Legendary Star-Lord #12 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Despite the title, Star-Lord doesn't appear in this issue at all.  (I honestly can't remember where we left him at the end of last issue.  Isn't he trying to escape his responsibilities as newly elected President of Spartax?)

Instead, Victoria takes center stage (literally) as she successfully convinces the Collector to surrender J'Son's fossilized body so he can face justice for his crimes.  Bendis uses the conversation as an opportunity to show us how cold J'Son was to Victoria during her youth, so it's no wonder that she seems particularly committed to fulfilling her task.  But, we eventually learn that her real aim is swiping the seed of the next Supreme Intelligence, something that she plans to keep from the Kree so that Spartax can invade it while it is in disarray.  Meanwhile, J'Son appears to have some of his own tricks up his sleeve, so he may not be facing any sort of music on Spartax.

Bendis leaves open the question of who's pulling Victoria's strings.  She seems to be acting on behalf of the Spartax government, but it's still unclear who they are.  Is she working for the people that we saw trying to convince Peter to take the throne in "Guardians of the Galaxy" #26?  Is she working on her own and plans to install herself as leader of the Kree?  Or, is it someone else entirely pulling her strings?  Hopefully Bendis'll get a chance to let us know after "Secret Wars."  If he doesn't, it's going to make "Secret Wars" feel like "Flashpoint," where we all expected to return to regularly scheduled programming after it concluded but DC changed its mind mid-way through the event.  I'm still holding out hope that Marvel learned from DC's mistake.

*** (three of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #11 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Once you put the Black Vortex into some sort of emotional context, it's actually not a terrible device.  It's just a shame that it took us eleven chapters to get there.

The best moment of this issue is obviously Peter preventing Jean from submitting to the Vortex, saving her from ever knowing the type of cosmic power that eventually destroyed her future self.  It's chivalrous and heroic, and it's exactly what we'd expect from Peter.  But, the next best moment is the one that we don't expect, when Peter realizes that he also can't embrace that cosmic power, lest he become a super-bro that leaves Kitty heart-broken.  Now, I have to say at this point that I still don't totally buy the Chris Pratt Star-Lord.  I still long for the tactician that fought by Richard Rider's side during the fight against the Annihilation Wave.  But, in the context of the character that Marvel has made him become, this altered vision of himself is probably an accurate one.  In fact, his rejection of that vision gives me some hope that the old Peter may one day return.

In the meantime, Kitty is full of adoration and love for Peter, both for saving Jean and rejecting the Vortex.  It's why she has to embrace it, since she's the only person there that doesn't want that sort of power.  That part also made total sense to me, and, for the first time since this event began, I'm actually excited to see how it unfolds.

*** (three of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #10 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, a lot happens here in pretty quick succession.

J'Son has Thane encase Spartax in amber so that he can sell it to the Brood.  In exchange, he gets control over every tenth planet that the Brood conquer.  Meanwhile, the Brood get to implant eggs in the immobilized Spartaxans, drastically expanding their population overnight.  (The Spartaxans will die in the birthing process, since the eggs are placed in their brains.)  Peter and the Hala team arrive to find the encased bodies, and he tearfully confesses to a fossilized Kitty that she was right about everything.  Kitty manages to phase through the amber, and a sarcastic and tearful reunion ensues.  ("The time to berate you is later.  Just kiss me, space boy.")  Magik and the runaway team members also arrive, but, before anyone can devise a solution to save the Spartaxans, the Slaughter Lords attack!

This event has been pretty uneven, but this issue is one of the better installments.  For the first time, someone seems to have some sort of plan (i.e., J'Son).  (It now explains why he needed Thane, given his ability to case people in amber.)  I'm definitely more engaged than I was after the disastrous "Nova" issue.

*** (three of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #9 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Meh.

This issue isn't terrible or anything.  I loved Drax making with the funny ("I have not yet begun to unleash the Grouch!").  It's cool when Angel becomes an Angel of Death, since it's essentially a different but similar corrupted form for him.  (Poor Warren.  Always destined for corruption.)  Storm holding her own with Gamora was also pretty awesome.

But, this arc is suffering from the same problem as any arc where it's obvious a ret-con is going to happen at the end:  it's hard to invest in it emotionally.  (Honestly, I'm wondering if Bendis is even capable of telling a story that doesn't involve a ret-con.)  Gamora, Beast, and Angel are clearly going to revert to their regular selves at some point, so it's hard to be worried about them.  As such, the only tension in the story is whether the Guardians and the X-Men are going to be able to stop J'Son from using the Vortex for his dark ends, and we all know that they will.  (We've also got the shrill Kitty, and it's really not helping matters.)

In other words?  Meh.

** (two of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #8 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Logan had honor?  Are you fucking kidding me?  (OK, I'm jumping right in here.)

Peter and Kitty get into a fight here, after he asks her to stay in space with him.  She claims she doesn't want to date a thief; he tells her that her boy Logan wasn't exactly an angel; she gets mad.  But, she then learns that he gives all his money to orphans.  She decides that she wants to stay in space with him and become a thief like him; she decides that they should start with the Black Vortex, since his father wants it so badly.

I like this series and I like Peter and Kitty as a couple.  Humphries definitely does a good job of keeping up an "opposites attract" vibe with them:  Peter wants to be a better man for Kitty, and, as we see here, Kitty wants to walk on the wild side with him.  I'm glad that she decided to stay in space.  I'm a little worried that, at the end of the upcoming Black Vortex event, she's going to decide to return with the X-Men, so I'm going to try to enjoy them together while I can.

My only problem with this issue is that Humphries has to really force the developments.  Kitty didn't know Peter was a thief before they started holo-dating?  If she didn't respect him, why bother going through the motions of a (very, very) long-distance relationship?  They get into a huge fight over the idea that Logan was really some sort of angel?  Peter just happens to take her to an orphanage that he funds so that she can discover his "secret" and see how good he is with kids>  (Seriously, his water-gun fight with the orphans was clearly meant to induce ovary-twitching.)  Humphries is essentially forced to rush them through dating to get them in a relationship so that Kitty is with Peter at the start of the "Black Vortex Saga."  I mean, I guess you can't win every outing, but it would've been nice to see their relationship progress a little more steadily.

On the art, I like Williams in general, though I wish every had a little less of an animé feel.  It's starting to get hard to tell the difference between Peter and a golden retriever.

** (two of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #7 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

First, Williams is a solid substitute for Medina.  The flying fortress looks...fortress-y.  I'd also like to thank him for giving Peter chest hair.  It's nice that not all the men of the Marvel Universe look like 15-year-olds.  (OK, Peter's eyes do occasionally look a little animé glittery, but I'm willing to look past it.)

First things first:  who the hell is Lydia?  I mean, I get that she's Peter's spaceship's computer, but am I really supposed to recognize her?  Humphries implies that I should, but I spent the first two pages of this issue wondering just who the hell she was.  I also don't get how she knew to look for Kitty.  I get how she found Kitty, triangulating off the phone that she used to call Peter.  But, how did she know that Kitty needed to be found?

Anyway, other than those small (well, not really all that small) problems, I enjoyed this issue.  I loved when Peter is so angry at his father that he just starts shouting crimes.  "Fraud!"  "Extortion!"  "Stealing!"  I also love how deliciously evil J'Son has become.  We're a long way from the dashing young pilot that romanced Peter's mom after crashing on Earth.  I didn't actually buy this transition at first, when Bendis was writing about it.  But, Humphries actually seems to argue here that absolute power corrupts absolutely and that the crown has been on J'Son's head too long.  His tirade about people only caring about the person on the end of the gun -- regardless of whether he's a criminal or a king -- is a great example of how much he craves any sort of power.  Humphries really sells this transition to me for the first time.

Moreover, Kitty is straight-up bad-ass here.  Getting Lydia to practically crash the ship into the fortress so that Kitty could phase at rapid speed to where Peter was?  Straight-up.  Bad-ass.  Also, punching out J'Son?  What a way to meet the in-laws!  I love that the women in Peter's life frequently have to save him, and he has no problem being the damsel in distress.  His charm is essentially his mutant power at this point.  

Hopefully the two of them get to...ahem...enjoy their time together before everything goes to hell...you know, next issue.

*** (three of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #6 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

A date!  At last!

This issue isn't exactly "War and Peace," but Humphries isn't pretending that it is in the first place.  It's more inspired by "Say Anything," as Peter engages in the classic mistake of trying to impress Kitty by becoming an entirely different person.  He unfortunately has to dodge the Slaughter Squad while trying to keep Kitty unaware of their presence, and hilarity ensues.  Although I enjoyed this issue, I'll admit that the dialogue is a little too clichéd, like Humphries really was just ripping off lines from a John Hughes movies.  But, again, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it, so I shouldn't really complain.

Moreover, things get interesting at the end, when the Slaughter Squad finally manages to get a hold of Peter.  (On an interesting side note, I'll say that Humphries does a solid job of using Peter's one-on-one engagement with members of the Squad to remind us of their names and abilities.)  A horrified Kitty steals one of Tony Stark's spaceships to save him, and it's a good thing that she does, since we confirm here that Mr. Knife is, in fact, a very angry J'Son.  Dun-dun-dun!

*** (three of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #5 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This series should ideally be about Peter Quill going around the galaxy righting wrongs and getting into bar fights.  Humphries totally, totally gets that.  After all, this issue involves Peter righting a wrong and getting into a bar fight.

After five issues, Humphries has slowly but surely started to develop this series independent from "Guardians of the Galaxy."  It seems unlikely that Peter is going to have an entirely separate supporting cast from the Guardians, since it would become difficult to explain what happened to them while he was Guardian-ing.  But, Humphries instead has found a way to turn this series into a sort of "Guardians Team-Up."  Sometimes, Peter acts alone, sometimes Drax or Rocket appear to help him with a problem.  So long as these guest appearances stay confined to "occasionally" and don't always involve the entire team, Humphries will be able to tell the story that he wants to tell, independent of Bendis' title.

In a good sign of how well we're progressing to that goal, Humphries is also developing Peter's own set of villains.  We've already met Mr. Knife, and we meet his crew, the Slaughter Squad, in this issue.  Now, I hope, at some point, we get a full on Guardians vs. Squad throw-down.  I want that in part because Humphries does a great job of establishing them as a legitimate threat, for all Peter's bravado that the Guardians could take them.

Moreover, Peter is also a lot sharper than he is in the main title.  Although he's not the snarky wonder that he was under DnA and Gillen, he's not a bumbling idiot, as he proves when he traps one of the Squad members who thought that he was trapping him.  Bendis can veer to Prattian idiot at times, but Humphries seems to be a good counterweight to that.

Through it all, Humphries uses a narrative structure -- of Peter interrupting the Squad member's forged recollection to order more drinks and take a call from Kitty -- that might be borderline clichéd but works if only because of Peter's charm.

In other words, I'm still a happy camper when it comes to this series.

*** (three of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #4 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

For all the build-up to Peter's confrontation with Thanos, it's fairly anti-climatic when it actually happens.  Just as Peter unexpectedly has him on the ropes, Thanos reveals that Peter can't kill him lest the resulting release of cosmic energy destroy the Moon (and, subsequently, Earth).  I sort of get that, since, after all, I don't think any of us really thought that Star-Lord was going to kill Thanos in the fourth issue of his solo series.

However, it's Humphries job to try to convince us that it could happen.  Unfortunately, he doesn't try that hard.  Peter resigns himself to the situation, rather than, I don't know, hurling Thanos off the Moon and killing him at a safe distance.  Humphries doesn't even have Peter consider alternatives to defeating Thanos.  He just sort of shrugs.  It's this part and the bad spelling in his message to Kitty that really raised my hackles.  We've suddenly turned one of the generals of the galaxy's war with Annihilus into a lazy, quasi-illiterate slacker.  I've given Marvel a pass on making Peter look like Chris Pratt, but I draw the line at turning Star-Lord into a galactic version of Andy from "Parks and Recreation."

The most interesting part of this issue is the revelation that Star-Lord and Thanos reached some sort of truce when they left the Cancerverse, though we're still going to have to wait for Bendis to tell that story in "Guardians of the Galaxy."  As a result, I have to wonder why Humphries had Peter confront Thanos now.  If he had waited until Bendis finished telling his story, Peter's anger at himself and Thanos at least would've been clearer.  Instead, this whole issue reads as a way to build anticipation for the eventual revelation in "Guardians of the Galaxy" of how the pair escaped the Cancerverse, but it relies on Peter's unbelievable lack of interest in killing Thanos to avoid revealing the truth.  If this series is just going to be a hand-maiden to "Guardians of the Galaxy," I'm not sure how much longer I'll be getting it.

** (two of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Humphries employs a number of convenient plot devices to propel Peter from the Badoon prison where he starts the issue to the bad-ass ship where he ends it:

- He just so happens to be imprisoned with a Spartax spy who knows where they're being held.

- The guards just so happened not to take away his phone, allowing him to call Kitty and use her to distract the guard.

- His other cellmate is a young Badoon who just so happens to recognize a sewer shaft that allows them to escape the pursuing guards.

- The aforementioned shaft just so happens to lead to the aforementioned bad-ass ship that allows them to escape.

It's a lot of "just so happens."

Peter would argue that he made his own luck by thinking of calling Kitty, setting into motion the other events.  To be honest, I don't really care that much.  This issue was just fun.

The sub-text of this series is that Peter's charm is almost his mutant power, opening up the door to all those "just so happens."  If you don't buy that part, this series isn't gong to be for you.  If you do, then you're treated to the wonder of Peter Quill as he charms his way across the galaxy.  Along the way, you get to see Kitty in a banana costume screaming "Ooga Chaka!" and learn the lyrics to the songs of the galaxy's newest pop stars.  Who doesn't want that?  In fact, I'm starting to suspect that Peter's never actually going to make it to Earth to fight Thanos, because he's got all this charming to do.

*** (three of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue is a mess, but it's a fun mess.

Peter rolls with the revelation that he has a half-sister a little too easily in my book, particularly given that his status as a quasi-orphan is front and center in his mythos.  Moreover, not only does Peter take this fairly significant revelation in stride, but the siblings develop an unexpected bond pretty quickly.  Humphries more or less explicitly ties this development to their mutual distrust of their father, but he unfortunately doesn't explain why Victoria hates J'Son so much.  Sure, she makes a convincing case why she had to work for everything that she has as his dark-skinned illegitimate daughter.  But, it explains why she would hate the Spartans, not necessarily J'Son.  He clearly didn't disown her if she rose to the rank of Captain of the Guards.  (Though, if he was a dick about it, then it would make total sense.)  Moreover, Humphries implies that Victoria just has a good feeling about Peter; she tells him that she read it in his eyes that he didn't mean to insult her.  But, is that enough to trust a guy that just toppled your father's empire and doesn't exactly have the best reputation when it comes to law enforcement?

However, if Victoria's goal really was to earn enough money to pay her guards and help some refugees, you could see where she might be willing to believe the other stories about Peter -- the ones where he's, you know, a guardian of the galaxy -- and throw in her lot with him.  She doesn't say that, exactly, but it seems to be a sub-text of her decision to trust him -- at least after her anger over him calling her ship dumb fades.  In other words, Humphries is asking us to go with him here, and I'm willing to do it.  Victoria's a noble character with a sense of scoundrel about her.  Put another way, she's the opposite of -- but the same as -- Star-Lord, and it totally works.  I'm willing to draw the connections that I need to draw to buy their relationship (though I would like a little more detail about her relationship with their father).  Like I said in my review of the most recent "Earth 2" issue, Humphries could spend a few issues showing their bond developing only to get us to the same place, so I'm willing to just get there without the fuss.

After all, Humphries reminds us why we trust him with the scene where Peter explains his death wish.  If Peter's oddly unemotional about Victoria, he's not about Thanos.  He reveals that he's dreading facing Thanos, even though he knows that he has to do so.  He mentions the deal that he made with Thanos to escape the Cancerverse again in this issue, and I know that we're going to get to the bottom of it in the next "Guardians of the Galaxy" issue.  It's been clear since Bendis took over the character that the Star-Lord who sacrificed himself with Nova to end the threat of Thanos was a different Star-Lord than the one that we've seen lately.  He was fun, but more serious.  Humphries implies that the fun-loving guy that we've seen since his return is really just a guy looking for a way to drink and screw -- ahem, "carouse" -- his way to some peace.  He's a guy who took a few step backwards in the maturity department to free himself from the darkest place that he's ever known.  He hasn't found that peace, and it's time for him to face the music.  Bendis hasn't gotten into this depth with Peter in "Guardians of the Galaxy," but it feels right to me.  In that way, Humphries basically justified this solo series right here.  We get to see behind the bravado, and it's a complicated character study -- though still one with the charm and the wit (obviously).  For the first time, I recognize the dry hero that I loved in "Annihilation" existing somewhere in this blond scoundrel.  That alone is worth the price of admission.

(Also:  is Mr. Knife yet another Spartan sibling?  Because he looks like he could be Star-Lord's evil twin.  Maybe it's J'Son?  I guess we'll see.)

**** (four of five stars)

Legendary Star-Lord #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Peter Quill calling Kitty Pryde from prison and telling her to call him "Baby Boo" (like Rocket does) because she's had  'bad luck with Peters" is the greatest thing to ever happen in a comic ever.  Or maybe Groot, Peter, and Rocket signing karaoke, though, to be fair, we only see a flashback image of that.

Beyond just amazing moments, we learn a few things in this issue.  Peter has successfully dethroned J'Son as the emperor of the Spartax, presumably as a result of his televised rant at the end of "Guardians of the Galaxy" #16.  No one's apparently running the place, and pirates are running wild throughout the (former) empire.  (The Badoon pirates in this issue are pretty great.  I've never really gotten a read on the Badoon.  They're generally pretty unremarkable, more often than not portrayed as a sort of monolithic entity composed of mindless soldiers.  But, Humphries actually gives this band of pirates some personality.  More Badoon pirates!)  We also learn that J'Son has a half-sister, the Captain of the Spartax Guard.  That should go well.  Finally, we learn that Peter is planning on confronting Thanos in twelve days.  I'm assuming that we're going to get more information about that during the "Original Sin" tie-in issues of "Guardians of the Galaxy."  In this issue, he steals one of the most powerful gems in the galaxy to prepare for the confrontation.  Again, that should end well.

Humphries challenge in this issue was to explain why we need this series, beyond just milking the upcoming Guardians movie.  But, he reminds us that the Guardians are a loose confederation at best.  Rocket also has his own series, and I would really love one with Gamora, since I'm sure her moments away from the team are interesting, to say the least.  Humphries appears ready to focus on Peter's less-reputable pursuits, like girls and piracy.  I'm 100% in favor of that.  I continue to be concerned that Bendis and Humphries have ditched the wry, British sense of humor that Giffen and DnA gave him in the various "Annihilation" mini-series and instead turned him into Chris Pratt.  But, on some level, a goofy, American sense of humor probably makes more sense.  Either way, I'm there.

**** (four of five stars)