Starro the Conqueror
It's for your own good, female. Soon, every human on Earth will be blessed with one of my children. No longer will you be required to take decisions for your own... For we will decide for you. Our will is your will! You will have no thoughts but those we give you... No desires but those that are ours... For the first time since its creation, your planet will know... peace. We begin in this city... And within a few days' time, we will bring our blessings to the world. It is our destiny to conquer. It is your destiny to be conquered.
Star Conquerors are enormous extraterrestrials resembling giant or small Terran starfish. Their central nervous system is very similar to that of most sentient species in the universe except that they exist within a collective hive mind that shares its thoughts and desires with all star mothers, spores, and underlings. The first Star Mother to arrive at Terra could empower indigenous starfish to turn them into new Star Conquerors of a similar size and power as the mother. Over time this power has been lost or wasn’t seen as useful. Starro the Conqueror can also naturally fly between solar systems at a speed faster than light, they need no food or water, they can regenerate from even the most severe injuries, and display incredible energy absorption and projection abilities. While Starro is nearly invulnerable and immortal, it does seem weak to cold, garden lime, lead, and a special anti-starfish toxin engineered by a civilization of Starro hunters whose civilization fell to ruin eons ago.
History
A lone Star Mother set its singular eye upon the world of Hatorei billions of years ago when the planet was inhabited by a sentient species that shared a natural psionic link with every member of the population. Star Conquerors had an early form of sentience at this time, similar to what is experienced with chimpanzees, dolphins, and some species of birds, and largely went from planet to planet feeding off the population until another mother star was born. Then the young Star Conqueror moved on to the next world. As this Star Mother began to invade the population of Hatorei, it began to be integrated into the hive mind of the dominant species, and every trauma it inflicted upon them and ultimately upon itself. These maddened creatures who now shared 1 highly ill psyche were Starro the Conqueror and it eventually encapsulated every member of the species across the galaxy.
Cold War Era
Starro searched billions of miles of interstellar space inside the Milky Way Galaxy looking for intelligent life for reasons it didn't truly understand. Then Starro found Terra and came into orbit above the planet where it empowered the native starfish to become new Star Conquerors. The forces of Atlantis were the first to discover the arrival of Starro and warned the surface dwellers. A Star Conqueror had stolen an atom bomb from a US military aircraft in Colorado but it didn't escape thanks to Green Lantern. Another went to absorb the scientific knowledge from the staff and faculty of the Hall of Science but Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter were able to free them from Starro's control before it was too late. The last prepared a small town in Rhode Island named Happy Harbor for the Star Mother's arrival, but Starro couldn’t control 1 man the Flash noticed as he was rescuing the rest of the citizenry. The Flash realized that the seemingly immune person was covered in garden lime due to an accident at the gardening store negating Starro's power. Together, the heroes covered the Star Mother with garden lime and left it inert defeating Starro's first invasion attempt. A segment of the original Star Mother avoided the garden lime and regenerated. The forces of Atlantis defeated it before it started its invasion again.
A mini-Starro, what Starro calls a spore, survived the previous invasion attempt and convinced some New Yorkers to nurse it back to health until it reached a Star Mother's size and power. Then it began to take over the minds of everyone in New York City with a new wave of spores. The heroes that showed up to stop the invasion were summarily taken over as well until heroes with powers to control the cold were able to defeat Starro the Conqueror and its spores by freezing them and the entire city. Starro's invasion of Terra was prevented once again.
The Green Lantern, Kilowog discovered a spore of Starro the Conqueror survived its last freezing and it convinced him that it wanted to return to outer space. Kilowog took it into space using his starship but Starro caused the ship to explode once they got there sending millions of spores over Western Europe. Later, a Star Mother arrived that was big enough to cover the continent of Europe and its psionic power was enough to entrap human minds in their sleep. The heroes of Earth joined forces to battle this entity of Starro in its shared dream space. Both invasions were ultimately ended by freezing the Starro incarnations, the latter after its psyche was defeated in their collective dream.
Superhuman Registration Era
Starro the Conqueror appeared over New York City shortly before the Superhero Civil War and began spreading its spores. The Avengers answered the call this time but half the team found themselves taken under Starro's control as the Star Mother's body crashed through the streets and smashed against the high rises. The remainder of the team devised a plan to use Scarlet Witch's hex magic to manipulate Starro's mind and make him leave. The plan worked surprisingly well but the Avengers were unaware that they and the Justice League were involved in a scheme much larger than the Starro invasion.
References
- Starro on Wikipedia
- JLA/Avengers Vol. 1 #1 on Marvel Database
- Starro (New Earth) on DC Database
- JLA/Avengers Vol. 1 #1 on DC Database
- The Brave and the Bold Vol. 1 #28 on DC Database
- Justice League of America Vol. 1 #189 on DC Database
- Justice League of America Vol. 1 #190 on DC Database
- Justice League Europe Vol. 1 #24 on DC Database
- Justice League Europe Vol. 1 #25 on DC Database
- Justice League Europe Vol. #26 on DC Database
- Justice League Europe Vol. #27 on DC Database
- Justice League Europe Vol. #28 on DC Database
- JLA Secret Files and Origins Vol. 1 #1on DC Database
- JLA Vol. 1 #22 on DC Database
- JLA Vol. 1 #23 on DC Database
Aliases:
- Mini-Starro
- Mother Star
- Star Conqueror
- Starro Conquerors
- Starro Spores
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