Will Peter Quill Get His Celestial Powers Back in GotG 3? 

Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, is the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy. In the MCU, he went from being human with exceptional skills to a Celestial and then back to being only human. However, the nature of his powers presented when facing his father, Ego, makes many fans believe that Peter can still wake his powers up. So, will Peter Quill get his Celestial powers back?

When Ego was killed, Peter Quill lost his connection to the light that gave him powers presented in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Even the director, James Gunn, revealed in a now-deleted Tweet that Peter isn’t getting those powers back. That being said, perhaps he can awaken a different kind of power.

To understand what I’m talking about, we need to go back to the dialogues between Ego and Star-Lord, and the fact that Ego taught Peter how to harness the Celestial powers. Also, the fact that Gunn’s Tweets were deleted sparked even more talk about Quill’s potential to regain his Celestial powers in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. On that note, let’s explore why.

Is Peter Quill a Celestial (MCU & comics)?

Before we proceed, I just wanted to quickly catch up on who the Celestials are in Marvel Comics for those unacquainted with their presence in the Marvel universe. Celestials are colossal cosmic entities that predate the universe itself – in fact, they are believed to be its creators. 

They have unfathomable power – literally being able to create, alter, and eradicate life at will. Their powers include energy and matter manipulation to a nearly unlimited degree and virtually anything else you could think of. We saw them appear properly in the MCU in the 2021 movie Eternals.

Now, Peter Quill’s origins in the comics are different than those we saw in the MCU. That change stemmed from his father being a completely different character in Marvel Comics compared to the MCU.

In the MCU, we know that Peter’s father is Ego, the Living Planet – a self-proclaimed Celestial that sired countless children to try and get one carrying the Celestial genes. Ultimately, Quill was the only one carrying the gene, but finding him proved fatal for Ego, as Star-Lord killed his dad in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

However, in the comics, Peter’s father was also an alien being, but not nearly as powerful as Ego. His name was J’Son of Spartax, a future leader of the Spartai Empire in space. He was a powerful guy, seeing that their technology was extremely advanced compared to that of planet Earth. He proved to be a douche, just like Ego in the MCU, but that’s a topic for another day.

We’re here to discuss whether Peter Quill was a Celestial or not. When it comes to Marvel comics, there’s no question – Star-Lord has no connections to the Celestials whatsoever, so no, he’s not one of them.

In the MCU, however, he was believed to be half-Celestial, as his father, Ego, claimed to be a Celestial. I’m saying ‘claimed to be’ because he doesn’t have the same form or, it seems, the power level of the regular Celestials – so there might be a slight chance that he lied and that Ego was simply a primordial cosmic entity, but not a Celestial.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that Ego wasn’t lying. It would make Peter Quill a Celestial hybrid or a half-Celestial. We saw him present incredible powers at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, when he held the Power Stone with his bare hands and survived, and then in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when he fought Ego.

However, after killing Ego, Star-Lord was warned that he’d lose his Celestial powers – or the connection to the light. He chose to do so, nevertheless, to save Earth and his friends.

How did Peter Quill lose his Celestial powers?

So, Ego taught Peter how to get in touch with the light and activate his Celestial powers. However, when Star-Lord learns his father’s true intentions- eradicating all life in the universe until there’s nothing left but Ego – he fights his father and eventually kills him.

That resulted in Peter Quill’s Celestial powers disappearing, despite his hybrid physiology. There were speculations among fans that Peter Quill could still regain his powers if he learned how to harness them without Ego’s help. However, James Gunn, the director of all the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, explained it doesn’t work that way.

“Systems are systems, and when System A is powered by System B, that power would cease to be if System B was destroyed.” – Gunn explained in a now-deleted Tweet.

Basically, that means that if Ego and his light powered Peter Quill’s Celestial powers, then Peter’s powers would disappear if Ego’s light was destroyed.

Will Star-Lord get his Celestial powers back in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3?

Seeing that James Gunn already answered this particular question, it seems pretty straightforward – Star-Lord will not get his Celestial powers back in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 because the source of his powers – Ego – was killed in Vol. 2. And yet, some fans aren’t convinced – because it’s NOT that simple.

First of all, Gunn’s Tweets came in 2021 but are now all deleted. Meaning perhaps James felt he revealed too much – or the narrative changed, and the Tweets mean nothing.

Secondly, the premise works only if you believe that Ego was the source of Peter Quill’s powers. But what if he never taught Peter to use his own powers? What if he only taught Peter to harness Ego’s powers straight from the Living Planet?

If you listen closely to their dialogue in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, when Ego is teaching Peter how to use the powers. He instructs Peter to harness the light from the planet – not from within himself.

And, in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film, we actually see Peter use his inherent power without harnessing it from the planet or from Ego. Ego lied so much throughout the movie, so why should we believe him when he says Peter would lose all of his powers if he was killed?

If that were the case, wouldn’t every Celestial lose power when another Celestial is killed? Or, at least, all the Celestials that harness power from the same source? If every Celestial harnesses power of their own, however… Well, then, Peter should also have his own power.

So, to answer the main question of this article – Peter will certainly not get the same powers back that he had in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Those powers came directly from Ego and the Living Planet, and after Peter killed Ego, that power was destroyed.

However, it may be that Ego never taught Peter Quill how to harness his own power, but rather just Ego’s power instead. We’ve seen that Star-Lord had inherent superhuman powers even before he met Ego. So, perhaps he could awaken his own Celestial powers in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

It’s a stretched theory, but I’m hoping it will turn out to be true. I guess we won’t know until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 premieres on May 5, 2023, exclusively in cinemas.