Star-Lord and Gamoras Love Story Went Very Differently in the Comics

Publish date: 2024-03-23

Peter Quill and Gamora's romance arc in the MCU films is pretty straight forward. But in the comics version nothing could be further from the truth.

Guardians of the Galaxy was an amazing success story for Marvel Studios, turning what was at the time one of the Marvel Universe's more obscure superhero teams into an instantly recognizable pillar of the MCU on par with The Avengers and Spider-Man. A big part of the success of the Guardians films can be attributed to the MCU modernizing and updating the team in order to fit the big screen, as there are a lot of stark differences between the Guardians of the Galaxy cast as they exist in the movies versus their iterations in the comics. One of the most important changes made from the comics was in how the Guardians movie streamlined the romance arc between Peter Quill and Gamora. In the films, these two had a fairly straightforward journey into becoming a romantic couple, but in the comics, things are almost never straight forward.

To begin with, Gamora and Star-Lord were originally never in love with each other. The modern iteration of the Guardians of the Galaxy team was formed in the aftermath of  Annihilation: Conquest, a highly underrated crossover event where Avengers villain Ultron went into space and nearly conquered the universe. Because none of earth's heroes were available to fight Ultron, Star-Lord decides it's up to him to assemble a new superhero team to protect outer space, and so he recruits a team of cosmic heroes to form the Guardians of the Galaxy, including Gamora. But unlike the movies, Peter Quill and Gamora never fell for one another.

Now at the time, Gamora was actually in love with a different outer space hero - Star-Lord's friend Richard Rider aka Nova. At the time both Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy were being written by the same writer team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, so the two books were meant to be read as a pair. In 2009 both Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova would conclude their stories with an epic six-issue miniseries called The Thanos Imperative. This was a crossover event where the Marvel Universe was invaded by a parallel "Cancerverse" where death itself had been eliminated and all life was subsequently mutated into horrifying, Lovecraftian abominations controlled by "The Many-Angled Ones" a group of nightmarish deities that includes Doctor Strange villain Shuma-Gorath. By the end of The Thanos Imperative, both Nova and Star-Lord are trapped inside the Cancerverse with Thanos himself, and the two of them give their lives to keep the purple tyrant from returning to their universe.

With both Nova and Star-lord dead Gamora was heartbroken, but she continued to work with the Guardians in protecting the universe. Eventually, Star-lord would escape the Cancerverse without Nova, but the details as to how this happened wouldn't be revealed until Guardians of the Galaxy vol 4 #18. Gamora and Star-Lord continue to work together and started to form a romance, but the fact that Nova didn't come back and Peter lied about the reasons why hurt their relationship. Eventually, Nova would return to life, but he was traumatized by his experiences in the Cancerverse. As for Gamora, her newly kindled romance with Peter would have to be put on hold.

In Infinity Wars by Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato, Gamora begins obsessing over the Infinity Stones just like her father did. Gamora was convinced that part of her soul had been trapped in one of the Stones and so she sought to gather them to remake the universe for the better. During the fighting in Infinity Wars, Star-Lord is actually killed by Gamora, but he's quickly revived and Gamora is also redeemed for her actions in the end. This means it's finally time for the happy couple to settle down, right? Wrong. There's still one last hurdle for Star-Lord and Gamora to overcome.

In the currently ongoing 2020 Guardians of the Galaxy series by Al Ewing and Juann Cabal, Star-Lord and Gamora have finally settled down and become an official couple. However, their happiness is quickly interrupted when Peter seemingly dies yet again in Guardians of the Galaxy #2 - only in reality, he was just thrown into an alternate universe for 140 years where he falls in love with a pair of bisexual nomads named Mors and Aradia. Peter would finally return home in Guardians of the Galaxy #10 to help his teammates fight the King in Black, but what will become of Star-Lord's romance with Gamora after this remains to be seen.

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