Comic Book / Old Man Quill

Sorry guys, how did I fire this thing?

Old Man Quill is a 2019 comic by Ethan Sacks and Robert Gill. It is set in The Wastelands, and features Star-Lord and the Guardians of the Galaxy... or what's left of them. Just like with Old Man Logan, time has not treated well those guys, who are now very far away from their glory days.

Living in outer space, the Guardians were not reached by the villain uprising that ravaged Earth, but The Bad Guy Wins in outer space as well, as the Universal Church of Truth expands its influence. Peter Quill goes back to Earth to retrieve the Cosmic Nullifier, but things will not be easy.

Tropes

• Abnormal Ammo: Dr. Doom destroyed the Ultimate Nullifier, so Quill had to find another way to kill Galactus. He succeeds by loading his revolver with the Time Stone and shooting Galactus in the head with it. This time-displaces part of Galactus's brain and he dies.
• Actually a Doombot: The Doctor Doom that was the main big bad of the Wastelands is eventually revealed to be a Doombot that Madame Masque set up to be a puppet ruler.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the story Peter Quill organizes a new team of Guardians. Alive ones: Beta Ray Bill, Moondragon, Pyla-Vell, Nebula, Baby Groot. Together, they will resume their work protecting the galaxy.
• And This Is for...: After finally realizing that his teammates were killed by the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, Star-Lord disintegrates Gladiator with the Ultimate Nullifier while saying "That's for the Guardians of the Galaxy."
• Be Careful What You Wish For: During the final battle, Madame Masque angrily demands that Viv Vision stop hiding and face her in the open. Viv says "Okay" and then promptly kills Masque by tearing out her heart.
• Bittersweet Ending: Despite all the bleak things that happened, Peter finally comes to terms with the loss of his friends and prepares to assemble a new team of Guardians to take on the Universal Church of Truth.
• Broken Ace: Peter Quill is still a talented marksman and fighter, but the murder of the people of Spartax, which included his family, and the other Guardians, at the hands of the Church of Universal Truth has left him in a deep depression.
• But Now I Must Go: Galactus is dead, but Dr. Doom is alive. Viv Vision hopes Star Lord can stay and join her forces, but Star Lord must return to space and deal with the remnants of the Church of Universal Truth.
• Call-Back: Ashley Barton re-appears in the series, this time she's been deposed from Fisk town. She gets rulership back after Quill unleashes Fin Fang Foom on her enemies.
• The Cameo: Thanos briefly pops up in issue #10, now living on a Titanian farm and sporting an uncharacteristically mellow attitude. When he sees the Universal Church's fleet flying overhead, he remarks that Earth is screwed and promptly returns to his work.
• Dead All Along: It turns out the other Guardians (Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Mantis, and Drax the Destroyer) were killed fighting Galactus long ago and Quill has been hallucinating them by his side.
• Dented Iron: Sure, Taskmaster's photographic reflexes made him a deadly fighter...as a younger man. When you're in your 80s, all your reflexes are automatically slowed.
• The Ending Changes Everything: Quill must retrieve the Ultimate Nullifier to stop the Universal Church of Truth, but keeps whining about the loss of Spartax, until the other Guardians take him out of his stupor and force him to go to Earth to find it. Many issues afterwards, they face the Imperial Guard, who tell him that he can't expect to defeat them all alone. He turns to his fellow Guardians, but they are not there. Instead, he remembers a video of them asking for help, and then dying. Mind tricks? Reality warping? No. If the older comics are read again, it can be noticed that Quill is the only character who ever talks or interacts with anyone else (barring interactions between the Guardians themselves), and other characters reporting the events only talk about him and not about a band of aliens.
• Foreshadowing: The revelation that the Guardians are just imagined in Quill's mind is hinted at as other characters don't seem to respond to their actions or lines and the talk on how Quill is considered a sole figure and possibly crazy.
• From Bad to Worse: Earth isn't the only place where the villains won. Out in the greater galaxy the Universal Church of Truth has conquered the Shi'ar Empire, converting the Imperial Guard to their zealotry, and is now lead by Galactus in a dogmatic spread across all worlds.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Drax kills the Wrecker by impaling him with the Wrecker’s own crowbar.
• Living Battery: The Silver Surfer has been captured, with Galactus siphoning off his Power Cosmic to fuel the machine the Church uses to subjugate people.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Both during the war with the Universal Church and its aftermath, Quill kept wondering why the heroes of Earth never answered his calls for help. It's not until the Guardians crash there that Quill discovers the villains took over the planet.
• Mass Hypnosis: After Galactus is taken out it's revealed that he was used to mind control the majority of the Universal Church of Truth's forces. With him gone the head priestess starts panicking over all the thralls being released.
• My Greatest Failure: A tactical miscalculation on Star-Lord's part led to Spartax being destroyed by the Universal Church of Truth. He's spent the ensuing decades drinking himself into a stupor, blaming himself for what happened.
• Mythology Gag: Might be why Thanos is a peaceful farmer in this future, as that parallels that character's next steps after fulfilling his goals in another continuity.
• Oh, Crap!: An elderly Taskmaster says this and proceeds to beg for mercy, when he's dumped in a gladiatorial pit and will be up against a Symbiote T-Rex.
• Older Than They Look: Mantis doesn't look like she aged any and even Drax notes this in issue 8. Unfortunately she's as old as everyone else and time has taken its toll. Her telepathy is weaker and she's developing a bit of senility too.
• Once More, with Clarity: After issue seven ends with the revelation that the other Guardians are long dead and issue eight shows how it happened, issue nine opens with a two-page montage of events of the earlier issues to show how it was Quill, all on his own, doing this rather than aided by the rest of the team.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Decades of stewing in his personal failures have left the once goofy and cheery Star-Lord bitter and cynical. Even Rocket points this out after Peter coldly guns down the new Piledriver (who was visibly scared and unarmed at the time, albeit while using a little girl as a Human Shield):
  Rocket: Well, that's a little darker than the Star-Lord I remember, but I knew you weren't completely gone...I...
• Out-Gambitted: Star-Lord embarks on a huge attack on the home planet of the Universal Church, committing major forces and taking the right moves to catch the Church unawares. Too late, he learns that while all their forces have been used on the attack, the Church has had their reserves wipe out Spartax.
• Puppet King: Doctor Doom turns out to be a Doombot under the control of Madame Masque and Galactus is revealed to have somehow been under the control of the Universal Church of Truth all along.
• Retcon:
  • As mentioned above, the original Old Man Logan strongly implied that the superhero purge took place around the time of Civil War, which was reflected in the costume choices and the use of the characters seen in flashbacks. Viv Vision, a character who wasn't created until nearly a decade after Civil War, makes a surprise appearance here as one of the few surviving superheroes.
  • Nova is still alive, apparently having been off-world when the supervillain uprising occurred all those years ago. In the original Old Man Logan storyline, Nova's helmet was seen in the Red Skull's museum, implying he was one of the many heroes who had been killed. However, the one who is still alive is Sam Alexander, meaning that the one who was killed was Richard Rider.
• Shout-Out: Issue #9 (and the second trade paperback) is titled "Go Your Own Way."
• Slept Through the Apocalypse: Due to having been on the other side of the universe, the Guardians had no idea about the massacre of Earth's superhero community. When they find that S.W.O.R.D.'s orbital headquarters has been taken over by the Brood (with its entire crew presumably having been slaughtered decades ago), Drax asks how the Avengers and X-Men could have allowed such a thing to happen.
• Take Up My Sword: Peter survives his adventures on Earth, but with the Guardians dead he's got no way to deal with all the remnant Church forces. So he creates another Guardian team that includes Beta Ray Bill, Nova, Nebula, Moondragon and a baby Groot.
• Throne Made of X: Doctor Doom has a throne made out of the Thing's rocky hide.
• Together in Death: Peter comes across the skeletons of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, who apparently died while embracing each other one last time.
• Unexplained Recovery: Ultron-8 and Tonya Parker were implied to have been killed by the Punishers during the Old Man Logan mini-series. They're shown alive here, with no real explanation for how they returned. (It's possible they were resurrected when Reed Richards began rebuilding the Multiverse after the end of Secret Wars.)
• Wham Episode: Issue 7 reveals the Guardians are already dead.
• Your Head Asplode: Rocket (actually Peter) kills Bulldozer by firing a grenade into his mouth.
• Zombie Apocalypse: A variation; by the time the Guardians return to Earth the Madrox gang has devolved into a feral band of cannibals. They have to be shot in the head for an immediate kill or else they will just multiply.