Starro
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Starro (aka Starro the Conqueror) is a fictional supervillain who appears in stories published by DC Comics. Starro, who comes from an alien race known as the Star Conquerors, is a starfish-like creature who first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28 in 1960, which was also the first appearance of the Justice League of America.
Starro, whose ambitions are for the conquest of the Earth, would make several more appearances over the following decades. In his efforts, Starro uses mind control and the rapid reproduction of psychic-parasitic clones to conquer planets (Starro controls people by placing one of these small clones over the victim's face).
During Grant Morrison's run on JLA, the team twice faced a different member of Starro's race; this member was much larger, colored green rather than purple, and was known simply as "the Star Conqueror." When it first appeared, it took control of the Flash and countless innocents in a town, intending to capture and control the rest of the JLA when they arrived and use them to form a galaxy-conquering army. However, the Spectre warned the JLA about this, and they thus convinced the Spectre to briefly remove their powers for the battle. While the rest of the team kept Starro's slaves distracted, Batman, the only team member with no powers anyway, immobilised the Flash and drove Starro away. In its second appearance, this creature manipulated the dream worlds of the people under its control, and was finally captured by the Lord of the Dreaming with the League's assistance.
A plot by Starro also resulted in the creation of Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew on Earth-C, the setting of DC's funny animal stories. Starro hatched a devolution plan and was beaming energy to Metropolis which caused citizens to act like apes. During an investigation by Superman, the energy struck a meteorite and sent fragments of the meteor and Superman to Earth-C.
The fragments of the meteor landed on this alternate earth, and gave super powers to Captain Carrot, Pig-Iron, Rubberduck, Alley-Kat-Abra, Yankee Poodle and Fastback. With Superman, this group of heroes discovered Starro operating on that universe's version of Pluto. Starro was defeated by the Zoo Crew, which chose to remain together after Starro and Superman returned to their own universe.
Starro was recently featured in the JLA/Avengers crossover by George Perez and Kurt Busiek. In it Starro appeared in the Marvel Universe and attacked its Earth, but was soundly defeated by The Avengers
[edit] Sources
The 1956 Japanese science fiction movie Warning From Space depicted monsters who looked like starfish with an eye in the center (instead of a beak), by suitmation. The facehugger of a later appearance originated in the movie Alien.
[edit] In other media
A version of Starro appeared in the 2000s animated series Batman Beyond, in the two-part episode "The Call" (after first being seen as a cameo in the Superman: The Animated Series episode "The Main Man). It was one of the alien species in the Fortress of Solitude which Superman had taken from a supervillain's zoo of endangered animals, and it had taken over Superman for some time. While attached to Superman, it had begun to conquer Earth and it created more of its species. It was eventually defeated by Batman and the Justice League Unlimited when they transported it to an uninhabited planet.
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