Cosmic Spotlight: The Continuing Story of Star-Lord - with insights from writers Timothy Zahn & Rafael Marin and editor Andy Schmidt

STARLORD MEGAZINE #1

In our last part of our Cosmic Spotlight on Starlord, we'd covered his career as it had appeared through 1982. Readers and fans of Star-Lord had to wait fourteen years for a new Starlord story. A new Starlord miniseries was previewed in the back of Starlord Megazine #1 in 1996.

This is an all new, all different Star-Lord! The new three-issue Starlord miniseries written by science fiction novelist Timothy Zahn with art by Dan Lawlis arrived in October of 1996. Peter Quill is gone, missing for the last twelve years, we're told. We're treated instead to the story of Sinjin Quarrel, a telepathic judge on a backwater planet who finds Starlord's damaged “Ship” out in the planet's jungle. His mental abilities allow him to telepathically speak to Ship the way Peter Quill did, and he tries to help her remember who she is and what happened to her pilot. Ship remembers her pilot was “important”, but until Sinjin stumbles across Starlord's uniform, he doesn't know she's talking about Peter Quill, the Starlord.

Marvel's Glen Greenburg approached Tim Zahn and brought him and artist Dan Lawlis into the project. “(Glen) had been reading my early Star Wars novels and was hoping we could do something with Starlord, a property that had been lying fallow for some years,” Zahn said. “I hadn’t done a comic before, but I had been a fan for many years in my youth, and was very excited about the chance to try my hand at this art form. I actually hadn’t heard of the character or the universe at that point. Glenn sent me a sampling of the earlier comics, though, which quickly brought me up to speed.”

But why not use the character of Peter Quill?

“One of Glenn’s original ideas was that I might start some adventures with Peter and his father, a sort of Indiana/Dr. Henry Jones adventure. My problem with that was that the story arc that ended with Peter’s reconciliation with his dad seemed to have a natural closure to it, and I didn’t feel capable of extending it in a way that wouldn’t seem forced or anticlimactic,” Zahn explained. “There was also the fact that Starlord seemed to me to be a slightly awkward melding of superhero and science fiction. On the one hand, you had a very SF setting and adventures; on the other hand you had Starlord flying, and with magic devices such as the element gun that had been given no scientific or even pseudoscientific basis. By restarting the saga with a new character taking over as Starlord, a venerable comics technique, after all, I hoped to also edge the story more into the SF realm.”

Zahn ties Quill's Starlord origin story into the first issue of the Starlord miniseries and also mentions the idea that Quill was to be the first of a legion of Starlords that Moench added in Marvel Spotlight #6. He also has Sinjin call Ship “ma'am” to start, a nice touch. Eventually he settles on calling her Aurora, 'Rora for short. The villain of the piece is Lawgiver Damyish. He spots Ship and knows it's Starlord's. Sinjin, already on board, puts on Starlord's uniform and fires the element gun to drive Damyish and his henchman off of Ship. Damyish makes off with one of Ship's widgets. Ship also tells Sinjin she's discovered Damyish has a secret – he's a hidden telepath! Ship and Sinjin watch via the widget as Damyish enters a vault full of blackmail files he's compiled using his secret ability. He pulls a couple of files when he hides the widget in the vault. Damyish plans to blackmail the mercenary Glazgon into eliminating Starlord!

With Ship's help, Sinjin begins to truly masquerade as Starlord. Dressed as Starlord, Sinjin zips into orbit and uses the element gun to form a huge asteroid, which Ship sends hurtling down onto Damyish's vault! Ship then swoops in and fishes her widget out of the smoke and debris. Realizing he can't hang around, Sinjin agrees to help Ship find Peter Quill, and to be the Starlord while they look for him. She takes them to R'Ralmis, where she says the Master of the Sun once lived. Ship equips Sinjin as Starlord over the course of the week the trip takes, and trains him with the element gun. He tries to help her reconstruct her memory. She remembers being sucked into a black hole – almost certainly refering to the events in Marvel Super Special Magazine #10, the art looks very similar – but she can't remember when that was or whether Starlord was with her then or not.

They are glad to see Starlord on R'Ralmis, unusual for Ariguans. But there is a horrible crisis, an exploding volcano threatening their entire coastal plain. It's been erupting for a week. Sinjin, dressed as Starlord, uses the element gun to stop the volcano's destruction, but Ship discovers the element gun itself is drawing its elements from this very mountain through a series of tiny wormholes! Sinjin caused this eruption when he used the gun to make the asteroid they threw down on Damyish's place.

“As I mentioned, I was a little uncomfortable with the SF/superhero combination. One of the things I hoped to do with my reboot was to edge the whole thing more into an SF arena,” Zahn said of incorporating the “how” of the element gun. “An important aspect of that change was to create explanations—and therefore well-defined limits—for what his suit, gun, ship, etc. could do. Some of that, of course, was that I was picking up a new character who COULDN’T fly or understand a gazillion languages, but much of it was simply to limit my hero so that he would have to be clever about how he got out of the various scrapes I was about to put him in,” Zahn said.

STARLORD MEGAZINE #2

After discovering the destruction he's caused, Sinjin wants to quit. He's not Starlord. But Ship talks him out of it, shows him that Damyish may be poised to take control of the entire star cluster. They decide to try to see the mercenary Glazgon before Damyish does. Sinjin and Ship sneak in disguise onto Holmrig, the home base for the Iforani military lead by Glazgon, as issue three begins. All the buildings on Holmrig use secure service pods to transport files and materials. The ducts the pods travel through are too small for people, but Ship's widgets can fit through them. Sinjin sneaks into Iforani HQ. One of the widgets then pops out of a duct with the element gun for him. Ship uses the widget to open a service door for Sinjin before sending it back into the ducts. Sinjin changes into Starlord's uniform and fights his way in to see Glazgon while Ship uses the widget to find Damyish's blackmail files. Damyish has the files in a service pod circling the building.

Once in front of Glazgon, Sinjin plays it cool as he plays Starlord. He calls out Damyish, already there with Glazgon. When Glazgon thanks him for surrendering he says he has not, and his partner will cause some trouble. Ships shoots up some vessels outside of Iforani HQ to make the point. Glazgon tells Starlord to give his compliments to his partner the pilot. Damyish says he knows who Starlord's partner is – and he brings out Sinjin's parents, threatening their lives! Sinjin plays his gambit, reveals to Glazgon that Damyish is a telepath, but Glazgon tells Starlord he still plans to fulfill his contract with Damyish! Ship's widgets bust in at that point with the service pod containing Damyish's blackmail files. Damyish's Colonel has a hair trigger. He's had his gun trained on Sinjin's parents, but when the pod surprises him he turns and shoots the pod, blowing it open. Sinjin takes the opening and uses the element gun to blow the colonel away with air before he hits the files with fire, burning them up.

Sinjin tells Glazgon he's destroyed his blackmail files, he's free, but Glazgon insists he has a contract. Until Sinjin points out that the files were to be Glazgon's payment – no payment, no contract, right? Glazgon finally agrees! He puts Damyish into detention and tells Sinjin's parents he'll return them home safe. Sinjin shakes his parents hands, and even though he's dressed as Starlord, they know through the telepathic contact that it is actually Sinjin, and they telepathically tell him they are proud, even though they don't know why he is dressed as Starlord. The issue and the miniseries ends with Sinjin basking in the glow of success and deciding he can do the Starlord thing, and Ship tells him they'll do it together. The end.

Or was it? Zahn said Marvel commissioned a second three issue Starlord story from him that has never seen the light of day! “They have another three-part Sinjin Quarrel script gathering dust somewhere,” Zahn said. “Glenn had commissioned a second story arc from me before the whole thing was canceled again. And yes, Marvel DID pay me for it, so the material is genuinely theirs. I would love to see them do something with it.” Zahn didn't want to reveal too many details of his as-yet-unpublished Starlord story. “The unused three-parter was an adventure where Sinjin got involved with a young woman in distress, and ended up in the middle of some sort of shady intrigue. I'd tell you more except Marvel might actually want to run it someday if they ever dig it up, and I wouldn't want to ruin it for you. And it's been so long I'd have to dig up my copy and reread it to remember the plot line. Rest assured, though, that it would have been a cool story. I'm almost positive about that,” Zahn joked. “If you've got any ins at Marvel, do let them know I'd love to see that second three-parter in print someday. There are still a lot of stories to tell in the Starlord universe.”

INHUMANS #4

It was another four years before Starlord appeared in a Marvel title. It's the first time Starlord appears in the regular (or “616”) Marvel Universe. In 2000's Inhumans miniseries by Carlos Pacheco, Rafael Marin, Ladronn and Jorge Lucas, “Starlord” plays a crucial role, only this time it's not Sinjin Quarrel nor Peter Quill, but rather Jason of the Spartois, Peter's father, that appears as Starlord! Jason as Starlord is a young man in this series, with a “Soul Ship” of his own and a white variation on Peter Quill's Starlord uniform. His father, Emperor Eson of the Spartois, is to symbolically marry Lilandra Neramani of the Shi'ar, to unite the empires! But Jason does not like the deal, feels the Spartois have much to lose and little to gain under the arrangement with the Shi'ar, and he doesn't like the way the Shi'Ar treat the now-defeated Kree. Ronan and the Inhumans play on his sympathies and use Jason to get Black Bolt close enough to kill Lilandra at the wedding ceremony. After the abortive attempt, which includes an Inhumans vs. Shi'ar Imperial Guard battle (shades of War of Kings!), Jason's involvement is exposed, and he is exiled to wander the stars as Starlord.

Why use Jason as Starlord? “Basically, to introduce Starlord into the Marvel Universe,” co-writer Rafael Marin said. “We always thought it would have been nice if Starlord really was part of the Marvel galaxy, not a Lone Rider-type of hero in his own particular pocket universe. The idea of doing space-opera with the Shi´ar, the Kree and the Inhumans led us to use this Starlord, not Peter Quill, but his father. Starlord is a wonderful character that has only one problem: he is alone, his universe is short, almost non-existent, and using the Marvel Space Empires as a way to expand Starlord´s adventures seemed the logical step. As Starlord has a very clear origin, though mixed with astrology, we decided to use his father, with the idea that those other stories where we have not seen any other MU characters deserve to be told one day, but never denying them.”

“We both love the character,” Marin said, speaking of the fondness both he and co-writer Pacheco had for the character. “His relationship to "Ship" is a wonderful one, I think it preludes Ender´s relationship to 'Jane'. As a sci-fi writer I have always liked the idea of this lonely musketeer in space, but I also wanted to give him a tragic halo: the lonely prince, almost a pacifist, who doesn't like how his home planet is going to be swallowed by the Shi´Ar machinery. If you keep in mind that this Jason was 'the Emperor' of the Starlord stories, the idea of knowing him as an idealist in his youth and not as the dark character in his mature years seemed very poignant,” Marin explained. “Man, how I´d like to use Starlord again!”

As Pacheco and Marin's series wraps up, Peter Quill as Starlord is yet to come, his story teased at towards the end of the miniseries' fourth and final issue. Jason and his “Soul Ship” leave to wander the stars, and we glimpse his son Peter Quill's Starlord in a vision battling a demon, or perhaps the Fallen One. “But this vision is, perhaps, but one of many futures,” we are told.

So where do we fix Starlord in time in the Marvel Universe? In his origin story in Marvel Preview Presents #4, Peter Quill is born on February 4^th, 1962, his mother is killed by aliens on August 11^th, 1973 and he becomes the Star-Lord on February 9^th, 1990. In Marvel Preview Presents #11 we're told he's really the child of Jason of Spartois and Meredith Quill. Jason left a year after crash landing on Earth, but before Meredith was showing signs of carrying the baby. This means Jason crashed on Earth some time in the spring of 1960, and left some time in the summer of 1961. Jason said he explored the stars “for years” before crashing on earth. When Jason is pictured telling Garret to go get Meredith and Peter, he's wearing the Emperor's cloak, so we can assume Jason is Emperor by 1973 our time, as this is when Garret has Meredith killed. From the framing material in Starlord Special Edition and Starlord Megazine we know that Peter and Jason meet about 20 years into Jason's reign, placing the events of Marvel Preview Presents #11 circa 1993, and placing the framing material at around 2073. It also mentions that Starlord hasn't been seen for a while. This places the time frame for Peter Quill's adventures as Starlord from 1990 onwards through at least 2050.

This places the events in the 2000 Inhumans miniseries, which take place when Jason was young and before he'd crashed on earth, sometime in the 1950s, if we follow the Starlord timeline. This doesn't jibe with when the events are supposed to have occurred in the Inhuman's timeline. Then again, there's no real dating in the Marvel Universe, everything is assumed to be around ten years post Fantastic Four Number One. And, as Marin rightly pointed out, Starlord had until this time existed in his own pocket universe.

Marin and Pacheco's introduction of Starlord into the greater Marvel Universe is swept aside just four years later however, as Keith Giffen introduces Starlord to the MU anew, bringing Peter Quill face to face with Thanos. Quill appears in the second issue of Giffen's run on Thanos, in issue eight. He has left the mantle of Starlord behind him. Giffen seems to use Starlord within the just referred to “Starlord Timeline,” where he'd be about 42 years old in 2004. He appears to be about that age in the Thanos series.

Andy Schmidt was Assistant Editor on Thanos. “Why go back to Quill? Well, honestly, he was the original and he's the one most people who know Starlord think of as Starlord,” Schmidt said. “And since we were bringing him in fresh, it seemed like it was a good way to do it.”

THANOS #12

It had been twenty-two years since Peter Quill had appeared in a new story, eight years since the last new Starlord series, and four years since the use of Jason as Starlord in Inhumans. Thanos finds Peter Quill in the life-sentence cosmic prison known as the Kyln, built on the “Crunch”, the edge of the expanding universe. In the same way that Marin and Pacheco respected past Starlord stories by setting theirs earlier, Giffen shows his respect by setting his Starlord later in his life, after those past adventures.Giffen's Peter Quill is a prisoner in the Kyln, a man who says The Starlord is dead by his hand. Quill now has implants, cybernetic enhancements which have altered his appearance as their Borg-like extensions cover part of his head, right eye and face, and arms, evidently added in the Kyln while he was a prisoner.

“I believe that was Keith's idea,” Schmidt remembered. “He suggested bringing Peter Quill in with the cybernetic implants and such. As I recall, I knew the name but didn't realize he meant it was Starlord until he wrote the first script. Tom Brevoort was the editor at the time and I'm SURE he knew who Peter Quill was from the get-go, so kudos to Tom for the approval,” Schmidt said. “Keith wanted to bring him in and Tom gave him the okay.”

The Beyonder, now The Maker, had been kept in the Kyln but broke free, and eliminated the controlling nannites in the bloodstream of all the prisoners of the Kyln with her will. The prison is now in chaos. Thanos finds Quill conspiring with Shi'Ar Imperial Guardsman Gladiator and others who want to try to kill or contain the Maker once again. Gladiator tells Quill the Shi'Ar didn't know what she was when they turned her over to the Kyln, and admits to Quill that he's not guilty of any crime. He's been purposely sent into the Kyln to see if he can permanently contain or kill the Beyonder while she's in mortal form. Gladiator asks Quill, “So when do I get to hear your story?” to which Quill replies, “When pigs grow wings!” Ultimately, Thanos does Gladiator's work for him, killing the Maker's mind but leaving her body living, a living prison, for if Gladiator had killed her, her essence would have been set free, the opposite of his intention.

We get a little more background on Quill's character in issue eleven of Thanos when the first Herald of Galactus, The Fallen One, escapes from its cocoon containment in the Kyln. Turns out Starlord brought the Fallen One in. Quill plays more dissociative semantic games when pressed about it, continuing to talk about Starlord as if he were someone else – “Starlord brought it down.” Gladiator won't have it. He needs Quill's help to catch the Fallen One again. He tells Quill he's been remanded to his custody and has been conscripted into the Shi'Ar Imperial Guard. Gladiator lifts off from the Kyln with Quill in hand to go after the Fallen One, as the Fallen One goes after its former master – Galactus!

Why give Quill such a dark new backstory? “There wasn't a decision to darken him per se. It was more about how can we bring him into the fold in an interesting and entertaining way. This seemed to work well to all of us,” Schmidt said. Peter Quill makes his first cover appearance in a long time on Thanos #12, along with Gladiator and the titular Titan. Adding confusion, a misprint on the cover labels this as “Samaritan: Part 4 of 6”, when it is actually part six.

As Thanos and Galactus deal with the Fallen One, Gladiator reveals to Quill that he didn't really spring him from the Kyln to go after the Fallen One – but rather Thanos. Maybe. Here Quill protests and reveals that he killed 350,000, “collateral damage” when he, as Starlord, was bringing the Fallen One down. That's why he was in the Kyln. Gladiator brushes that off, telling Quill, “Your tenure as the Starlord legitimizes you.” When Quill asks, “To who?” he gets no answer. That's the last we see of Quill. The issue and the series wrap up with a battle between Thanos and the Fallen One. Thanos is victorious and mentally enslaves the Fallen One, turning him into his herald, and we see how that plays out in Annihilation. Reading the Giffen half of the Thanos miniseries now, it's clear this is where editor Schmidt and writer Giffen began developing some of the ideas that would later play a part in Annihilation. In fact, Thanos: Samaritan could easily have been included along with the Drax miniseries in the Annihilation collection. Peter Quill's next appearance after this series is at Richard Rider's side as NOVA fights the Annihilation wave.

ANNIHILATION CONQUEST:
STAR-LORD #1

My intention in setting out to spotlight the character Starlord was to cover his past from his origin up to when we first encounter the character in Annihilation #1, and we've now reached that point. I'd like to thank creator Steve Englehart and writers Chris Claremont, Tim Zahn, and Rafael Marin for their insights into the character. And thanks to former Marvel Editor Andy Schmidt for his input as well. It's been a lot of fun discovering his past appearances! My thanks to Keith Giffen, too, for bringing back the Starlord, a character captivating enough to come roaring back to life once resurrected. The mystical side of me wonders if Englehart's use of astrology in conjuring up the Starlord is what makes him such a strong, singular and appealing character, but my practical side knows the real power lies in the pen of Giffen who gave him new life and voice, and in the tales told by Englehart, Claremont, Moench, Zahn, Pacheco and Marin that have made up his story. Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning now carry on in that proud tradition as Peter Quill, once again the Starlord (whether he likes it or not), leads the Guardians of the Galaxy from month to month in the pages of their monthly title. The adventures of the Star-Lord continue!

Be sure to read Part One and Part Two featuring exclusive insights by writer Chris Claremont in Mike Luoma's Starlord Spotlight!

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