This is the lead-in to Marvels relaunch of Guardians of the Galaxy next month, giving you the background to Peter Quill aka Star Lord, the leader of the team unofficially billed as the Cosmic Avengers (which might explain why Marvel chose to turn them into a movie). Brian Michael Bendis does a fine job of introducing the character starting with Quill's parentage. Json of Spartax, Peters father, is an alien king, who looks like a cross between Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans, and who is caught up in an intergalactic war. Wounded, Jsons ship crash-lands in Colorado where he meets Meredith Quill, a woman who lives alone in a house 22 miles from nowhere whose profession remains a mystery. Nevertheless, the two hook up, Json eventually fixes up his ship and heads back to the war leaving Meredith alone once again - but this time with a child to rear! We then catch up with Peter aged 10 when his fathers enemies, the Badoon, come to snuff him out but he manages to escape with his dads space gun. Its a strong origin story establishing Quill as this decent but troubled guy who grows up, works hard to become the best of the best, get a job with NASA and winds up in the Guardians of the Galaxy. And this is my only complaint with the issue - we get Quills origin up to a point. We dont see what happens between his escape aged 10 to suddenly standing on board a spaceship as a grown man surrounded by the Guardians and - surprise! - Iron Man (I guess Marvel need a familiar face to get more readers on board?). The story just jumps ahead too far, too quickly and the ending feels rushed. Itd have been better if maybe the early pages with his mum and dad were shortened and we got those pages to see how Quill joined the Guardians. But maybe this will be explored in the series proper? Steve McNivens art is as great as ever even if the Guardians spaceship design looks a tad generic and Iron Mans new suit is a bit lame - but hell, he goes through so many, its bound to change soon! Peter Quill's origin is a very human story and his character is someone that readers will be able to connect with, a connection definitely needed when you have a series set in space featuring a tree creature, a green guy called Drax the Destroyer and a talking raccoon!
Guardians of the Galaxy #0.1 is an excellent jumping-on point for new readers eager to discover this interesting group of lesser-known heroes, while also setting the tone of the book - exciting and imaginative, but not too cosmic as to be inaccessible and/or too weird. Bendis and McNiven seem to have a firm handle on the story which bodes well for the upcoming series and might well shape up to be one of Marvel's best new series in their reboot.