So who, back in the 80s, saw Star-Lord becoming a big player in the Marvel universe and being a star in one of its most successful movies? Hands up, anyone, anyone, no of course not. Even if by some chance you predicted the Marvel Cinematic Universe there's no way you would have said we need to throw Star-Lord in there, because Star-Lord was a nobody. I was never into Star-Lord, no one I knew was. Now the Guardians of the Galaxy, you know those guys from the future who hang out with Vance Astro, now there's a movie.
I certainly did not buy this comic in 1980. In fact if I had seen this cover in 1980 I would have thought 'now Marvel's ripping off Adam Strange.' If there's ever another run of Amalgam Comics, Star-Lord and Adam Strange should be combined into Adam Lord, or Star-Strange, or more likely Adam Strange: Star-Lord.
Anyway on to today's comic Marvel Spotlight #7 from July 1980. You remember 1980 right? The whole country was energized by the presidential campaign of John Anderson. What you've never heard of John Anderson?! Well to quote Mike Doonesbury:
Anyway, if you can stop talking about John Anderson for a second, 1980 was a pretty good year for comics. Maus began it's publication, the famous/infamous X-Men 137 came out, the Legion of Superheroes dropped Superboy from from their title, Thor was in the midst of his Eternals saga, oh and how could I forget the first appearance of Dazzler, yeah 1980 had a lot going on. Then there's Star-Lord. Can you tell I don't really want to talk about Star-Lord?
Our story begins with Star-Lord and his sentient ship "Ship" entering the atmosphere of a gaseous planet. Can we bring it into the movies that Star-Lord has a talking spaceship?
Star-lord saves wingless guy and traps Shreen the Huntress in a cave. Wingless guy is so thankful this happens.
The act is done. Water does not represent well in the old four color world.
Now try to follow along as we get quite a lot of exposition to explain what's going on. Apparently on this world society is divided, as it so happens, into the haves and have nots. In this case what you have is good karma called Giri. If you live on the world below do a lot of good deeds (you earn Giri) then you like Clarence earn you wings and can go live in the cloudlands. Wingless guy (Thorn) evidently offended everyone by saying 'hey let's build a bridge so everyone can come up and live in the clouds without wings.' What a socialist. Well the other butterfly people weren't to happy about that and decided to do away with Thorn.
Have gotten the scoop on cloud planet, Star-Lord decides to tell Thorn his entire life story luckily it's just one page.
So that's that.
On the surface world the not-yet-butterfly people know someone has been kicked out of the Cloudlands and all congregate together, how they know that Star-lord saved this guy and he didn't just fall to his death is beyond me. Thorn explains that all of the surface dwellers will give-up a bit of their own Giri so that Thorn can get his wings back. Starlord watches the ceremony.
It lasts a long time, just like this comic. Eventually Shreen the Huntress shows back up, she and Star-lord battle, Star-lord wins, and Shreen takes the totally logical step of killing herself.
Thorn explains that Star-lord must bury Shreen and to open the gates of Cloudland up to him, Star-lord must weep on Shreen's grave. Star-lord like the readers, is a little confused.
By the way, Star-lord has an 'Element gun' which can produce earth, fire, water, and air. Umm, Data do you want to take this one?
We all do Data, we all do.
Star-lord tells Thorn he just can't cry over Shreen and then Thorn says, 'you know what I was wrong to want to build that bridge.' Thorn takes the totally logical step of killing himself. Then Star-lord can find some tears.
Having saved one person, only to cause the death of two people, Star-lord and Ship decide their work here is done and take off again for space. Star-lord hints they've learned something but it's kind of vague. Ship says amen, twice, Ship very religious. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 definitely needs a talking spaceship that's very religious.
And that's that. Honestly I'm not a huge fan of this story which is strange because Doug Moench is a really good writer. I mean he created or co-created Moon Knight and Deathlok, his run Master of Kung-Fu was full of 70s goodness but this story with it quasi-Karmic underpinnings just kind of fell flat.
But hey who remembers Johnny West the Acme Boots cowboy? Yeah me neither.
By the way did I mention how many ads there were is this issue of Marvel Spotlight? In a 32 page comic you had 13 pages of ads, plus Bullpen Bulletins, and a letters page. That's not including the ads on the inside covers and the back cover. Speaking of Bullpen Bulletins, Stan is pretty excited about Epic Illustrated. Also check out the description for Fantastic Four #220. "Canada's favorite son John Byrne writes and draws this titanic tale of the FF in mortal combat with invading Aliens in - where else? -Canada!" I guess John really liked working on this issue because he would be back.
The letters page featured a Canadian demanding more Can-Con. Also we continue the tradition of doxing anyone who writes in.
Well Chris, I'm sorry to tell you that Wolverine and Alpha Flight would never be heard from again.
Hey remember those ads that there were so many of? There were some cool ones.
The Black Hole MPC models, just what I remember from the movie especially that kid in bed getting sucked in.
ROM the Space Knight has there ever been a lamer toy that led to an awesome comic? Micronauts I'm looking at you.
Finally, remember way back to Fantastic Four #188 when the Molecule Man possessed Reed Richards and he did crazy things like bringing a building to life to fight the FF? Let's reuse that art, add some totally crazy dialogue, and sell Hostess Fruit Pies.
Next time: Who knows maybe Hot Stuff the Little Devil.
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