Guardians of the Galaxy managed to wrap up its story pretty neatly, but there was certainly material left over to explore in an eventual sequel. By far the biggest question left open though is, who exactly is Star-Lord’s dad? Let’s speculate!
Spoilers for lots of comic book thing.
1. J’Son of Spartax
In the comics, we definitely know who Peter Quill’s dad is. He’s J’Son, the leader of the Spartoi Empire. Earlier in his life he was a military pilot who crash landed on Earth. Injured, he was taken in and cared for by Meredith Quill, and the two fell in love and had a child together, Peter.
J’Son believed that if he stayed though, his enemies would come and find him, so he left as soon as his ship was repaired, leaving behind his Element Gun for his son.
There’s certainly evidence for J’Son, or a close equivalent, to be the movie version of Peter Quill’s dad (after all, his full name is Peter Jason Quill). Being Spartoi, he basically looks human, which would make Meredith Quill’s comment that Peter looks like his father reasonable. Also, if he’s a space Emperor, he could certainly afford to pay Yondu to retrieve his son.
However, there are a few factors weighing against the J’Son theory. One, Meredith also describes the father as made of pure light, which doesn’t make a lot of sense given the Spartoi are more or less human. Additionally, if he’s the leader of an entire space-traveling species, how has the Nova Corp. never heard of him? Nova Prime describes him as something ancient and unidentified, and again, the Spartoi are pretty much human.
Of course, it’s very possible that James Gunn and crew will still use J’Son, and just give us a much different take on the Spartoi than we’ve previously seen.
2. Adam Warlock
After Guardians hit theaters, the interwebs lit up with fan theories regarding Adam Warlock. That cocoon from the Thor: The Dark World stinger makes a second appearance here, and certainly looks a heck of a lot like Warlock’s from the comics.
Adam Warlock is an artificially created “perfect human,” made by a sinister organization known as the Enclave. Warlock rebelled against his creators though, traveling into space where he was given the powers of the Soul Gem (one of the future components of the Infinity Gauntlet). He was also one of the members of an earlier incarnation of the Guardians of the Galaxy team, and had a big, big role in The Infinity Gauntlet storyline.
This theory, while it sounds crazy, works for a number of reasons. Firstly, Warlock is technically human (sort of), so it’s possible that he could have a child with Meredith. His powers and uniqueness would also help him fit the bill of being something mysterious to the Nova Corp.
Finally, his weird glow-y skin in the comics, but otherwise human appearance, would make both of Meredith’s comments (Peter looks like his father, father was pure light) a little more feasible.
With two teases so far, and his role in the comics’ Infinity Gauntlet story, it’d make a lot of sense to introduce Warlock somewhere down the line. Why not as Peter Quill’s dad?
No, not that Star Fox.
Guardians of the Galaxy introduced the Celestials, an ancient race of giant, godlike beings. The Collector shows us one, decimating an entire planet with an Infinity Stone, while Knowhere itself is the disembodied head of another.
In the comics, the Celestials created another race of beings called the Eternals on Earth. The Eternals eventually went into space and got superhuman powers as the result of experimentations (and interestingly, the guy doing the experiments was none other than Thanos’s grandfather).
With most of them being several millennia old, they certainly fit the bill of being ancient; and if they’ve stayed hidden from the rest of the galaxy, then it’d make sense that the Nova Corp. wasn’t able to identify them. And again, being somewhat human-ish, one of them could have potentially had a child with a human.
If Marvel is going this route, the most likely candidate is Starfox, a really creepy Eternal who has the power to manipulate emotions, and uses that to get laid. If that sounds pretty illegal, Marvel agrees, and Starfox was actually charged with sexual assault on Earth in the comics.
Given Star-Lord’s pelvic sorcery, maybe the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.
We’re scraping off of the bottom of the barrel here, but what if that blue skinned space-pirate is actually Quill’s dad? He could have very easily made up a lie about getting paid to pick up Peter, when instead he just wanted to retrieve his son. That would explain why he never turned in the bounty, given he seems a lot more interested in money than in raising children, as there never was a bounty to begin with.
He seems pretty hesitant to kill Quill throughout the film, and even seems pretty amused at the fact that Quill double-crossed him again at the end. Hell, it’s loose at best, but he does describe himself as “pretty as an angel” at one point, which sort of sounds like how Meredith Quill described the father.
On the other hand, I’m not sure he qualifies as an ancient, unidentified being considering he’s been to Xandar a number of times now.
We’re now scraping the bottoms of several barrels just to even consider this theory, but what the hell. What if it’s Thanos? I’m going to be frank here, there’s basically no evidence to support this idea other than it would so Empire Strikes Back, and it’s not like the first Guardians movie was shy about its Star Wars influences.
6. The Beyonder
We ordered several truckloads of barrels to scrape to make this theory workable, but there are more than a few fans shouting about this one online, so let’s dive into it.
The Beyonder is basically a god, with near-omnipotence and unlimited power. This is a guy who looks at Galactus like you would a bug, and can destroy entire galaxies on a whim. Yes, he’s a pretty silly character.
That being said, his natural state could certainly be described as pure light, and at one point, he chose to become a human to better understand mortals. Could he be Quill’s dad? Technically?
But no, probably not.
7. Something New
With Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn wasn’t afraid to stray far from the source material with the film’s characters and locations, so why not have Peter Quill’s father be something original?
Ancient and unidentified are two very intriguing buzzwords, I wouldn’t mind seeing Gunn ride this mystery as far as it can go. Hell, maybe it’s a Reaper.
Shepard… I mean Star-Lord…