Characters / MCU: Peter Quill

Main Character Index > Heroic Organizations > Guardians of the Galaxy > Peter Quill | Gamora | Drax | Rocket Raccoon | Groot | Yondu Udonta | Nebula

---

Spoilers for all works set prior to Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.

Peter Jason Quill / Star-Lord

"Sometimes that thing you're searching for your whole life, it's right there by your side all along. You don't even know it."

Species: Human-Celestial hybrid

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Ravagers, Guardians of the Galaxy

Portrayed By: Chris Pratt, Wyatt Oleff (young, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), Luke Klein (young, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special)^{Foreign voice actors}Carlo Vázquez, Emiliano Ugarte (young Peter) (Latin-American Spanish dub), Guillermo Romero (European Spanish dub), Kōichi Yamadera (Japanese dub), David Kruger (European French dub), Philippe Martin (Canadian French dub), Rafael Rossatto (Brazilian Portuguese dub), Andrey Zaytsev (Russian dub)

Appearances: Guardians of the Galaxy | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | Avengers: Infinity War | Avengers: Endgame | Thor: Love and Thunder | The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

"I look around at you, and you know what I see? Losers. I mean, folks who've lost stuff. And we have, man, we have. Friends, family, normal lives. One might say life takes more than it gives, but today, it's giving us a chance."

Kidnapped from Earth by a band of alien pirates as a small child, Peter Quill grew up in space to become an intergalactic criminal and scavenger. Armed with a Walkman and self-styled under the moniker "Star-Lord", he was known as a dashing outlaw galaxy-wide... in his own head. In reality, Peter was little more than a petty thief. That would change however when he was hired to find a mysterious orb, which allowed him to cross paths with a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits and eventually prove himself a true hero and leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

---

#-E

• 11th-Hour Superpower: In the climax of the second film, just as Ego is about to kill all of the Guardians sans Peter, Yondu manages to impart some advice that allows Peter to gain control of his nascent Celestial powers and fight his biological father on equal footing.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Peter's father Ego uses him as a Living Battery to conquer the galaxy (intending to do so for thousands of years) and attempts to kill Peter's friends.
  • In addition to the above, Peter was raised by Yondu, who beat him up to teach him to fight and kept him in terror by threatening to eat him. Peter seems to forgive Yondu when the latter saves him from Ego and apologizes for his past actions.
• Ace Pilot: Can fly a ship while flying another ship.^note As in, he can use a 2001 pod's manipulators to fly a damned Space Fighter through a three-dimensional maze at top speed well enough to smash pursuers into the landscape while slaughtering them with the fighter's weapons. He can also successfully maneuver through a quantum asteroid field (where the asteroids randomly phase in and out of existence) while being chased by an armada of angry aliens while bickering with his crew and constantly having Rocket grabbing the stick from him.
• Adaptational Jerkass: In the comics, he was a seasoned cosmic superhero long before joining the Guardians. In the movies, he starts off as a self-serving outlaw and a bit of an asshole, although he eventually chooses to step up for true blue unselfish heroism — with a side of whatever (and whoever) he can get his hands on.
  Star-Lord: What should we do next: Something good, something bad? Bit of both?
  Gamora: We'll follow your lead, Star-Lord.
  Star-Lord: Bit of both!
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Blond in the comics, strawberry blond in MCU.
• Adaptation Species Change: Half-Spartoi in the comics, half-Celestial in the MCU. Of course the Spartoi in the comics claimed ideological descent from the Celestial Eson the Searcher briefly glimpsed in the Collector's exposition flashback in the first film, so the sequel's choice is cutting out the middle man so to speak.
• The Alcoholic: By the Holiday Special and Vol. 3, he is shown drinking himself in a stupor due to losing Gamora and accidentally allowing Thanos to enact his genocidal schemes. However, it's implied the attack from Adam Warlock and Rocket's critical condition (in no small part thanks to his drinking as the other guardians were too occupied with him to react in time) snaps him out of it and makes him realize his drinking has gotten out of hand.
• Alternate Self: Quill has two: one who was never kidnapped by the Ravagers and grew up to become a janitor in Dairy Queen and another who was killed alongside his fellow Guardians fighting Ultron Sentries on the Sovereign. Nebula and War Machine also encounter his past self when they time travel to Morag in 2014.
• AM/FM Characterization: In his first scene, he's on a dead world and enters a ruin that wouldn't seem out of place for an Adventurer Archaeologist... and then he turns on an old Walkman and starts dancing through the place to "Come and Get Your Love" without a care in the world, even kicking away some of the local vermin. Peter's Walkman and mixtape of classic pop songs are reminders of Earth, and specifically his mother, who had died from cancer the night he was abducted. After the walkman's destruction in Vol. 2, he gets a Zune as a gift from Yondu with hundreds of songs on it. This becomes a Passing the Torch moment when he gifts the Zune to Rocket at the end of Vol. 3 when the latter steps up to become the new Captain of the Guardians of the Galaxy and launches that moment by playing "Come and Get Your Love".
• Anti Anti Christ: He is the result of his father Ego’s attempt at siring a child with Celestial powers so that Ego could remake all life in his image. However, once Peter learns that Ego planted a tumor in his mother’s brain and is Forced to Watch as Ego crushes his Walkman, Peter rejects Ego and ends the mad Celestial’s plans.
• Apocalypse Maiden: By virtue of being the only one of Ego's children to inherit the Celestial spark, he's the key for Ego's Assimilation Plot. Upon learning the truth about his mother's death, he becomes an Anti Anti Christ.
• Awesome McCoolname: He thinks "Star-Lord" is a fearsome codename. Few others agree. Turns out he uses it to honor and remind the galaxy of his mother; it's what she used to call him.
  Dey: No, it's cool, I can see why you'd want a code name. It's not that weird.
• Back from the Dead: Just like everyone who got dusted in Infinity War, he appears back in action for the final battle of Endgame after Bruce Banner uses the new Infinity Gauntlet to bring back half of all life in the universe.
• Badass Abnormal: For a brief time in Vol. 2, he has the abilities granted to him by the light in Ego's core, which he uses to fight Ego to a standstill while Rocket and Groot set the latter up the bomb.
• Badass Longcoat: He wears a red leather one on occasion.
• Badass Normal: Peter relies on his gadgets, cunning, and skill to get him by, and never displays himself to be any stronger or faster than a normal human (though he sure can take a beating). Subverted at the end of the first Guardians film, where it's revealed he's a Half-Human Hybrid. This aspect of his physiology kept the Infinity Stone from immediately killing him. However, after killing his father, he loses his Celestial powers permanently, cementing this trope for good. Still, he took on both Spider-Man and Iron Man briefly in Infinity War and actually won.
• The Bard: He loves music, has high charisma, Really Gets Around, is generally the Jack of All Trades Only Sane Man of the group, and is usually the one to inspire the others to save the day.
• Bash Siblings: With the other Guardians of the Galaxy.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: Peter tends to try and minimize deaths whenever possible. He often tries to tell the other Guardians to avoid slaughtering everyone in the room when one suggests doing it. So it says how much of a line the High Evolutionary has crossed that Peter tells Groot to kill all of his direct subordinates in the room with them and completely means it.
• Battle Couple: With Gamora, after they become the Official Couple. It doesn't last after her death by Thanos.
• Beard of Sorrow: Following the Endgame Arc, as he is mourning the loss of Gamora, he slumps into a depressive funk and stops taking caring care of himself, resulting in his rougish Perma-Stubble growing into a short, shaggy and unkempt beard.
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't touch his Walkman — it's a gift from his mother. Ego finds this out the hard way when he destroys it.
  • Seemed to have developed a hidden one for the concept of people doing despicable things (and/or harming those he cares about) and justifying it by saying they "had to." It was started when Ego revealed he killed Quill's mother to keep him from having any connections on Earth when he was a child, and the revelation of which snapped Quill out of Ego's braiwashing. Later, gets pressed in Infinity War when they almost take the gauntlet off Thanos; Quill is barely keeping himself together when Thanos reveals he killed Gamora for the soul stone, but he completely loses it the moment Thanos claims he "had to". He also flat-out refuses to listen to The High Evolutionary's Motive Rant in Vol. 3, proclaiming that absolutely no justification can be made for his Meatgrinder Surgery experiments he oversaw.
• Best Friend: With Rocket. They're so close that Peter was the most determined to save Rocket's life and even took everything the High Evolutionary did to him very personally (probably even more so than Rocket himself) upon learning about it, to the point where he's eager to kill him, and cried when he died and again when he got revived.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Usually, Peter is pretty easy-going, but when he's provoked, he's an absolute nightmare. Ronan, Ego, Iron Man, and especially Theel learn this the hard way.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: He's an egotistical, greedy, womanizing prick, but he's also nigh-unstoppable in combat as long as he keeps up his momentum, always tries to talk his opponents out of fighting before he starts shooting, and is the first of the Guardians to join Gamora's crusade to stop Ronan.
• Big "NO!": His reaction to his mother's and Yondu's deaths. It's also his reaction when Rocket seemingly dies in Vol. 3. He got better.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Briefly sports these when Ego brainwashes him.
• Blue Is Heroic: Vol. 3 has him and the other Guardians wear blue uniforms while protecting the galaxy.
• Boldly Coming: Since he's for all intents and purposes the only human being for hundreds of light years, his choices are either like the alien girls or be a Celibate Hero. Peter isn't a Celibate Hero. Considering he was kidnapped before he hit puberty and spent his formative years with the Ravagers, it makes sense he'd be quite the xenophile.
• Break the Comedian: By far the most deliberately funny of the Guardians of the Galaxy, usually by making references to human pop culture that nobody around him understands, dropping smart-ass remarks at every opportunity, and generally being incredibly immature. However, Avengers: Infinity War officially pushes him beyond the limits of his humor when Thanos captures Gamora in order to learn the location of the Soul Stone. After discovering that Gamora has been sacrificed in order to obtain the Stone, Quill drops all attempts at comedy and tries to beat Thanos to death - unwittingly giving him a chance to escape his bonds and costing them the entire battle. In the aftermath, he's left completely dispirited, and can only wearily remark "Aw, man..." as Thanos disintegrates him along with half of all life in the universe.
• Bring Me My Brown Pants: When Tivan is demonstrating the Orb's power (read: revealing it's the Infinity Stone of Power that decimated an entire planet and its inhabitants. More specifically this planet was the same one Peter himself found the Orb in), he quietly states, "There's a little pee coming out of me right now."
• Brought Down to Badass: After killing Ego, he loses all his Celestial powers and must rely on his outlaw skills alone, just as he did long before.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Highly quirky and very efficient when he needs to be. Name another hero in the MCU who defeats the Big Bad with a dance off.
• But Now I Must Go: In Vol. 3, he leaves the Guardians and Knowhere to return to Earth to reunite with his grandfather. Judging by The Stinger, he's decided to stay there even if it's just for a little while.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • No one knows his nickname and he gets tased. Repeatedly. Really, the ratio of him getting his ass kicked greatly outnumbers him kicking ass.
  • Downplayed in the second film, where he's a treated with a lot more respect, although he still gets some humiliation.
  • Infinity War manages to go between this and Trauma Conga Line. He's mocked about his weight, gets jealous about how Thor is effortlessly considered better than him by everyone, his girlfriend included, and the other Guardians repeatedly ignore his attempts to play leader.
  • Endgame once again put him through an amusing and humiliating ringer: his 2014 self is mocked and knocked out by Nebula and War Machine, he got kneeled in the groin thrice by Gamora because this one comes from a timeline where she hasn't met him yet, and he is still worried about being upstaged by Thor, who is still obese and has now joined the Guardians.
  • What If…? shows that he doesn't fare well in alternate Earths either. His counterpart in Star-Lord T'Challa's reality is a lowly janitor at Dairy Queen and is easily enslaved by Ego after being found while his counterpart in Infinity Ultron's world is easily killed by the android. Though the end of Season 1 implies that his Star-Lord T'Challa counterpart might finally get the adventure he was denied of.
• Calling the Old Man Out:
  • Whenever Peter does something he doesn't like, Yondu brings up how he kept the Ravagers from devouring him as a child. This has gone on for years. However, once Yondu mentions it in front of the other Guardians, Peter finally blows up at him.
  • When he meets Ego in Vol. 2, he initially calls him out for abandoning Meredith and him, and not picking Peter up himself instead of contracting Yondu to do it. Then he finds out the real reason why Ego abandoned Meredith and Peter and learns that he killed her, and Peter immediately starts shooting him down.
• The Captain: Or so he likes to proclaim. Whether the other Guardians regard him as their leader is another matter. By the end of Vol. 3, he steps down from this position and lets Rocket take the fray.
• Captain Space, Defender of Earth!: An examination of the concept. Hello, "Star-Lord"? His entire schtick is an attempt to spin his abduction from Earth as a child into the "origin story" of a badass space hero — or at least a grade-schooler's idea of one.
• Celebrity Paradox: Super Mario Bros. was referenced a few times in Ms Marvel. Chris Pratt voiced Mario himself in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
• Character Development: Peter gradually transforms from a lecherous, childish Jerk with a Heart of Gold to a mature, somewhat respected captain of his ship who is in a committed relationship and is more openly altruistic.
• Chick Magnet: He is a mix of this and The Charmer. He used to have a Girl of the Week and even Ayesha flirted with him. Quite tellingly, even the stoic and reserved Gamora fell for him. It's to the point where even Drax makes fun of him for it (inasmuch as Drax can make fun of anyone for anything).
  Drax: You! Man who has lain with an Aaskvarian!
  Peter: It was one time, man.
• Collapsible Helmet: His helmet assembles bit by bit and disappears into a device behind his ear when he isn't using it.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Defied to comic effect. As the only member of the team attempting to use an alias rather than his given name, Peter wants people to call him Star-Lord and is ecstatic when, in the last act of the first movie, someone actually does call him that.
• Comically Missing the Point: Compared his relationship to Gamora with that of Sam Malone and Diane Chambers from Cheers, apparently having been abducted from Earth before he saw the episode where they definitively broke up.
• Composite Character: Instead of the comic character's Green Lantern-inspired background, this Peter Quill has the background of Cole, a minor Marvel Cosmic character with little claim to fame besides a Back for the Dead cameo in Annihilation.
• Confusion Fu: Employs this during the final confrontation with Ronan, challenging the all-powerful Infinity Stone wielding warlord to a dance battle. Luckily, the ruse works just long enough for Rocket to MacGyver up a replacement trigger for their broken BFG.
• Cool Mask: An armored mask with built-in life support functions. It's also collapsible, allowing him to call it up and take it off whenever he needs it.
• Cool Ship: The Milano, a Ravager fighter. When it's lost during the final battle, the Nova Corps rebuilds it for him, salvaging the remains to keep it as close to the original as possible. Unfortunately, it gets put out of commission early in the second movie after the Guardians narrowly escape the Sovereign. It is replaced by the Benatar, which is just as awesome. Vol. 3 adds the Bowie, which outstrips both in terms of size and coolness.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Challenging Ronan to a dance-off to distract him. And this not only works, but is instrumental in Ronan's defeat.
• Creepy Monotone: When Ego brainwashes him, Peter's voice becomes stilted and empty.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: When properly motivated or outright enraged, he is one of the most dangerous men in the entire galaxy:
  • An Invoked Trope during the confrontation on Morag — at first, he tries to intimidate his heavily armed and equally belligerent opponents with his "reputation" as a "legendary outlaw", and when that falls flat he switches to some embarrassing babble before pulling an amazing Escape Sequence. Despite all his goofiness, he learned his wits from the boss of the Ravagers. He managed to outwit Korath, hold his own against Gamora, and in the finale withstood the power of an Infinity Stone long enough for his friends to help him kill Ronan.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, he takes on Iron Man (and juggles Spider-Man periodically). He wins while remaining nearly untouched the entire encounter. It only gets thrown into a stalemate due to Drax getting handled by Strange's cloak.
• Dance Battler: Spoofed in the intro of Guardians of the Galaxy, when he punts aside the alien space rats inhabiting the tomb he's raiding to the tune of Redbone's "Come and Get Your Love".
• Dance-Off: Subverted and Played for Laughs in Vol. 1, where he challenges Ronan to a dance off at the film's climax. Ronan, being raised in a Proud Warrior Race, has no idea what Quill is on about, and just looks on with absolute confusion. Even Gamora is flabbergasted. This actually becomes instrumental as it gives Rocket and Drax time to fix the Hadron Enforcer to shatter Ronan's hammer that contains the Infinity Stone of Power.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Father was out of the picture. Watched his mother die of a brain tumor and was unable to fulfill her last request to take her hand. Kidnapped by the Ravagers not even five minutes after. Spends his childhood raised by pirates while their leader constantly reminds him they wanted to eat him. Then learns his biological father planted the brain tumor into his mother.
• Dating Catwoman: If his Every Scar Has a Story is to be believed, one Girl of the Week he dated was a Kree woman, who tried to kill him when she thought he was cheating on her. Considering the Kree has undergone a serious Adaptational Villainy in the MCU....
• Deadpan Snarker: When people are angry with him, or especially ranting, Peter's typical reaction is to retort with dry quips and pithy come-backs.
• Decoy Protagonist: Quill gets the most promotion and attention, with Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 mostly being about his story. However, Word of God states that Rocket Racoon is the "Secret" protagonist of the Guardians saga, with Vol. 3 being more his story than Quill's.
• Deuteragonist: Takes this role in Vol. 3 after being the main protagonist of the previous two installments. He has the second most focus after Rocket and is still the leader of the Guardians until the end of the film.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Thanks to events of Infinity War and the time travel shenanigans of Endgame, Gamora dies and gets replaced by her past self and Quill loses his relationship with her in the process.
• Disco Dan: He's a walking memorial to The '80s. Justified, though, since it's not like he would be up to date with trends back on Earth since The '80s thanks to being abducted in 1988. He's been... out of touch.
• Divine Parentage: Shown in Vol. 2 to be the biological son of a Celestial, one of the most powerful cosmic species in the MCU. Unfortunately for Peter, Ego is also revealed to be an Omnicidal Maniac responsible for the death of his mother and thousands of his half-siblings.
• Drowning My Sorrows: By the Holiday Special and the beginning of Vol. 3, Peter is shown to regularily drink himself to a drunken stupor over the loss of Gamora and being at fault for Thanos enacting his genocidal schemes.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Surviving the Power Stone aside, he doesn't display anything a normal human isn't​ possibly capable of. Then he becomes a Physical God​ during the climax of the second movie... for a short while.
• Endearingly Dorky: Despite playing himself up as a Lovable Rogue Handsome Lech, Peter's love of '70s pop music and his propensity to break out into song and dance makes him a little more down-to-Earth and a fun character all around.
• Establishing Character Moment: Immediately following his childhood flashback, as Star-Lord searches the crumbling remains of a destroyed civilization in a somber opening scene. Then he pops on his headphones and dances his way through the ruins to '70s pop while kicking attacking mutant alien rats. Except the one he uses as a microphone. He deftly collects a MacGuffin only for tough, nasty aliens show up to steal said MacGuffin, and he tries to intimidate them with his reputation as a "legendary outlaw." ...which does not work, so he starts babbling stupidly until they start shaking their heads, followed by concentrated asskicking, a daring escape, and freaking out the Purple-Skinned Space Babe whom he had forgotten was in his ship. Meet Star-Lord, Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass!
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He's a self-styled "legendary outlaw," but his "outlaw name"? Comes from a note that his mother left him, calling him her little Star-Lord.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He is, in his own words "an a-hole but not 100% a dick"; he's a petty criminal, can't even remember his one-night-stand's name, and has no problem with stealing a job out from under his old boss, but he won't stand for a fanatic killing billions of innocent people. Even when he was younger, he tells his mother he got into a fight with some boys because they had cruelly squashed a frog.
  • When Rocket asks him for an inmate's prosthetic leg, unaware that Rocket was trolling him, Quill gives the guy money instead of just forcefully taking it, compared to Gamorra forcefully taking one of the prison guard's devices off his arm.
  • In a comedic example, in the opening of the Vol. 2, he actually sides with Drax's opinion that Rocket really should have better things to do than set up background music before their fight with the Abilisk. This is especially funny if you contrast his introduction in the first move.
  • In Vol. 2, his biological father, Ego, is explaining his Assimilation Plot to him (while Peter was in a trance-like state). While reluctant to turn on his friends (and possibly destroy the universe) in exchange for immortality and god-level power, he doesn't outright refuse... until Ego admitted to killing Peter's mother. Cue Flat "What" followed by a Shut Up, Hannibal! via rapid blaster fire.
  • Another comedic example occurs in Thor: Love and Thunder. While Quill has previously shown to enjoy sleeping with extraterrestrial women in the first Guardians film, he thinks that Kraglin marrying every alien woman he meets whenever they land on a new planet together is utterly ridiculous.
  • Even though Quill is a massive fan of Kevin Bacon and his movies (particularly Footloose), he's utterly horrified when Mantis and Drax kidnap him from Earth in an attempt to make him a Christmas gift for him, stating that this was human trafficking. After admonishing both of them for their actions, Quill immediately tells Kraglin to get Kevin Bacon back home immediately.
  • In Vol. 3 Despite his Thou Shalt Not Kill attitude, even he's willing to kill members of Ogrocorp after learning what they've done to Rocket. He also displays nothing but venomous contempt for the High Evolutionary.
• Extreme Omnisexual: He's seen with a Krylorian girl, and admits to having banged a Rajak, a Kree, and an A'askvarian. Umm...
  1. Krylorians are kind of low-hanging fruit; their civilization is advanced enough that work is optional, so they're willing to try pretty much anything for a thrill.
  2. Rajaks are pretty similar to humans — except for the winkles on their faces that are apparently part of their noses.
  3. Kree are basically blue-skinned humans, but they're as strong as Asgardians and only recently stopped waging genocidal war against the rest of the universe — he's probably quite lucky to have survived dumping one.
  4. A'askvarii have tentacles, gills instead of noses and needle teeth. That makes one wonder if Quill has a sexual preference beyond "willing."

F-N

• The Face: When the team is interacting with other people, he's usually the one who does the talking. The rest just don't have the knack.
  Peter: See, this is exactly why none of you have any friends! Five seconds after you meet somebody, you're already trying to kill 'em.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Of a sort.
  • He's obsessed with '70s and 80's pop culture because he hasn't seen his home planet in 30 years, and has no idea how pop culture has changed while he's been away (see Disco Dan). It's implied that he's never returned to Earth because it would be so unfamiliar to him that it wouldn't feel like home (and also because the planet carries the trauma of watching his mother die). He does, however, warm up to a Zune, a recent but now-outdated piece of technology.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, Peter Parker, Iron Man and Drax along with him plan how to defeat Thanos by using a movie reference.
    Stark: What dance-off?
    Quill: It's not a — it's nothing.
    Parker: Like in Footloose, the movie?
    Quill: [giddily] Exactly like Footloose! Is it still the greatest movie in history?
    Parker: It never was.
    Quill: [gives Parker a 'the fuck you just say to me?' look]
• Flat "What": Upon being told, by Ego himself, that Ego was the one who gave his mother a fatal brain tumor (on purpose no less), Peter's response is a monotone, extended "What?" It should be noted that the monotone comes from him waking out of Ego brainwashing him.
• Flipping the Bird: Does this during his mug shot in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. He does this to Thanos in Infinity War as well, as he jumps into one of Doctor Strange's portals to evade him.
• Foil:
  • To Gamora. They were both abducted from their homes by aliens after the death of their parent(s), subsequently growing up as criminals and double-crossing their father-figures for personal gain. Unlike Gamora, who's family was murdered by Thanos, who was abusive and trained her to be an assassin, Peter was kidnapped from his surviving family and raised in a rough, but generally loving environment by Yondu, growing up to become a small-time criminal with no charges more serious than minor assault on his criminal record. As a result, Gamora has No Social Skills and is straightforward but has a strong moral compass while Peter is The Social Expert and a Guile Hero who offers outside-the-box solutions but takes some time to do the right thing.
    Peter: Trust me, [negotiation] is my specialty, where yours is more "stab, stab, those are my terms".
  • To Mantis in Vol. 2. Both adopted by powerful aliens, but Mantis was raised in isolation and Peter among the Ravager crew. They are both Ego's children; Peter is the biological son that he didn't raise, and Mantis is the daughter that he did raise. And where Yondu cared about Peter as a son but wasn't able to openly show it, Ego treated Mantis as a pet at best.
  • To Thor in Infinity War. Both of them lost their parents, had to destroy a world to stop a super powerful evil being from conquering the universe, lost a loved one to Thanos and that loss makes them seek Revenge Before Reason against him and fail to stop him when they had the chance.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Is the responsible to sister Mantis's foolish, but is implied to have been the foolish to surrogate brother Kraglin's responsible when they were young.
• Freak Out: Peter has one in Infinity War upon learning Gamora's death, which in turn leads to Thanos, who was being overpowered by the Guardians and the Avengers to get the Gauntlet off of him, being able to break free.
• Freudian Excuse: Peter's birth father abandoned his mother, who died from cancer when Peter was a child. Then Peter was kidnapped and raised by Yondu, who beat him up to teach him to fight, kept him in terror by threatening to eat him and is implied to have used him for thieving since he was eight. These events have influenced his personality as an adult.
• Friendly Enemy: With Rhomann Dey. When Peter's arrested, he's briefly seen giving friendly grin to Dey... until Dey mistakenly called him "Star-Prince" and Peter immediately dropped his smile.
• Gas Mask, Longcoat: In Vol. 1, he is introduced in this outfit when exploring a toxic planet, and since the mask is a Collapsible Helmet, he's seen in it a few more times throughout the film.
• Generation Xerox: Vol. 2 reveals that Peter and his father Ego share many personality traits. The major difference is that Peter knows what is right and wrong while Ego does not hesitate in killing trillions to shape the galaxy into his own image.
• The Genie Knows Jack Nicholson: He may be a Disco Dan, but he knows a lot about the '70s and '80s for a guy who hasn't seen Earth since he was a kid. You'd think more of his pop culture references would be to cartoons and other kid stuff and yet:
  • How many 8-year-olds are familiar with The Maltese Falcon, like Peter is in the first movie?
  • In Vol. 2, he offers up "trash panda" as an alternative to "raccoon", referencing an Internet meme, something he shouldn't even know exists.
  • In Infinity War, he says he's going to get a Bowflex. They existed before he met the Ravagers, but they only came out two years earlier, and they didn't really advertise or become a pop-culture "thing" until the 90s.
• Guile Hero: His lack of any superpowers in a galaxy full of strange aliens, special powers, and high-tech technology while being a former thief forces him to be this. His most triumphant example? Challenging a megalomaniacal Kree fanatic with the power of an Infinity Stone... to a dance-off.
• Gun Fu: His fighting style when dealing with multiple opponents. He will shoot enemies at a distance while using his guns as clubs on those who get too close. When making his way towards the Dark Aster's bridge, he can be seen driving the muzzles of his guns into an opponent as a melee attack while simultaneously pulling the triggers to give his strikes extra oomph.
• Guns Akimbo: Wields two blasters.
• The Gunslinger: He has a pretty impressive Quick Draw.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Initially, it's not entirely clear what his dad was, except "not human", but whatever alien genetics he's got, they're potent enough to let him tank an Infinity Stone's power without immediately being obliterated. Later, it turns out that he's the son of a sentient planet. A sentient planet that is actually a Celestial. Unfortunately said planet reveals his intentions and why Peter exists, which prompts Peter to destroy the planet and thus cut off his Celestial connection. So at this point he's basically just a human because his Celestial side can't function without the existence of the planet.
• Handsome Lech: The opening of the first movie has him accidentally bringing along the Girl of the Week on his dangerous scavenger hunt because he had forgot she was still on board, despite just having spent the night with her, and when he finds out, he struggles to remember her name. He later shows off several scars from former paramours that tried to kill him.
• Happily Adopted: By the end of Vol. 2, Peter happily acknowledges that Yondu, who raised, loved, and died for him, is his true father.
  Yondu: He may have been your father, boy, but he wasn't your daddy.
• Hated Hometown: Or rather, Hated Home Planet. Despite having the means to go back to Earth, Quill adamantly refuses to do so due to understanding that his lifestyle would clash with the people there, on top of associating the planet with his mother's death. The only time he ever returns to it is in Avengers: Endgame to battle Thanos and his army, and to attend Tony Stark's funeral afterwards. After that, he gets off the planet as soon as he can, along with his fellow Guardians and Thor. In Vol. 3, Mantis confronts him about this and his abandonment of his grandfather, refusing to let him just shrug it off. At the end, he leaves the Guardians, admitting that his mother died when he was eight and he's been running ever since. This time, he stops running and goes back to Earth, tracking down his grandfather, who tearfully embraces him - and going by the post-credits scene, chooses to stay for a while.
• Headbutting Heroes: In Infinity War, he's constantly at odds with Tony Stark due to both of them used to being the leader and hating to take orders from someone else. That being said, he does pay respect to Stark along with the other Guardians by going to his funeral on Earth, despite his discomfort with being on his home planet.
• The Heart: He's quick to mediate any conflict, trying to resolve issues with words. He also galvanizes the team into becoming, well, The Team.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: He wears no fewer than four different red leather jackets throughout the film. It's a trait he picked up from adoptive father Yondu and the Ravagers.
• Heroic Bastard: His mother never married his father (who turns out to have been an alien), and his grandparents' reactions when she tells him his father will come back for him strongly imply that he wasn't in the picture for long.
• Heroic Build: Clearly keeps himself in shape.
• Heroic BSoD: Peter launches into a small one when he finally hears the first song of his mother's second mixtape: Ain't No Mountain High Enough. Gamora comes along and snaps him out of it pretty quickly.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: His snarky, unpleasant attitude is only a mask to hide his overwhelming self-loathing and depression over his dead mom and not holding her hand in her final moments as she asked.
• History Repeats: As a young kid, he witnessed the death of his mother which caused him to get abducted and leave Earth. In Avengers: Endgame, he witnessed the death of a parent again that reminded him of his childhood which also caused him to leave Earth again.
• Hollywood Magnetism: One of Quill's gadgets in Infinity War is a triggered magnet which he can stick on any surface. While it understandably sticks to Iron Man and sticks him against a metal debris, it also traps Thanos' unarmored arm somehow.
• Humanoid Abomination: Son of a human woman and a Celestial Genius Loci in a synthetic body. Peter was unaware of his alien origins for most of his life, until the climax of the first film where he handled the Infinity Stone to defeat Ronan. The sequel has him meeting his father Ego who points out that Peter is immortal and has untapped superpowers that can conjure light-based cosmic power. However, after learning his father's true evil nature, he destroys Ego's core and his brain, which led to the loss of his Celestial abilities and immortality, making him fully human.
• Humans by Any Other Name: The Nova Corps computer lists his species as Terran and his homeworld as Terra. However, he calls it Earth.
• Hypocrite: At one point during the first Guardians film, Peter lashes out at Yondu for kidnapping him from his home and his family as amongst the many things his father figure has done to him over the years. That said, Peter has had plenty of opportunities to return home over the years, but actively chose not to due to preferring to live in space.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Vol. 2 is basically ''Daddy Issues: The Movie", with Peter being forced to come to grips with his childhood without a father, which transitioned into a childhood with Yondu as a kinda shitty dad trying his best and coming up very short, and finally meeting his biological father, who turns out to be an omnicidal megalomaniac who murdered Peter's mom.
• Iconic Outfit: The Badass Longcoat he wears in the intro of GOTG. He wears a shorter jacket for the rest of the movie, but every piece of tie-in merchandise, video game appearance and even the comics published after the movie feature the Badass Longcoat.
• Idiot Hero: When War Machine comments to Nebula in Endgame that he's an idiot it's clearly a statement rather than a question. Played for Drama previously in Infinity War, when his impulsive actions became a catalyst in Thanos achieving his goal with himself as one of his casualties. To be fair, he had just learned that Thanos had murdered Gamora to get the Soul Stone.
• Improvised Weapon: His most effective attack on Gamora? Clipping one of his rocket thrusters to her and sending her flying. He also uses another prisoner's prosthetic leg as a club, and pistol whips foes quite often.
• Indy Ploy: This trope is not at all true. He has a plan! ...12% of a plan... Okay, he's not exactly "skilled" in most areas of his chosen profession, but he's adept at improvising on his feet. Most deftly demonstrated when he, completely out of nowhere, distracts Ronan the Accuser with a spontaneous dance-off challenge long enough to let Rocket and Drax get the rest of the plan in motion.
• Inelegant Blubbering: Peter's reduced to this and a bunch of Rapid-Fire "No!" when he realizes that Yondu has given him the only spacesuit and is going to die from exposure to space.
• Insane Troll Logic: From Infinity War:
  Quill: Don't forget, I'm half-human. So that 50% of me that's stupid? That's 100% you.
  Stark: ... Your math is blowing my mind.
• Instant Expert: Played with, as it may be the very nature of Celestials. Once his father tells him how to call forth his celestial heritage, Peter immediately generates energy from his hands, using it to form a baseball to play catch with. However, he doesn't attempt anything grander than that due to the relatively short time frame he's on Ego coupled with his own father telling him that it took eons for him to learn how to manipulate matter. However, when Yondu (his real, adoptive father) gives him a Don't Think, Feel speech on how he controls his arrow, Peter is able to shift control of Ego's light and equal him in combat.
• Interspecies Romance: With Gamora, a Zehoberei. Unfortunately, this ends up going nowhere after Gamorra's death. Even with her 2014 displaced self, they end up not getting together.
• Irony:
  • Quill was able to defeat Ego and save the universe by using "his heart": essentially acting without thinking. Up against Thanos, he acts without thinking... and cost his team both the Time Stone and the lives of half the universe.
  • Quill dismisses Stark's plan to stop Thanos because “it sucks”. Quill's plan involves everyone working together to fight and subdue Thanos, finally restraining him and knocking him out so they can pull the Infinity Gauntlet off his hand. Quill's plan works. Now guess who botches it.
  • In Infinity War and Endgame, he's the only Guardian who doesn't take a liking towards Thor mostly because of how jealous he is of how much cooler Thor is than him. In Thor: Love and Thunder, he's about the only Guardian who isn't sick and tired of Thor because of how Peter recognizes his struggle of being lost and finding meaning.
• It Was a Gift: His dual blasters turn out to be a Christmas gift Yondu gave him in return for gifting Yondu a figurine.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Quill is right when he often points out the abusive treatment Yondu put him through was not funny.
  • He may have been acting equally immature but Peter was right to be mad at Rocket for how his actions got their crew in more trouble than they needed in the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Quill's more "jerk" in his debut appearance but even then he had some notable morals. He first displays an empathic side with Rocket, blanching at the sight of his painful-looking cybernetic implants. When Rocket has a drunken fit in the Knowhere bar, Quill talks him down instead of disarming him by force, reassuring Rocket that no one thinks he's a monster. When Rocket asks Quill for an inmate's prosthetic leg (just for lulz), Quill decides to gift the man 30,000 units instead of just yanking it right out. His "heart of gold" becomes even more apparent in subsequent installments.
• Kill the Ones You Love: When they're heading for a potential confrontation with Thanos, Gamora makes him swear on his mother that, if she's captured, Peter will kill her to keep Thanos from finding out the secret she knows, the location of the Soul Stone. When things inevitably go tits-up, Peter points his gun at Gamora as Thanos restrains her, but hesitates. It's the greatest testament to his love for her that he does eventually pull the trigger. Unfortunately, Thanos was just testing him and has used the Reality Stone to turn his weapon into a bubble blaster.
• Ladykiller in Love: Peter has a track record of bedding numerous women. And then he tried to flirt with Gamora. Come Vol. 2, Mantis emphatically reveals that Peter has genuine romantic feelings for her, not just sexual.
• Large Ham: His adult self is introduced dancing wildly, and that's only the start of many moments not afraid of being exaggerated. A great case is when he meets Thor, and starts speaking in a lower register so as not to be upstaged.
• The Leader: He assumes leadership of the Guardians. "Assumes" occasionally being the operative word, especially during Infinity War.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When he dons his Cool Mask, much ass-kicking ensues.
• Like a Son to Me: Yondu considers Peter his son and admits he's proud of him.
• Long-Lost Relative: Implied to be this to Mantis, by way of Ego showcasing her species as part of his romantic conquests in his quest to have children. The Holiday Special confirms it.
• Lovable Rogue: Definitely. He's a thief, a con man, and a womanizer, but he's so charming that it's hard to hold these things against him.
• Made of Iron: He's remarkably durable despite being a normal human, able to take attacks from Gamora and Ronan like a champ. While his appearances before Infinity War somewhat handwave this away by him being half-Celestial, he still retains this level of apparent durability even after he loses his Celestial powers.
• Manchild: Well, he was abducted at age 8 and raised by outlaws (who regularly threatened to eat him For the Evulz), so it's not much of a surprise that he isn't very mature. His entire schtick is trying way too hard to embody a grade-schooler's idea of a badass space hero.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: In Vol. 2, Peter learns that he has thousands of half-brothers and sisters through his birth father, who's an immortal living planet. Unfortunately, they're also all dead thanks to Ego murdering them. Mantis is his only sibling left on account of her being the only one he decided to spare.
• Mirror Character:
  • Peter and Thor are both leaders and Manchildren with a high opinion of themselves and tragic family history. They clash a lot due to their similarities and even play some Misery Poker together.
  • Peter and Shang-Chi share a tragic childhood that began after their mothers' death, and they eventually reunite before coming into conflict with their estranged fathers during their adulthood. The major difference is that Peter's father is directly responsible for his mother's death while Shang-Chi's father is not. While Peter does not make amends with his father before his demise, Shang-Chi does after his father sacrificed himself to the Dweller-in-Darkness by passing on the Ten Rings to him.
• Missing Mom: His mom died when he was young and left him a mix-tape which he listens to on his Walkman. His Berserk Button makes more sense now.
• Momma's Boy: Oh yeah. Despite his mother being long dead, he clearly still loves her a lot, and taking his Walkman and mixtape, which were presents from her, is a very easy way to piss him off. And his insistence on being called "Star-Lord"? As silly as that name sounds, it was actually his mom's pet name for him. In the second film, he instantly snaps out of Ego's Mind Control when the callous Celestial reveals he gave Peter's mother the brain tumor that killed her. Then in Infinity War, he's hesitant to agree to the promise to kill Gamora if/when Thanos gets a hold of her until she tells Peter to swear on his mother, which forces him to shut up and comply.
• Morality Pet: It's all but stated that Peter is Yondu's adoptive son, and though their relationship is difficult, everyone in the Ravagers notes that Yondu, infamous and ruthless bandit that he is, immediately becomes "soft" when Peter is involved. Him caring about Peter is about his only redeeming aspect, and the one thing he does selflessly is to sacrifice his life to save Peter from suffocating in space.
• Mr. Fanservice: In the Guardians films. He gets shirtless scenes in both of them and the one in Vol. 2 in particular was clearly only there for the audience to look at his great physique.
• My God, What Have I Done?: At the end of Infinity War, he seemed to regret botching up the team’s plan in defeating Thanos right before he vanishes.
  Peter: Aw, man.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • Immensely regrets not holding his mother's hand as she passed away.
  • He also blames himself for letting his anger get the best of him, which led to Thanos to enact his plan. By the time of the Holiday Special and Volume 3, he spends his days drinking in regret and also because of losing Gamora.
• Neural Implanting: Has a translator implant, which allows him to understand other languages. Does not seem to work on the Flora Colossus species.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Peter finds out Gamora was killed by Thanos, he lets his emotions get the better of him which causes the plan to defeat Thanos to end in failure. Then again, it was all part of Doctor Strange's plan to ensure Thanos lost.
  • Him telling the High Evolutionary about the problems with Counter-Earth has the unexpected consequence of the High Evolutionary destroying the entire planet in response. Granted, no one blames Quill for this, and he had no way of knowing that the man was that insane.
• No Body Left Behind: Is disintegrated along with half the universe after Thanos completes the Infinity Gauntlet.
• Noodle Incident: His affair with the Gramosian Duchess. Whatever happened, it apparently necessitated a criminal charge being specifically created for it.
• No Such Thing as Alien Pop Culture: Peter has seemingly gone out of his way to avoid absorbing any type of alien culture or media since, despite living most of his life in space, all of his references are exclusively from Earth. Likewise, there's no evidence that he owns or listens to any type of music besides his mother's mixtapes or the Zune given to him by Kraglin.
• No, You: After Teenage Groot calls him "boring", Peter retorts with "I'm not boring! You're boring!"

O-Y

• Obfuscating Stupidity: Frequently gets others to underestimate him this way. Usually before handing out a sucker punch or three.
• Official Couple: With Gamora by the time of Infinity War. Tragically subverted by Endgame.
• Older Than They Look: On account of being Blipped, Quill is chronologically five years older than his physical age.
• Only Sane Man: In his viewpoint, at least, as he feels that threatening to kill people that he's only just met is counterproductive. He also considers Groot this, believing that he has the same thinking as him. Though he definitely qualifies in the Holiday Special when Drax and Mantis kidnap and mind control Kevin Bacon as a gift.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Peter believes in Thou Shall Not Kill, repeatedly telling his crew to stand down before they go on a murder spree. When he kills someone, it's mostly centered on a Big Bad. So it's serious when Quill decides to beat the shit out of the scientist that turned Rocket into what he is, and he kills him in one of the most brutal ways ever depicted onscreen.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: The main joke of his interactions with Thor in Infinity War; the other Guardians are quick to gush over how handsome and muscular Thor is, while noting that Quill has been putting on weight lately. Not to mention Thor's family history is even more epic and messed-up than Quill's. He starts outright mimicking Thor's voice just to stay relevant.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Peter and Groot II has developed a father-son like relationship.
  • While not Rocket's actual or adopted father, Quill acts very much like a protective father to him, especially once he learns what was done to Rocket by the High Evolutionary. More than any of the other Guardians, he loses it when Rocket flatlines, getting just as distraught as a father would if his own child was about to die and taking similarly desperate measures to try and prevent it. Visually, the subsequent hug he and Groot share with Rocket has at least the visual similarity to a father and child, given the differences in size if nothing else.
• Patricide: Well, Groot is the one who detonated the bomb into Ego's core, but Peter definitely ordered and condoned it. Since his father is an Omnicidal Maniac who killed his mother and would have consumed the universe, and his real daddy is Yondu, Peter has little remorse about this, and no one would really blame him for it either.
• Perma-Stubble: It adds to his roguish demeanor. It grows into into an unkempt Beard of Sorrow following the Endgame Arc, as he mourns the loss of Gamora.
• Physical God: He's half Celestial, and the son of Ego, the Living Planet. As such, when he gains control of his powers over the planet, he's the only one who can match daddy dearest in a straight fight. However, he loses his powers once his father dies.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Rather savvy in a few areas and completely oblivious in many more, including Current Events, and in one case, manages to forget Missouri is on Earth.
• Poor Communication Kills: Played for laughs in the Holiday Special. For all the times Quill enjoyed talking about Kevin Bacon's role in Footloose and how it inspired him to be a hero, he completely failed to explain that he's referring to his character, not the man himself. As such, when Drax and Mantis find out that the real Kevin Bacon is just an actor while in the midst of kidnapping him, they are not pleased.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He is obsessed with Earth's pop-culture from the 80s, particularly its music which he is constantly shown listening to on his Walkman and later his Zune.
• Precision F-Strike: Peter has the honor of dropping the first uncensored F-bomb in an MCU film in Vol. 3, out of frustration when Nebula is having trouble opening an old car door.
  Peter: No, there's a button under the latch, push it.
  Nebula: And then?
  Peter: And then open the fucking door!
• Primary-Color Champion: Quill often wears red leather jackets and his Collapsible Helmet has red glowing eyes and gold accents. Vol. 3 takes this up a notch as he and the other Guardians sans Groot wear blue uniforms with red accents when out on the field.
• The Promise: In Infinity War, Gamora makes him swear on his mother's memory that should Thanos get her, he'll kill her. Acting upon it is a major breaking point for him.
• Promoted to Parent: Essentially becomes Groot's father-figure after he's reborn as Baby Groot. Becomes more apparent when arguing with Teenage Groot in one of The Stingers in Vol. 2.
  Peter: And now I know how Yondu felt.
• Puny Earthlings: Despite being part-Celestial, he's easily the weakest and most physically frail of the Guardians — even Rocket pulls off greater feats of strength despite being half his size, to say nothing of Baby Groot. He gets by through skill, cunning, and, occasionally, space magic.
• Raised by Dudes: After his mother's death, Peter was kidnapped and raised by Yondu and his all-male Ravager crew.
• Really Gets Around: Claims that if you used a black light in his ship, you'd see a lot of evidence to support this trope. More evidence exists in the form of numerous scars he bears from various Scorned Women who have attacked him. It's apparently In the Blood as Ego has been with thousands, or even millions, of different women. He has mellowed out of this habit since meeting Gamora, and even tells Kraglin to stop hitting up and marrying a woman from every planet they land on.
• Red Baron: Insists on calling himself "Star-Lord", though most people refuse to indulge his ego. Korath and later Gamora referring to him as "Star-Lord" in the first movie's finale is something of a Throw the Dog a Bone moment for Quill. The name "Star-Lord" was actually his mother's Affectionate Nickname for him.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His Cool Mask has a pair of bright red lenses covering his eyes. Incidentally, the scenes where he's wearing it are also when he's at his most dangerous in a fight.
• Red Is Heroic: He wears red jackets throughout the entire first movie, except when he's incarcerated. Defied in that they're actually Ravager colors, and they're only as heroic as they can be paid to be.
• Refuge in Audacity: Part of the reason he's alive, in fact! Peter often does some straight up weird stuff and it often works because it's so odd, nobody has any idea how to feel. He uses this in the finale of GOTG to confuse Ronan by initiating a dance off long enough for Rocket to knock the Infinity Stone from his hand.
• Related in the Adaptation: His biological father Ego is the also the father of Mantis, which makes Mantis his paternal half-sister. His relationship to Ego here doesn't exist in the comics, either.
• Relationship Upgrade: In Infinity War, after dancing around their attraction for the first two Guardians films, he and Gamora openly tell each other that they love one another and share a kiss. Sadly, she gets sacrificed by Thanos soon after.
• Retired Badass: After the events of Vol. 3, Peter decides to pass leadership of the Guardians to Rocket and return to Earth where he reunites and lives with his maternal grandfather. The end of Vol. 3 also states that he'll return, meaning that he'll be back one day.
• Revenge Before Reason: After finding out Gamora is dead, Peter loses all sense of his better judgement which ends up helping Thanos secure his victory.
• Rocket Boots: He has detachable thrusters on the ankles of his boots that he uses for short boosts, to maneuver in zero-g, and for bursts of speed during combat.
• Sad Clown: Peter never got to meet his birth father, was taken away from home just minutes after watching his mother die, and spent the better part of his adolescence being raised by a violent criminal who (he thought) seriously considered eating him when he first met him. In spite of all that, he's a shockingly laid-back guy, and he makes jokes about everything.
• Self-Made Orphan: Star-Lord's mother is already dead, but he ends up killing his father to save the universe.
• Self-Serving Memory: Has shades of it, particularly in the second movie. He didn't want to have anything to do with Ego and was talked into it by Gamora on the chance he could finally have a father-figure like he always wanted, but later on he spins it as her being jealous about his newfound powers when she has suspicions about both Ego and his planet. He even accuses her of being a hypocrite for convincing him to do so and then expressing those concerns, conveniently forgetting that Gamora told him outright that if Ego was a bad guy they'd kill him to help ease Quill's own uncertainty.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Delivers one to Ego when the latter begs not to be destroyed.
  Ego: Listen to me, LISTEN TO ME! You are a god. If you kill me, you'll be just like everybody else!
  Peter: ... What's so wrong with that?
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Because of being raised in two very different environments, Peter and Mantis are complete opposites in personality, temperament, and appearance. The latter is a given since they're half-siblings with mothers who are different species, but the rest can be explained by Peter being raised among the rough and boisterous Ravagers while Mantis was reared in total isolation by Ego himself.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Is annoyed when people don't recognize his nickname (that he made up himself), "Star-Lord". As it turns out, it's less because of his own ego and more because Star-Lord was his mother's pet name for him.
• Smarter Than You Look: Peter is a goofy, childish man but is craftier than what people give him credit for.
• Sole Survivor: He's the only member of his immediate family known to still be alive. Meredith died of cancer inflicted by his birth father and all of his siblings were purged by Ego, who himself is killed by Peter. Some of his extended maternal family is still alive on Earth, but Peter has had no contact with them since his abduction 28 years ago. By the end of Vol. 3, he's relieved to know his grandfather waited for him.
• Static Stun Gun: His guns have a dual-barrel design, the top firing lethal rounds and the bottom-firing taser rounds.
• Stellar Name: Star-Lord.
• Stepford Smiler: Downplayed, but true: while his cheerful joking is a genuine part of his personality, it obfuscates some very real distress and emotional issues, to the point of coming across as a defense mechanism.
• Sticky Bomb: One of the gadgets he deploys in Infinity War. Quill puts one on Thanos' back, which staggers the Titan enough to let his allies prepare other attacks.
• Superhero Packing Heat: His trademark weapon is a gun.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Invoked and downplayed. He doesn't have any obvious and flashy superpowers, but after they find out that his father is some kind of ancient being, Gamora theorises that this could have been the reason why Peter was able to withstand the power of the Infinity Stone for as long as he did without dying. Vol. 2 reveals that his father is a Celestial, more or less a living god.
• Superpowers for a Day: He temporarily gets god-like powers on the level of Ego on their planet, once they connect towards the end of Vol. 2. Ego warns him that his destruction will also destroy Quill's abilities, but Quill pushes through anyway and kills his father off (and his powers) for good.
• Supporting Protagonist: In Vol. 3, he may be the primary viewpoint character and the one who instigates the plan to break into OrgoCorp, but the film is ultimately Rocket's story.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: When Yondu uses his Yaka Arrow to slow down his descent, Peter laughs because it makes him look like Mary Poppins. Yondu, not knowing that the character in question is a female British nanny, asks if he's a cool character and Peter decides to tell him he is.
  Peter: Ha! You look like Mary Poppins.
  Yondu: Is he cool?
  Peter: Hell yeah, he's cool.
  Yondu: I'm Mary Poppins, y'all!
• Sweet Tooth: According to Word of God he loves candy and he wears a t-shirt with the name of a brand of candy he particularly likes on it. We can also see a lot of candy in the Milano, with baby Groot snacking on Skittles in Vol. 2. It's a bit of an Informed Attribute, though, since we never see him actually eating sweets.
• Team Dad: Although he isn't as serious as Gamora, he is generally forced to act like a tough father to the less focused Drax and Rocket. Played for Laughs in the Vol. 2 Stinger with Teenage Groot where Peter acts just like an annoyed father dealing with his moody teenage son. He then realizes how Yondu felt.
• The Team Normal: He doesn't have any powers to speak of, relying instead on technology. Gamora and Nebula were both... enhanced by Thanos, Drax is absurdly tough, Groot is a walking, talking tree, and Rocket is a cyborg raccoon, but Quill is just a kid from Earth.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Korath finally calls him "Star-Lord" once they meet again. Gamora later does this in the first film's last scene.
• Timeshifted Actor: Wyatt Olaff plays young Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy, as well as a promotional photograph for an upcoming ''Guardians'' themed ride at EPCOT, while Chris Pratt plays the older Star-lord.
• Token Human: The only human on the team, and possibly even the entire galaxy outside of Earth (though there is a multitude of Human Aliens around the known universe). Subverted because it turns out he's only half human. Well, at least until he kills his Celestial birth father in Vol. 2. After that, he's fully human, and perfectly okay with it, too.
• Too Dumb to Live: Played for Drama in Infinity War, when Quill loses it at the absolute wrong time after learning Gamora's death and then striking Thanos free from the heroes' grasp which in turns leads to Thanos' Badass Fingersnap that wipes out half the universe, Quill himself included.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After his self-described loss of temper indirectly resulted in Thanos wiping out half the universe, he's tried to reign in the Guardians and himself to be less violent and impulsive direction.
• Tragic Keepsake: Enough to form an additional Trauma Conga Line — Peter starts out with the Walkman and Awesome Mix Vol. 1 left to him by Meredith, and at the end of the movie finally decides to open the last thing she gave him, revealing Awesome Mix Vol. 2, as well as revealing that his own self-ascribed Red Baron was his mother's Affectionate Nickname for him. At the end of the second movie, he gets an additional one from Yondu — a Zune with more tracks than the first two combined. This is after Yondu saved him via Heroic Sacrifice.
• Tranquil Fury: In Vol. 2, when Ego admits that he killed Peter's mother, Peter's expression — as he's snapping out of a trance-like state — barely changes as he pulls his guns and starts riddling Ego with holes.
• Trap Master: His fighting style is putting his enormous array of gadgets to use to distract, incapacitate, and generally inconvenience his enemies.
• Trauma Conga Line: Quill has gone through a rollercoaster of trauma throughout his time in the MCU:
  • He was raised without a father, saw his mother die a painful death from a brain tumor, ran away because he couldn't stand being there at her final moments, and then got abducted by alien pirates who would regularly torment him with, among other things, threats of eating him. When he eventually left the group, he never went back to Earth because he knew he didn't fit in there anymore, so he's got no home.
  • In Vol. 2, he finally meets his long lost dad who reveals that he's an Omnicidal Maniac out to absorb the universe into himself, that Peter's actually had thousands of half-siblings that his father killed to the last because none of them were useful to his plot, and that his father gave his mother the brain tumor that killed her so he wouldn't be tempted to give up on his crazy quest. Then, Peter has to kill his father to stop him and to watch Yondu, who he finally accepts as his adoptive father, die in his arms while making a Heroic Sacrifice to save him.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, Quill is asked to kill his loved one, Gamora in order to save the universe. Despite her begging him, he initially can't, and when he does find the will to shoot her, Thanos easily prevents it and reveals he was just testing him before taking Gamora anyway. When Quill discovers Thanos has murdered Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone, Peter loses it, resulting in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown despite his friends' pleas to instead remove the Infinity Gauntlet. Finally, he witnesses Mantis and Drax disintegrate in front of him and then dies himself with the thought that deaths of half the universe are his fault.
• Troll: He manages to get the drop on most of his foes by dicking around with them. He literally trolls Yondu at the end, by giving him the capsule with a Troll figurine in it instead of the Infinity Stone. Considering the equally trollish Yondu raised Peter after his mother's death, it's not too difficult to figure out where he likely picked up on this behavior from.
• Tyke Bomb: Ego conceives Peter with Meredith to become his Living Battery for his galactic conquest.
• Upbringing Makes the Hero: Two-fold. His mother imbued in him his morals, personality, and taste in music, while Yondu taught him how to fend for himself. The combination of both allows him to defy and overpower Ego towards the end of Volume II.
• Weak, but Skilled: When not tapping into his Celestial power, Peter himself only has limited fire power, no super strength or magic and his wit to rely on. He can still take down Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man combined with just those.
• White Male Lead: The Leader of the group, and the only white male of the bunch (heck, he's the only terran in the bunch). (Although Rocket's voice actor is also a white male).
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: He's revealed to be immortal and part-Celestial in the second film by Ego, who warns him in their final fight that should Ego's core destroy itself, Peter would lose his powers and his immortality and be "just like everyone else". Peter's response to his evil murderous father is, "What’s so wrong with that?".
• World's Strongest Man: Very briefly, during his battle with Ego in the climax of Vol. 2, Peter was unarguably the most powerful superhero in all of the MCU. Nothing and no one short of Thanos or Dormmamu could come even close to the feats he accomplished during that short span of time. Unfortunately, he lost all that power after Ego died, though he doesn't seem to mind all that much.
• Would Hit a Girl: He doesn't hold back while scuffling with Gamora during her attempt to steal the Orb.
• Would Hurt a Child: He didn't appear to have a problem holding and threatening to shoot the 16-year-old Peter Parker if Iron Man didn't tell him where Gamora was. Though played with, as he didn't know at the moment that the creepy alien in a red suit is a human teenager.
• You Are in Command Now: After Yondu's death, Kraglin refers to Peter as 'captain', signifying he is the leader of what is left of Yondu's Ravager crew, i.e. Kraglin himself.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Quill knows where Earth is, and has the means to get back there, he just doesn't. In Vol. 2, he tries justifying it on the grounds that the last time he was there, he saw his mother die. Gamora disagrees, thinking he just doesn't go back to Earth because he'd rather play Space Cowboy. After being brought back from the Decimation, he does find himself returning to Earth to fight for it against Thanos. However, James Gunn states Quill actually despised being back on Earth and got off that planet as fast as he freaking could. He associates it completely with his mother dying. Thankfully, at the end of Vol. 3, he does go back so he can spend some time with his grandfather.
• You Killed My Mother: The reason he eventually decides to give up on his biological father is that brain tumor Ego planted in Meredith's head.

Variants

Ravager T'Challa's Peter Quill

Peter Quill

Species: Human-Celestial hybrid

Affiliation(s): Dairy Queen, Ravagers

Voiced By: Brian T Delaney

Appearances: What If...?

On Earth-21818, Peter Quill was never abducted by the Ravagers and instead became a janitor for Dairy Queen.

---

• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Zigzagged. Because he was never abducted by the Ravagers, he wound up living a normal life on Earth, presumably raised by his grandfather who was definitely a much better father than Yondu. However, his father Ego decides to recruit him earlier, and doesn't waste much time before turning him into a living battery before T'Challa and his Ravagers rescue him and he's implied to join the team afterwards.
• Adaptational Curves: Inverted, he has a more average build than his Sacred Timeline counterpart's more muscular build likely because he lived a more boring and average life than him.
• Adaptational Job Change: Because he was never kidnapped by the Ravagers, he's a janitor at Dairy Queen instead of a space outlaw.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Because T'Challa was the one who was abducted in this timeline instead, Peter never got to grow up with The Ravagers and only met them when he was already an adult.
• Adaptational Wimp: Due to how he was never abducted by Yondu, Peter was never trained to be a thief or how to defend himself. Unfortunately, this made it way easier for Ego to forcefully use him as a battery.
• Future Loser: In this reality, Peter Quill was never kidnapped by Yondu when he was a kid in 1988, thus Peter Quill lived a normal life on Earth and never became Star-Lord. Instead, he ended up working as a lowly janitor at Dairy Queen fast-food joint. He may not have a good wage in his lowly job, but he still has fun at work listening to music on his Walkman. Though it's implied by the final episode of Season 1 that he might've joined T'Challa's Ravagers after being saved by him from Ego, which could reverse this status.
• Happiness in Minimum Wage: Granted, he may be a lowly-ranked worker in a fast-food joint, but he does seem to be enjoying himself.
• In Spite of a Nail: While he never grew up with them, he ends up joining the Ravagers anyway like his main universe counterpart.
• Raised by Grandparents: Implied. His maternal grandfather was going to take care of him after his mother died before he was abducted by the Ravagers in the Sacred Timeline, so that's his most likely background here.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: In this universe where he was never kidnapped by the Ravagers the night his mother died, he's just a simple janitor.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After being shown to work at a low-paid job and being subjected as a battery thanks to his abusive father Ego, Quill gets saved by T'Challa just in time and is implied to join the Ravagers for a chance of adventure he was initially denied as he is seen fighting alongside them in the last scenes of the season finale.
• Uncertain Doom: We don't see what happens after Ego meets him, but, as Uatu implies, Ego presumably intends to use him as a tool to assimilate the world just as he attempted in the Sacred Timeline. The final episode of season 1 shows this to be the case with T'Challa and the Ravagers saving him prior to Uatu recruiting T'Challa. When T'Challa returns, Peter is using one of T'Challa's guns, which suggests he might end up joining the Ravagers.

Infinity Ultron's Peter Quill

Peter Quill / Star-Lord

Species: Human-Celestial hybrid

Affiliation(s): Guardians of the Galaxy

Voiced By: N/A

Appearances: What If...?

The Peter Quill of Earth-29929, who is killed during Ultron's genocidal quest for peace.

---

• Dead Alternate Counterpart: To his Sacred Timeline and Ravager T'Challa counterpart.
• Death by Adaptation: He dies a few years before his Sacred Timeline counterpart and unlike said counterpart, this Quill is not coming back to life.
• Do Not Go Gentle: He continues gunning down Ultron Sentries despite being utterly outnumbered and completely overwhelmed.
• No Body Left Behind: It's probable that he was completely immolated by the Sovereign's explosion.

Celestial Star-Lord

Peter Quill / Star-Lord

"Actually, old man, my mom says I'm a Star-Lord."

Species: Human-Celestial hybrid

Voiced By: Mace Montgomery Miskel

Appearances: What If...?

A variant of Peter who was delivered to Ego by Yondu, with his father quickly using him for his plans for the expansion. Six months after destroying several worlds, Peter runs away back to Earth in order to get home, resulting in the formation of Earth's mightiest heroes in 1988.

---

• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Thanks to Hope and Hank, he dealt with some of his issues over his mother's death decades earlier than he did in the Sacred Timeline.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: However to balance this out, in this universe his father used him to destroy worlds when he was only eight years old.
• Adaptational Badass: Peter has far more control of his celestial powers than his Sacred Timeline self did despite being far younger, likely due to the six months of training he got from Ego. Also unlike his Sacred Timeline self, Peter retains his celestial powers by absorbing the celestial seedling, noting that it means a piece of Ego will always live inside him.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Due to still being a young kid, Peter is far less of a conniving rascal than he was in the Sacred Timeline, and is much more emotionally mature too. It's especially noticeable in how he reacts to learning Ego killed his mother; compared to Sacred Timeline Peter going absolutely berserk and emptying all of his ammo into his father's corporal form, this Peter is far more cool and rational about the revelation, and retains himself enough to figure out how to harness Ego's seed and use it against him.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In this universe, Yondu delivered Peter to Ego as agreed, meaning the two never had a surrogate father-son relationship like in the film. At the end of the episode he's adopted by Hank, who he's never met in the films while in the comics they're the same age.
• Ambiguous Situation: "What If...Strange Supreme Intervened?" features a variant of Peter who looks exactly like this version, contained in a prison and called a universe killer by Strange Supreme. It's unknown whether this is a variant who embraced Ego's plans for the universe or, given the reveal that Strange was also capturing heroes, if that was this version of Peter.
• Badass Adorable: An adorable youngster with cosmic powers.
• Commonality Connection: Peter bonds with Hope over both having recently lost their mothers, who had similar tastes in music. Hank is also able to connect with him over losing a loved one, in his case his wife.
• Composite Character: Sort of. In the MCU, Loki's arrival is what caused S.H.I.E.L.D to assemble the Avengers and at one point he's kept prisoner in a containment room. In that sense Peter is the same as he causes Peggy and Howard to recruit the Avengers of this universe and he's kept in a similar cell at one point.
• Happily Adopted: After Ego's defeat, it seems that Hank has adopted Peter.
• Heroes Love Dogs: When he and Hope are playing with Goose, he admits that he's more of a dog person.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: When he first arrives, Peter destroys several police cars and causes some destruction on his way back to Missouri, and he proves to be a dangerous threat when dealing with the Avengers. However, he's actually trying to escape his dad after being forced to kill several worlds and ultimately, the Avengers realise that he's just an eight-year-old boy dealing with the grief and trauma of losing his mother and being raised by a monstrously Abusive Dad.

---

"What should we do next; something good, something bad? Bit of both?"