Greetings from Battleworld: Secret Wars Week 12

A small week from Battleworld, as Dan Grote takes us to a new series, featuring the ramifications of Secret Wars #4 and introduces one of Doom's hitters, who might be familiar to all you X-Fans...

Star-Lord and Kitty Pryde #1

Story: Sam Humphries

Art: Alti Firmansyah and Jessica Kholinne

When last we saw Star-Lord – the real, 616 Star-Lord – Sheriff Strange had cast him and the rest of the raft survivors to the four winds in Secret Wars #4 to avoid the wrath of God Emperor Doom.

Since then, he has gone into hiding, changed his name to Steve Rogers and taken a job singing Disney songs in a nightclub run by a pompadoured Drax in the domain of Manhattan.

Oh, and his backing band is Polaris, Wolfsbane and Strong Guy from X-Factor, because in addition to looking like Steve Rogers, Peter Quill also looks like Alex Summers, Danny Rand, Clint Barton and every other blond white guy in the Marvel Universe.

Do I have your attention yet?

To be sure, Star-Lord is looking for his Disney princess. But the Kitty Pryde of this story is not the Kitty of Earth 616. This Kitty works for Valeria Von Doom’s Foundation tracking down pre-Battleworld anomalies. She comes to Peter/Steve’s club on the night in question to pick up foreign hair samples from Gambit the Collector in exchange for knives made from the bones of Longshot.

Seriously, there are so many great little touches in this book, it’s putting a lot of the other Secret Wars X-books to shame. (Except X-Men ’92. You’re perfect. Never change.)

To pile on the theme, Alti Firmansyah’s art takes on the look of old Disney 2-D animation, including things like a snooty-looking French maître-d and Gambit’s red irises practically turning into hearts when he sees the object of his desire.

Anyway, as happens, Kitty and Gambit’s trade goes sour, working out in favor of the guy who now has luck-powered bone knives. Fortunately, a stray blood sample leaves Kitty with a new, Quill-shaped anomaly to bring home to Doomgard. In handcuffs.

On a separate note: Wuddup with Kitty only dating dudes named Peter? You guys know this is her fourth one, after Rasputin, Wisdom and (in the Ultimate Universe) Parker, right? How long before she starts dating the Trapster, formerly known as Paste Pot Pete?