Marvel’s Wastelanders: Star-Lord on Audible makes for an immersive and gripping listening experience
In a six-part franchise instalment, Marvel Cinematic Universe re-invents Peter Quill as Star-Lord to fight evil in a dark alternate future.
Voice: Saif Ali Khan, Vrajesh Hirjee, Sushant Divgikr, and Anangsha Biswas.
Listening to a story from the Avengers franchise doesn’t sound promising. Thundering action and lots of interplanetary travel is the first audio imagery that comes to mind. But Wastelanders: Star-Lord, an Amazon Original podcast series on Audible, surprises listeners with its smooth yet surprisingly gripping auditory experience.
Featuring Peter Quill, renamed as Star-Lord, and his trusted mate, the temperamental weapons expert Rocket Raccoon from the Guardians of the Galaxy, this series alters the ending of the Avengers: Endgame, creating an alternate future, with new villains and a more immersive, detailed story told in colloquial Hindi. An episode and a few excerpts from the series were shared for the interview.
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Over three decades have passed in this version, and the Milky Way is now run roughshod by mercenaries and villains that turn entire planets into wastelands. Peter Quill (Saif Ali Khan) and Rocket Raccoon (Vrajesh Hirjee) are no longer the brave and powerful guardians of the galaxy, for their strength and powers are no match for this new set of villains, led by Kraven.
On the hunt for a big payday, both land an assignment from a menacing and mysterious tiny female creature-to find the hidden, all-powerful element, Black Vortex. Predictably, anyone who lays their hands on it will gain control of the universe.
Quill and Rocket, riding their wrecked, battle-hardened spaceship Milano, are threatened with finding this element. Accidentally, they find an abandoned ship by Stark Industries afloat in the universe. Here, amidst the wreckage and some ultra-valuable weapons, they find a surviving female robot, a recorder of past events. Quill befriends her and puts her abilities to unique use. Together, all three set out to Earth to locate the rare black element.
Upon landing here, they are stunned to see that all the superheroes have fallen, and supervillains rule the planet now. The most-evil of them all is Doctor Doom, who has converted Earth into a wasteland. Their quest becomes a fight for survival.
This audio book has a gripping storyline, for it upturns the super-successful Avengers franchise on its head. It can surprise with its flashbacks while intriguing the listener about the reasons for the dramatic end of the Avengers.
Khan does a fine job of delivering a casually flirtatious, street-smart survivor in Star Lord, a self-styled inter-galactic hero. Hirjee’s voice-over is funny, but it grates with its profuse use of colloquial Mumbai Hindi. At some points, this feels like overkill.
Saif Ali Khan as Peter Quill
The female robot is Anangsha Biswas, calm and balanced amidst the rapid chatter of the protagonists. It has limited loud, booming sounds to not stun the listener with sudden surge in volume. Sushant Divgikr has voiced the female recorder robot, Cora.
But the element that one misses, somewhat, is the menacing visual presence of the destruction that a Marvel supervillain can unleash. Given its comic book origins, blood and wounds might be minimal, but to see the size and scale of evil makes a deeper impact. As stories go, this audio book needed detailed writing to make the story immersive in this format.
Audible is offering a new way of consuming superhero content. So far, podcasts and audiobooks like Adulting: It’s a Jungle Out There, and Little Things: Jab Dhruv Met Kavya have caught on with young listeners because of their easy-to-consume format. This one is a worthwhile try for fans of the MCU and the Avengers franchise.
Rating: 4/5
(The story was updated to change 'audiobook' to 'podcast')
Edited by Megha Reddy
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