Star Brand

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The Star Brand is a fictional star-shaped tattoo-like mark that first appeared in the comic book series Star Brand, published by Marvel Comics under their New Universe imprint.

The Star Brand gave its bearer god-like powers, limited only by the wielder's imagination. The name Starbrand was also often applied to the person holding the power. After the end of the series and the New Universe, the Star Brand made appearances in the mainstream Earth-616 Marvel Universe.

Contents

[edit] Powers and Function

The most easily attainable powers of the Star Brand are flight, incredible strength, invulnerability and the ability to unleash blasts of destructive energy, up to the equivalent of a nuclear explosion in force (this last power is problematic, as the blast manifests as a sphere centered on the weilder indescriminately destroying everything in his vicinity). In addition, the brand makes the bearer immortal, preserving him from aging and reviving and regenerating his body upon its violent death (Upon reviving, the Star Brand bearer will first take on a transitory but freakish alien shape before reverting to his normal human appearance; more than once, this has lead observers to erroneously believe that the bearer is an alien masquerading as a human). The Star Brand's power also has a minor mutagenic aspect, in that those who wield it for a great number of years will grow taller and more massive. It is possible that all these "basic" abilities are the result of the infinite power of the Star Brand responding to the subconcious desires of the bearer.

The power of the Star Brand must be called up by the bearer's will (except for its preservative properties, which function subconciously). If the bearer is frightened or disoriented, it is possible for their control to slip and leave him defenseless. Anger focuses the power, and will automatically activate it before the user can consciously do so. In time, the bearer uses the Star Brand instinctually until, if he wishes it, he has to consciously choose to turn it off.

With time, imagination and will, the bearer of the Star Brand can expand its abilities into anything he can conceive of. Early examples are learning to direct its destructive energy into controlled bolts and healing wounds of the bearer or others at will. Expanded powers have included the ability to "burn-out" the powers of other paranormals, creating objects from nothing (up to entire cities), reconstructing and redesigning the bodies of living beings, rendering inert all nuclear warheads on the planet and even time travel.

The brand itself is roughly the size of the palm of the hand and as far as has been shown is immaterial and effectively only two-dimensional. The Brand is utterly black in color and is smooth and warm to the touch. As long as it is somewhere on their skin the bearer may wield its powers. The brand can be transferred to another part of the body if the bearer wills it by skin-to-skin contact, thus the bearer can choose to place the Star Brand anywhere on his person, willing it into his hand then placing it anywhere on their body. However, this transfer involves some energy discharge, and the brand will burn off any hair it is placed over. The Star Brand and its power can be transferred to another person, but former owners are always left with a remaining residue of about 10% of its power, a residue which regenerates and in time will grow to equal that of the original. In the series it was stated that the power of the brand is infinite. So 10% of infinite power is still infinite power.

The Star Brand must be carried by a sentient being, otherwise its energy is spontaneously released in a massive uncontrolled explosion. The two most significant events of the New Universe, the White Event and the destruction of Pittsburgh, were caused by attempts to transfer the Star Brand to inanimate objects.

There is some risk of "fallout" from massive uses of the Star Brand's power. Backlash from the Star Brand has occasionally altered nearby landscape and life.

[edit] New Universe series

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Star Brand


Cover to Star Brand #1
Art by John Romita Jr.
Publisher Marvel Comics
Schedule Monthly
Format Ongoing
Publication dates October 1986 to May 1989
Number of issues Nineteen
One annual.
Main character(s) Ken Connell
Creative team
Writer(s) Jim Shooter
Roy Thomas
Cary Bates
George Caragonne
John Byrne
Bobbie Chase
Artist(s) John Romita, Jr.
Alex Saviuk
Arvell Jones
Keith Giffen
Mark Bagley
John Byrne
Geof Isherwood
Creator(s) Jim Shooter
John Romita, Jr.

[edit] Before the series

The defining event of the New Universe, the White Event, was a result of one user's attempt to place the Star Brand on an inanimate object (an asteroid) in order to rid himself of the power. The brand, unchecked by a higher intelligence, released a huge amount of energy in a single blast. This energy bombarded Earth, mutating a portion of the population and endowing them with various paranormal traits or abilities. This phenomenon set the stage for all the New Universe titles.

[edit] Wielders

There were four men who wielded the power of the Star Brand during the course of the original series run:

  • Ken Connell is the main character through most of the series. He is a car mechanic from Pittsburgh who receives the Star Brand from the mysterious Old Man he meets in the woods while dirtbiking. Ken tries to use his powers to help others, but usually finds his efforts thwarted by the complexities of the real world, his own personal failings and his unwillingness to publicly reveal himself. At first, he was given a costume by the Old Man based upon his dirtbiking suit, which was allegedly as invulnerable as he. However, he rarely had the chance to change into it during a crisis and eventually its invulnerability was exposed as an illusion. Later, Connell attempted to become a traditional superhero, donning a spandex bodysuit and mask to openly thwart terrorists on several occasions. However, this superhero career was short-lived and led to disaster. Though intelligent, he was self-involved and lacked the imagination and curiosity that would allow him to understand and wield the brand to its fullest potential. He eventually decided that he would be better off without his powers, and unintentionally caused the destruction of all of Pittsburgh (the Black Event) when attempting to transfer the brand to an non-living object.
  • The Old Man was the first known wielder of the brand. Originally he claimed to be an alien warrior engaged in a cosmic struggle against conquerors who desperately wanted to steal his power for themselves. Later it was revealed that he was a centuries-old Dutch trader who had received the Star Brand from a blast from the sky and had been kept alive by its power. After his failure to get rid of the Star Brand by placing it on an asteroid in space (and thereby causing the White Event), he returned to Earth and gave the brand to the first person he encountered, Ken Connell. Later regretting this decision, he attempted to trick Connell into giving the brand back to him, and failing that, resortsed to terrorizing Connel on numerous occasions. After being defeated by Connel several times, he was revealed to be an older version of Connell himself who had been thrown 500 years into the past by the Star Child.
  • The Star Child/Star Baby: was the illegitimate son of Ken Connell and his girlfriend Debbie "The Duck" Fix. Conceived while Connell wielded the Star Brand, he was born fully possessed and conscious of its power, growing at an extremely accelerated rate both physically and mentally due to its influence. He was much more selfless than his father, and had a much more instinctual grasp of the Star Brand and how to use it, but was at first painfully ignorant of the ways of the world. After several naive attempts to improve the world through direct use of his power, he retreated to space to meditate for an extended time one how best to use his power. Eventually, he realized that the Star Brand was a cosmic anomaly and no good could come of it's continued existence. Soon after he formulated and enacted a plan to seal its power away forever by gathering all the bearers of the power and locking themselves in an a loop of time. However, the Star Child, for some unexplained reason, later branded Jim Hanrahan (as explained when the New U characters were reintroduced in the Quasar and Starblast series). Quasar then got "the Brand" from Hanrahan.
  • Jacob Burnsley was the fourth weilder of the Star Brand, chosen by the Star Child to watch over the world while he contemplated the Star Brand's role in isolation. Deciding that much of the trouble caused by the Brand was the result of it being held by a young man lacking wisdom or experience, the Star Child instead chose an older man who would be less inpulsive. Brumley was a retired janitor and veteran of World War II who used his power only after much consideration and put it to many new uses. In his time, he depowered the power-hungry paranormal president of the United States and attempted to restore Pittsburgh after its destruction.

[edit] Creators

[edit] Writers

  • Jim Shooter - Star Brand #1-7 (October 1986-May 1987)
  • Roy Thomas - Star Brand #7 (May 1987)
  • Cary Bates - Star Brand #8-9 (July 1987-September 1987)
  • George Caragonne - Star Brand #10 (November 1987)
  • John Byrne - The Star Brand #11-19 (January 1988-May 1989)
  • Bobbie Chase - Star Brand Annual #1 (1987)

[edit] Art

[edit] Collections

  • Star Brand Classic Vol. 1 (collecting Star Brand #1-7, paperback), ISBN 0785123520.

[edit] Reintroduction

Cover to Quasar #49 featuring Kayla Ballentine using the Star Brand
Enlarge
Cover to Quasar #49 featuring Kayla Ballentine using the Star Brand

Following the dissolution of the New Universe imprint, Mark Gruenwald, the writer of the New Universe title DP7, who still retained a great fondness for the New Universe, decided to use the Star Brand and other New Universe characters some years later when he was the writer for Quasar. He later used them in the Starblast limited series and crossover which ended when The Stranger used the Starbrand to move the Earth of the New Universe into orbit around his labworld.

[edit] Wielders

During this period there were five individuals who wielded the Star Brand:

  • Jim Hanrahan first appeared in the final issue of the original Starbrand series, though his last name was not given until Quasar #56. Jim was a fighter pilot who, during a flight encountered the Star Child, lost control of his jet and crashed. When he awoke on the ground he was unharmed save for a strange tattoo on his hand. The reveal of this remnant of the Starbrand surviving its destruction was the last panel of the original series, and served as a "stinger" ending to the complete story. After recovering, Hanrahan's new powers manifested and he had a recurring dream in which the Star Child saved him during his crash and used the Starbrand to heal him by imparting it to him. Fearing a repetition of the paranormal disaster which had destroyed Pittsburgh, Hanrahan kept his abilities a secret and never used them. Stranded in the New Universe, the hero Quasar sought him out to acquire the Star Brand's power to return home. Leery of giving the power to a complete stranger (one who claimed to be a superhero from a fictional comicbook, no less) Hanrahan spent hours questioning Quasar to learn his character before relenting and giving the Star Brand away.
  • Quasar returned to the mainstream Marvel universe through the use of the Starbrand. At first, he believed that the supreme effort of bridging not just dimensions but whole quantums of reality (the New Universe was not simply a parallel reality but a fundamentally different continuum from any of the alternate Marvel universes) had used up all the power of the Starbrand. However, a trace remained and once back he accidentally passed it on to his secretary Kayla Ballantine, unconsciously imprinting the Star Brand on to the base of her neck.
  • Kayla Ballantine was Quasar's secretary at the time she received the Star Brand. Once her powers began to manifest, she became the target of numerous alien individuals and groups. These include the Dance, the Chief Examiner, and a group of interplanetary mauraders known as the Starblasters. Ballantine would eventually pass the Star Brand onto The Stranger in order to prevent Skeletron (the leader of the Starblasters) from forcibly taking the Star Brand. After the threat posed by the Starblasters was over the Star Brand was returned to Ballantine. She remained on the New Universe earth after it was moved into the Marvel universe and cut of from the rest of that universe.
  • The Deviant Ereshkigal briefly succeeded in taking the Star Brand from Kayla Ballantine and began to wreak havoc with it. However, she was swiftly confronted by Quasar and the Silver Surfer. Eventually, when the Living Tribunal intervened, she chose suicide over surrender, using the Brand's power to disintegrate herself.
  • The Stranger's first action after taking possession of the Star Brand was to move the earth of the New Universe into the Marvel Universe and place it in orbit around his labworld. His intention was to use it for his experiments. This was prevented when the Living Tribunal arrived and judged the Star Brand to be a threat to the hierarchy of the cosmic powers of the Marvel Universe. A barrier was placed around the New Universe earth in order to quarantine it from the rest of the universe.

[edit] Cameo appearances

The Star Brand appeared briefly in Gambit #19, published in August 2000. Writer Fabian Nicieza asked illustrators Yannick Paquette and Sean Parsons to include Star Brand as one of the characters glimpsed in a page that showed a variety of Marvel's alternate realities.

[edit] Alternate versions

[edit] Exiles

Alternate versions of Ken Connell and the Star Brand appear in Exiles during that series' "Worlds Tour" story-arc. The issues depicting this story are #72 - 74, January through March of 2006.

This story is set in a slightly different version of the New Universe (designated as Earth-15731), prior to the Pitt. It sees the Exiles join forces with D.P.7 and Ken Connell to prevent an alternate version of Proteus from taking control of Connell's body and the Star Brand itself.

[edit] Avengers Forever

A version of Ken Connell appeared briefly as one of the Alternate Avengers fighting in The Destiny War.

[edit] Untold Tales of the New Universe

Untold Tales of the New Universe: Star Brand (2006) briefly mentions three more alternate versions that have been investigated by Arden and her fellow Lateral Shifters:

  • The Star Brand of Earth-541 has united the world under his own rule, appointing himself as a global monarch and imposing world peace.
  • The Star Brand of Earth-723 has channeled his power into music, using that power to unite the people of his world.
  • The Star Brand of Earth-886 protects her world from "powerful evil forces" and is the "idol of billions"

The three Star Brand marks are also pictured - each one looks distinctly different (and none of them resemble the New Universe version).

[edit] newuniversal

This article or section contains information about a scheduled or expected comic book release, or a series already in progress. It is likely to contain tentative information and the content may change dramatically as the product release approaches and more information becomes available.

Marvel have announced that Warren Ellis and Salvador Larocca, in honor of The 20th Anniversary of The New Universe, are working on a single-title re-imagining of the New Universe saga entitled newuniversal.

Ellis has stated that a new version of 'Starbrand' will be introduced as part of the first newuniversal storyline and that he does not see the character "as a Superman figure", but as a "spectacularly ordinary American kid from the Midwest, not too bright, who is sent magic powers from space"[1]

[edit] External links

  • Technohol 13 - A comprehensive look at the Star Brand and New Universe characters and powers for gaming purposes.
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