How Old Was Peter Quill When He Was Abducted by Yondu?

Guardians of the Galaxy have been fan-favorite MCU characters ever since their introduction in 2014. The big bunch of total misfits is led by Star-Lord, aka Peter Quill, who was actually born on Earth but hasn’t been back there until he was already a fully grown man, and since he’s been taken from there. So, how old was Star-Lord when he was abducted by Yondu?

Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, was an eight-year-old boy when the Ravagers, led by Yondu Udonta, kidnapped him and took him to outer space. Yondu and the Ravagers were actually doing a job for Ego, a Celestial that’s, in fact, Peter’s not-so-loving father.

However, luckily for Peter, Yondu quickly realized that Ego wasn’t a good guy and that his intentions for Quill weren’t really good, so he kept him and raised the boy himself. Eventually, Peter emancipated and became Star-Lord, paving the way for the Guardians of the Galaxy to form. Let’s dive deeper into who Peter Quill is and how he became a space traveler.

Peter Quill’s background

Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, is the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy that first appeared in the MCU in 2014 in the movie of the same name. Star-Lord was a Terran but hadn’t been back on his home planet since childhood – it was just too painful for him because the night he ‘left’ Earth was the night his mother passed away as well.

Peter was raised by a guy named Yondu Udonta, an alien with blue skin and a red mohawk he used to control a flying arrow with his mind – and his whistle. Yondu was the leader of the Ravagers, an alien group of criminals, thieves, and bounty hunters who were traveling the galaxy in search of loot.

As he grew up, Peter Quill somewhat emancipated himself from the Ravagers, took a spaceship of his own, and started doing jobs himself. It inadvertently led him to cross paths with some of the most notorious villains in the galaxy – and with some of the biggest misfits that would grow to become his best friends.

Soon after, Star-Lord became the leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy, whose members were Groot and Rocket, Drax, and Gamora – a woman Peter fell in love with. Later, they were joined by Mantis, Nebula, Kraglin (Yondu’s brother), and even Thor for a while.

That being said, I’ve already mentioned that Peter quill was from Earth. So, how did he end up in outer space, being named a Guardian of the Galaxy?

Peter’s age when abducted by Yondu

Growing up on Earth, Peter Quill lived alone with his mother, Meredith, and was a huge fan of music. The reason behind that was that Peter kind of felt that music was his escape – his safe space – while his mother was suffering from terminal brain cancer.

Eventually, the illness took his mother’s life, and Peter was left all alone with his favorite music. He wasn’t alone for long, though, as that same night, lights came down from the sky, and Peter was abducted and taken into outer space. It was Yondu Udonta and the Ravagers.

Peter Quill was only eight years old when Yondu abducted him, but Udonta wasn’t working on his own accords. He was instructed and paid to abduct Peter by none other than Quill’s biological father – Ego.

Ego was a Celestial with immense powers whose main goal was the Expansion – consuming all life in the universe until everyone – and everything – became Ego. To do so, Ego spent thousands of years planting his seeds on various planets until the time came for the seeds to grow and take over.

However, for the expansion to work, Ego needed another Celestial being to join powers with him to trigger the Expansion. So, he created a physical avatar of himself and impregnated women across those planets to get offspring. He inadvertently fell in love with one of those women – Meredith Quill, Peter’s mother on Earth.

Peter wasn’t the first child of Ego to be abducted for the Celestial by Yondu and the Ravagers. He paid a lot for Yondu to travel to different worlds and bring the children back to him. It was a don’t ask – don’t tell kind of a deal – Yondu would get them to Ego, and Ego would pay, so Udonta didn’t really care what happens to the kids afterward. That is until he abducted Peter.

Why did Yondu keep Peter?

Seeing how many of these kids he had already abducted for Ego, never to be seen again, Yondu started wondering; what happened to those kids?

Soon, he realized that Ego was simply killing them off after realizing they didn’t carry the Celestial gene within them. Seeing that he didn’t need them unless they were Celestials, Ego just killed them in cold blood.

When Yondu realized that, he decided not to take quill to Ego but rather take him in and raise him as a Ravager, essentially becoming his stepfather. What is more, after Peter met Ego in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, he learned that his mother’s cancer didn’t happen by chance.

Instead, it was Ego who gave his mother brain cancer after realizing he had feelings for her and that she could pose a problem to his eventual plans with Peter. It enraged the now-grown-up Quill, leading to him battling and killing his father in the process.

As much as Peter grew to resent Yondu for his upbringing methods, he realized that Udonta was his real dad and that he only wanted to keep him safe.

How did Peter Quill become Star-Lord?

After being abducted by Yondu at the young age of eight, Peter Quill was raised as a Ravager. By age ten, he was already given his own spaceship, which Peter named Milano after Alyssa Milano, his childhood crush.

As Peter grew, he started donning the mantle of Star-Lord -the self-proclaimed most notorious thief in the entire galaxy. He essentially emancipated from the Ravagers and lived on his own, stealing stuff and picking up bounties.

That eventually led him to meet Groot, Rocket, Drax, and Gamora – the misfit team that became the initial Guardians of the Galaxy. And the rest, I guess, is history. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is set to premiere on May 5, 2023, and will likely be the last time we see the Guardians in the MCU. 

I’m not crying. You are!