We'll see a lot more Star-Lord in a couple of months in Sunday Splash Page, but today we're looking at a slightly more recent appearance of the name. When I say "recent", I mean mid-90s instead of late-70s or early-80s.
I'm not sure why Marvel decided to dust off a character concept that hadn't appeared in 15 years. Trademark issues, probably. Timothy Zahn is best known for various creating the Admiral Thrawn character who appeared in most of the Star Wars novels he wrote. I'm not sure what about the Star-Lord concept appealed to him.
I say "concept", because Zahn ditches the Peter Quill character, in favor of Sinjin Quarrel, a character of his own creation born with telepathic abilities. Among his culture, that marks him for work in justice, except Quarrel's powers are weak, in the sense he can only read your mind if he touches you. There's no indication if his ability is weaker in any way other than distance.
Assigned to an out of the way world of limited importance, Quarrel finds the fabled "Ship" of Star-Lord's. The element gun and costumes are there (none of the little waist-mounted jet pods, however), as is the holographic projection Ship developed for itself when Claremont wrote Star-Lord, but no sign of Star-Lord for many years now. So Quarrel takes on the identity, initially just to protect himself, but later to investigate an aristocrat on the planet he was assigned who seems too successful at taking control.
The story is a bit of a thriller, Quarrel trying stay alive and find evidence to bring down the man he's up against. There's a very large, very pale crime lord who lives in a big tower involved (Space Kingpin, basically, or maybe Space Tobias Whale), and an infiltration that involves deception. Plus, Quarrel has to overcome his reluctance to act as Star-Lord after he learns the source of what the element gun fires.
Lawlis paints the comic, which works better than I would have expected. The action is a bit static, but the plot avoids any kind of extended, running battles in favor of quick sequences where Star-Lord uses the element gun. But Quarrel is an expressive character, and the bright colors are suited to the clean and futuristic settings. There are hives of scum and villainy, but all that is beneath the surface. Appropriate when the hero can see beneath it with just a touch.
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