Review: Star-Lord & Kitty Pryde

Quick Summary

Pros: The story is romantic and details a fun adventure. The artwork looks great and creatively displays both the characters and the environments.

Cons: In some places, the romance is a little too corny and cheesy. In other places, the romance is poorly justified and inauthentic.

Overall: This is a passably entertaining adventure in romance that will, unfortunately, not appeal to everyone. The main characters here are both interesting and their conversations and personalities both have an endearing charm to them. The artwork also looks great and helps craft a more imaginative world. However, this is undercut by the lack of justification for the central relationship and some strange choices from the main characters. If you are already a fan of this particular relationship then you may enjoy this story; if not then it probably won’t appeal to you.

Story

Star-Lord & Kitty Pryde, by Sam Humphries, is a decent volume that highlights the relationship between Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde. Their adventures here are entertaining and their dialogue with one another has a charming level of charisma. However, elements of their interactions also feel a bit over-the-top and end up being corny in some places and inauthentic in others. This slightly undermines the romance in this book and puts a lot of the book’s appeal on shaky ground. The end result is a book that may somewhat appeal to those looking for a romantic adventure but won’t appeal to those who are unconvinced by the relationship between Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde.

(spoilers start here)

The main storyline in Star-Lord & Kitty Pryde is a Secret Wars tie-in that has Star-Lord encounter an alternate version of Kitty Pryde. At first, the two are at odds with one another, yet, over time, they grow closer and learn that they have more in common than initially believed. Their misadventures also have moments of fun action and even a few more emotional expressions.

However, the main focus here is on the romance between these two characters. Fans who enjoy this relationship will find a lot to enjoy here, as the two are almost constantly flirting throughout the book. Even if you are someone who doesn’t enjoy the relationship, Humphries’s writing gives both characters an entertaining level of charm and charisma that is hard to deny.

The problem with this focus on the relationship is that it is corny and cheesy in ways that previous Star-Lord/Kitty Pryde stories were not. Their adventures here don’t quite justify their love for one another in the same way that their previous relationship was justified, especially given this new Kitty Pryde’s penchant for violence. This makes their over-the-top antics and romantic expressions feel inauthentic and takes away from the experience. One moment that particularly highlights this problem is when Star-Lord frees the duo by simply singing to a robot version of Kitty Pryde, despite his singing having little effect on the new Kitty Pryde. Since romance is this book’s main feature, problems with the romance have a big impact on the book as a whole.

The rest of Star-Lord & Kitty Pryde collects issues that are only somewhat relevant to the story being told here. One is the Black Vortex (Review) issue in which Peter proposes and the other is the first appearance of the Age of Apocalypse version of Kitty Pryde. Both issues are fine on their own but neither one really does much to enhance the rest of this volume.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The artwork in this volume is one of the more consistently positive aspects of this book. Alti Firmansyah’s work here looks incredibly crisp and has a great level of creativity in it. This allows Star-Lord, Kitty Pryde, and even Drax to stand out as strikingly unique characters, especially in regards to their costume design. It also does a fantastic job in making the reality of Battleworld feel like a fully fleshed out world, as the locations visited in this book have tons of realistic background details. All of these visuals also help add to the lighthearted nature of this story, which is further enhanced by Jessica Kholinne’s colors, which are the perfect match for this particular mood. All in all, the artwork in Star-Lord & Kitty Pryde looks good and is one of the most universally positive aspects of this book.

Continuity

Star-Lord & Kitty Pryde is a tie-in to the Secret Wars (Review) event and shows actions that take place in the middle of this event. It also somewhat continues story elements from Legendary Star-Lord Vol. 2: Rise of the Black Vortex (Review).

The main story here continues in the rest of Secret Wars (Review). Star-Lord’s individual story continues in Legendary Star-Lord Vol. 3: First Flight.

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• This volume is a tie-in to the Secret Wars (Review) event.
• The Kitty Pryde shown here is the Kitty Pryde from the Age of Apocalypse reality.
• The history behind the robotic version of Kitty Pryde is explained at the beginning of the Excalibur series, collected in Excalibur Epic Collection: The Sword is Drawn.
• This volume also collects an issue from the Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men- The Black Vortex (Review) event and the Age of Apocalypse event.