Peter Quill

[close] Peter Quill is born during an unusual astronomical phenomenon when many of the planets align. Seeing no resemblance, the man who believed he was Quill's father accuses his wife Meredith of infidelity and attempts to kill the infant, but dies of a sudden heart attack. Quill is raised by his single mother until she is killed by an alien when he is eleven. Quill is placed in an orphanage but escapes and eventually becomes a trainee NASA astronaut. An alien entity called the Master of the Sun visits the space station that Quill and other astronauts are inhabiting, and offers the mantle of Star-Lord to a worthy candidate. Equipped with a sentient vessel called "Ship", Quill commences his role as Star-Lord.

This origin was later retconned -instead, J'son of Spartax - an alien with a human appearance - crashes on Earth and has a relationship with Meredith. Ten years later, Meredith is killed by members of the alien race: the Badoon. Peter kills both assassins with a single shotgun blast, then finds the alien gun in his mother's closet. Realizing that the alien ship is about to attack, Peter gets out of the house before it is destroyed. Believing that they have killed their target, the alien ship leaves. Peter is taken to a hospital where a nurse brings him the only thing that survived the explosion, his "space toy", which is J'son's gun.

The character encounters the former Herald of Galactus the Fallen One and is almost killed defeating the entity, and in addition Star-Lord's vessel "Ship" is destroyed in the conflict. The pair are subsequently imprisoned in the intergalactic prison the Kyln. Star-Lord is freed by the hero Nova during the "Annihilation War". Quill later acts as military adviser to the Kree general Ronan the Accuser.

When the Kree homeworld of Hala is conquered by the Phalanx, Star-Lord leads a band of rebels against the invaders until the war is over. In an effort to prevent another interstellar war, Star-Lord forms a new version of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

During the war with the Cancerverse, Star-Lord supposedly sacrifices his life to stop Thanos. Despite this, he later reappears with a new Guardians line-up on Earth to aid the Avengers against the returned Thanos. After this, Star-Lord and his new team of Guardians engage in conflicts with the Badoon.