Legendary Star-Lord 1: Face It, I Rule

Comic Info

Legendary Star-Lord (1) #2

Reprints Legendary Star-Lord (1) #1-5 (September 2014-January 2015).  Star-Lord has a way of ending up in jail all over the galaxy.  Whether it is trying to steal a crystal from an orphanage or facing off against a sister he never knew he had, Peter Quill always finds trouble.  When he is targeted by a mysterious man named Mister Knife and discovers he has a large bounty on his head, Peter will be in more danger than he ever expected.

Written by Sam Humphries, Legendary Star-Lord Volume 1:  Face It, I Rule is a Marvel Comics spin-off of the Guardians of the Galaxy series.  The collection features art by Paco Medina with Freddie Williams II (Legendary Star-Lord #4).

Star-Lord is a character that has been beaten around the Marvel Universe for decades.  The character rarely “matches up” with past incarnations and the current version most resembles the movie version played by Chris Pratt (which in turn was based on Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s version of the Guardians of the Galaxy).  This volume presents Star-Lord as a roguish Han Solo type character which is capable of carrying a book.

Legendary Star-Lord (1) #3 Variant

The problem with Legendary Star-Lord is more of a comic book problem in today’s sense.  The comic doesn’t flow very well and thought it has an overarching storyline, the story seems rather flimsy.  The collection (and the series) is leading up the Black Vortex storyline which was a Marvel Comics event series, and the main story seems to take a backseat to the set-up at points.

I do like that Humphries attempts to make the comic book a little more like older comics in that the stories are more episodic.  Older comics always were episodic with the idea that you might get one issue and the next issue you get is four months later…and you needed to know what was going on or the story had to be relatively self-contained.  The difference with this series is that the bigger undercurrent storylines really need to be put into a solid, fun story and the stories in this collection are rather limp.

Legendary Star-Lord shows promise, but it is very skippable in this outing.  The series really should focus on the charming space-pirate adventures and keep Guardians of the Galaxy adventures separate or go the other direction and really make sure they tie into events in Guardians of the Galaxy while providing a stand-alone story which is difficult.  Legendary Star-Lord won’t be the worst comic you read, but it also isn’t very memorable.  Legendary Star-Lord 1:  Face It, I Rule is followed by Legendary Star-Lord 2:  Rise of the Black Vortex.