Top 4 Saddest Moments from Old Man Quill

Today we look at the Top 4 Saddest Moments from Old Man Quill which was a Marvel limited series written by Ethan Sacks and drawn by Robert Gill and was released by Marvel back in 2019.

The premise of this series follows the vein of the Old Man Logan storyline done by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven years ago where the villains won and conquered Earth with some areas turned into a wasteland. This is set thirty to fifty years in the future with an old Peter Quill aka Star-Lord gets pulled out from his self-imposed exile by his teammates aka the Guardians of the Galaxy to retrieve an important artifact in Earth that can stop this cult that also took everything important to Quill.

And before we proceed, I just want to give a big SPOILER ALERT.

4. The family the Guardians saved still ends up dead

Earlier in his return to Earth, Old Man Quill had to seek refuge in a town where he meets a group including a family that was hiding it out from the dangerous man-eating Madroxes…

Turns out Madrox created so many dupes beyond his limit and when he lost control, these duplicates went on a rampage on the wasteland robbing and killing and developing a taste for human flesh. As Peter Quill burns these Madroxes inside the church and thinking that they managed to save more people, the Shi’ar guardian Pulsar gets the drop on them, killing the family and the group.

This stung a lot considering that Quill was already starting to feel good about himself and his skills even managing to escape an arena where the team and Quill was almost murdered by a mind-controlled Fin Fang Foom.

3. Reed Richards and Sue Richards die after years of being trapped

In order to stop Galactus and Universal Church from destroying Earth, Quill and HERBIE travel to the day the Baxter Building fell looking for the Ultimate Nullifier from Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards. He succeeds in getting back but before they can really talk, Kang the Conqueror appears inside Reed’s laboratory. He proceeds to chop off Reed’s arm, incapacitate Sue Richards and thrown them into a time portal.

Later, when StarL-Lord devises a plan, he follows Reed Richard’s biosignature and finds their pod floating in space. Thing is, its been decades since Kang’s attack and the husband and wife have already passed away.

These deaths adds more weight to Quill’s fragile mental state but he also realizes that he needs to win and stop Galactus from “devouring” Earth. Him failing to save the world and save the Richards meant that all was lost at that point.

This should also be interesting because it finally sheds light on what happened to Reed and Sue when the villains won. Remember in Old Man Logan, it was never revealed what happened to the members of the Fantastic Four; but thanks to Old Man Quill, we know what happened to half of them. Still it was only mentioned by Sue that Ben Grimm aka The Thing and Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch were taken out. Hopefully we see this pan out in future stories in the Wasteland.

2. The Guardians of the Galaxy died while talking to Peter Quill.

Quill was already suffering from the loss of everything he held dear and then he had to actually see his other family in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” burn and get turned into ashes by the former Shiar empire and their leader Gladiator. They were literally talking to each other when Mantis, Gamora and Rocket got disintegrated.

1. Peter Quill’s family gets killed while he was away stopping an invading force

In the first issue of Old Man Quill, Peter Quill flies off to space to stop the Universal Church of Truth from invading Spartax, the planet where Quill has now become the emperor. While he was in space, the then mysterious force they were trying to stop destroyed Spartax with Quill just looking shocked that this happened. And he goes back to his home to find the remains of his children ending the flashback with him clutching the remains of his daughter Meredith.

While things looked bad for the old Star-Lord, the ending of the book sees him resume the mantle as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy and continuing the fight against the Universal Church of Truth as they run away after their defeat on Earth.

Here’s to hoping we see  more interesting stories from this Marvel timeline. In the meantime follow me on Twitter at @thefanboyseo for more geek news and updates!