exclusive insights from writers Timothy Zahn & Rafael Marin and editor Andy Schmidt!

Marvel Preview Presents Star-Lord Covers courtesy Grand Comics Database.

  

  

  

Discuss This Article in the CosmicBookNews.com Forums