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Sep 18

Starlord and Kitty Pryde

Posted on Friday, September 18, 2015 by Paul in x-axis

I have a couple of minor titles to cover to stop the X-Axis slipping too far behind again, so let’s deal with them tonight.

First up, Starlord and Kitty Pryde.  This barely counts as an X-book, really.  It’s the stand-in book for Starlord during Secret Wars.  And since Starlord is one of the handful of characters who survived the destruction of the Marvel Universe and wound up as refugees on Battleworld, it even gets to feature the regular Starlord.  And as for Kitty Pryde, she’s a supporting character in his book already.

What I’m saying is, this is basically three issues of Starlord.  Which I don’t read.  But hey.

Separated from the rest of his group – funny how that happens when an event book needs to justify some tie-ins – Peter is hanging out in one of Battleworld’s many Manhattans, making a living as a bar singer, and generally moping about the obliteration of his entire universe, including Kitty.  He winds up crossing paths with one of Battleworld’s many other Kitty Prydes.  And that’s the basic hook – it’s an odd couple caper pairing Peter with a version of Kitty who doesn’t know him and who isn’t at all impressed.

This particular Kitty Pryde works for Valeria von Doom’s Foundation, with a remit of trawling the planet for “anomalies” – awkward things that might suggest that this isn’t actually a planet created from scratch by Dr Doom.  The obvious implication is that these things need to be suppressed because Battleworld is a planet held together by magic sticky tape and some rather fragile mass illusions, and if people are confronted with the contradictions too directly, the spell could be broken and it could all go to hell.  Kitty is only in on that to a certain extent; she knows the anomalies are potentially trouble, but she insists that they’re all going to be studied and scientifically explained as part of Doom’s creation.

Ostensibly, this particular Kitty Pryde is the one from Age of Apocalypse (or a version of it), but it really doesn’t matter.  It’s her role in the cosmology of Battleworld that defines her here, plus the fact that she’s a humourless professional saddled with the eternally irritating Starlord, but keen to hold on to him because he’s an anomaly in his own right.  Beyond that, the notional plot involves a bit of chasing after a macguffin, but the real story is about Peter trying to dig this Kitty out of the mess he’s accidentally got her into, and being both fascinated and appalled by her in the process.  Of course, since she’s the competent one of the team, he’s effectively the sidekick in their temporary pairing.

You get the idea.  It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it’s a solid enough idea and it’s decently executed by Sam Humphires.  Alti Firmansyah’s art gives the characters the goofy charm they need, and does a rather neat job of establishing this as a slightly off version of Manhattan.  So there are vast, ostentatious statues to Dr Doom, but everyone (including the art) treats them as if they were much like the Statute of Liberty, and simply there to establish a familiar skyline.

There are some cute ideas here; Peter posing as a Steve Rogers counterpart, and a version of Gambit whose inherent sleaziness tips over very easily into villainy while remaining very recognisable.  I’m not sure about doing an essentially unrecognisable version of Drax, which feels a bit heavy handed.  Still, continuity geeks will be pleased to see somebody actually dusting off Widget, of all characters, and remembering that it was eventually established to be a still further version of Kitty Pryde.

 

Nothing indispensible, but light and fun.  Chalk it up as a modest success.

Bring on the comments

  1. Taibak says:

    You know, I never thought *anyone* would ever use Widget again. Or that anyone else even remembered that she’s supposed to be Kitty Pryde.

  2. Frodo-X says:

    I’ve been loving Humphries on the Starlord titles.

    Wish they’d have given him the main GotG book in the post-SW reshuffle. He’s got a much better handle on them than Bendis. At least I’m getting Abnett on Guardians of Infinity, for however long that lasts before it’s cancelled for lack of sales while Bendis’ do-nothing Guardians keep on running.

  3. Sol says:

    I’ve never read a Starlord comic at all before, but I really enjoyed this one. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but it is pretty relentlessly entertaining and fun.

  4. Dave says:

    “And if you have to pick a well-known post-90s X-Men villain for such a role, who else is there?”

    While not post-90s, Exodus? I don’t remember him being in the Acolytes episodes.
    Stryfe? Vulcan? Bastion?

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