the STAR-LORD
Classification: Extraterrestrial vacuum cleaner (possibly designed for use aboard starships)
Creator/Manufacturer: Unrevealed
User/Possessors: Ravagers (space pirates), Peter Jason Quill (janitor)
First Appearance: Star-Lord I#2 (February, 2016)
Powers/Abilities/Functions: The Star-Lord was a vacuum cleaner that was part of the cleaning equipment aboard the starship used by the space pirates known as the Ravagers. The device hovered several inches above the deck, possibly even when not being used, suggesting that it was held aloft by some sort of localized anti-gravity or magnetic field that was continually being generated by the device.
The Star-Lord was a large, bulky device that really doesn't look like any vacuum cleaner that I've ever seen. It was about three feet high and four feet long but only two feet wide. The controls were at the back end and included what looked like a pair of handles as well as a number of switches. At the front end of the underside were two thick discs, one each on the left and right sides, from which bright white lights were usually (but not always) projected downwards. Oddly, there didn't appear to be any nozzle through which debris could be sucked into the machine.
In its normal operating mode, the Star-Lord was not self-propelled and required its operator to push it in the direction s/he wanted it to move. However, after Peter Quill modified it by adding thrusters to both sides, it was capable of pulling its operator through space but only for a relatively short distance. The thrusters would only fire as long as the operator's hands were on the controls and would stop if s/he lost their grip. Presumably there was some sort of trigger mechanism involved.
Even after being modified by Quill, the Star-Lord did not provide a livable environment for its operator. Anyone using it as a short-range rocket vehicle had to bring their own life support equipment with them (see comments).
History:
(Star-Lord I#2 (fb) - BTS) - The "Star-Lord" was a vacuum cleaner that was one of the cleaning tools aboard the starship used by the space pirates known as the Ravagers. It is not known if this vacuum cleaner came with the starship or if the Ravagers acquired it later. It is also not known why it had the name "Star-Lord" written in English in golden cursive script on its upper right front.
(Star-Lord I#2 (fb) - BTS) - After being "rescued" by the Ravagers, Peter Quill pleaded with Yondu to be allowed to join the crew. Yondu agreed to keep Peter around but as a janitor, not a pirate.
(Star-Lord I#2) - Later, while the Ravagers relaxed in the mess, Peter used the Star-Lord to clean the floor. Yondu called out to him that he had missed a spot!
(Star-Lord I#3 (fb) - BTS) - For an unspecified time, Peter regularly used the Star-Lord to perform his janitorial duties.
(Star-Lord I#3) - One day, while pushing the vacuum cleaner, Peter's attention was caught by the view through a large window of a nearby binary star. After Yondu caught him not cleaning the floor, the two got to talking and Peter revealed that he had helped build a human starship with four warp drives reverse-engineered from the Kree. Seeing a way to use him to steal the Asterion One, Yondu adopted a more friendly manner and stated that Peter had been locked up in the ship mopping floors for too long and maybe he had what took to be a pirate. Yondu and the other Ravagers then carried out a plan that manipulated Peter into believing that they had accepted him as one of them.
(Star-Lord I#5 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Peter modified the Star-Lord by attaching thrusters to it, one on each side.
(Star-Lord I#5) - Later, after having helped the Ravagers to capture the Asterion One, Peter realized that they still considered him to be "just the janitor." Feeling guilt over his betrayal of his fellow humans, Peter lured the pirates back to their ship by dumping their treasure into space, and then locked them in the hold when they came to check it. After setting the pirate starship in motion away from the Terran starship, Peter went to the modified Star-Lord, ignited the thrusters, and activated his space helmet, thereby shooting the Star-Lord out into space towards the Asterion One while he held onto the controls and was pulled along for the ride.
However, Yondu had anticipated his escape and, after attaching a safety line, had leapt out into space after him. Yondu managed to grab Peter in mid-journey and after a brief scuffle he got a data crystal containing information that Peter desperately wanted away from him and left it drifting in space. Forced to choose between getting to the Asterion One or retrieving the data on the Badoon who had killed his mother, Peter chose to live but then lost his grip on the strap connecting him to the Star-Lord.
As the vacuum cleaner moved away, Peter was saved from certain death when a spacesuit-wearing Commander Chang arrived, grabbed the strap and reached out to grab Peter's hand, congratulating "Star-Lord" on his nice flying. When Chang asked if he wanted to retrieve his gem, Peter said that he was done with it and they used the Star-Lord to get back to the Asterion One together.
Much later, after the Asterion Colony had been established on the planet Xerxes, Peter revealed that he had decided to leave. Commander Chang asked "Star-Lord" where he was going now and Peter replied that it was a big galaxy.
Comments: Created by Sam Humphries and Javier Garrón.
In the original story, "Starlord" was a name that the Master of the Sun bestowed upon Peter Jason Quill as part of his new costumed identity. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Star-Lord" was a nickname that Meredith Quill gave to her son. And in Reality-616, Peter Quill's alias came from the brand name of a vacuum cleaner that he used during his time with the Ravagers?!?
Okay, this is a somewhat humorous idea but there are three problems with it, the first and foremost of which is the fact that "the Star-Lord of Spartax" had been established as being an actual royal title almost three years earlier. The chance that Lisa Chang would just happen to give Peter a nickname that turned out to be the same as a title that he had unknowingly inherited seems remote, to say the least.
Second, even assuming that "Star-Lord" was the name of a model of vacuum cleaner manufactured by aliens, why would that name be written IN ENGLISH? Unless it had been built on Earth, that should have been impossible.
The third problem was going to be how Lisa Chang could have known of that name at the time when she first called Peter by it. However, while doing this profile I finally noticed that Star-Lord I#5 clearly shows that she grabbed onto the vacuum cleaner and used it to propel her and Peter back to the Asterion. So, obviously, Chang saw the name on it just before she grabbed onto it. The only mystery here is why it took me two years to see something that was clearly shown.
Anyway, while the whole "Star-Lord was the name of the vacuum cleaner" idea is fun, a cross between "Rosebud" being the name of the sled in the movie Citizen Kane and the "We named the dog Indiana" line from the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I find the humor to be undercut by the inherent implausibility of the situation. But maybe that's just me.
People...In...Space! Without spacesuits?!?
As science-minded readers of Star-Lord I#5 will have noticed,
Commander Chang and her crew are depicted as wearing spacesuits while they are outside of the
Asterion One but Peter Quill and Yondu are not. So why didn't they both die within a
few minutes of exiting from the pirate starship? The obvious answer is that they were both
using alien technology to stay alive. Sure, Peter is shown wearing his space helmet but that
alone would not have saved him from the vacuum and cold of space so there must have been
something else protecting both he and Yondu.
If we are to assume that Peter's space helmet didn't just provide him with a breathable air supply but also maintained an external "air" pressure on his body and shielded him from the intense cold, then the only thing that could do so without being seen would be some sort of invisible force field. Presumably there must have been some device within the helmet that emitted a force field around every solid object that was in direct contact with the helmet. This would be similar to how the life support belts seen in some episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series functioned.
As for Yondu, maybe the safety line that kept him attached to his ship had a similar device incorporated into it, one that projected a force field around everything that was in contact with the tether. Or maybe it's just common sense for space travelers (and space pirates) to keep small personal force field generators close at hand at all times as a safety precaution. The Asterion One may not have had any such high-tech devices but it definitely had spacesuits available for emergency use.
In Star-Lord I#5, some of the images of Peter and Yondu in space are drawn with very thin blue or gray lines around them. These auras could have been included to show that they had force fields around them that were enabling them to survive in space without spacesuits. Or maybe these thin lines were just added to make the outlines of their bodies more distinct against the dark "space" background.
Profile by Donald Campbell.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Star-Lord vacuum cleaner has no known connection to
images: (without ads)
Star-Lord I#2, page 21, panel 1 (main image)
Star-Lord I#3, page 2, panel 1 (beside Peter Quill)
Star-Lord I#5, page 9, panel 1 (modified version)
page 10 (first flight)
page 14 (data out of reach)
page 16, panel 1 (Star-Lord out of reach)
page 17, panel 2 (rescued)
Star-Lord I#2, page 21, panel 2 (close-up of name)
Appearances:
Star-Lord I#2-3 (February - March, 2016) - Sam Humphries (writer), Javier Garrón (artist),
Jake Thomas (editor)
Star-Lord I#5 (May, 2016) - Sam Humphries (writer), Javier Garrón (artist), Jake Thomas
(editor)
First Posted: 06/05/2018
Last updated: 06/05/2018
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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