Herr Starr
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Herr Starr is a fictional character from the comic book Preacher. He is a former German special forces soldier and a member (later leader) of the secretive organisation known as The Grail. He also starred in his own one-shot, "Preacher: One Man's War". Starr was named "Comics' Best Villain" for 1998, by Wizard Magazine.
[edit] Fictional character biography
The child who would become Herr Starr was always quiet and studious. The son of a British serviceman and a German mother who died in labour, he had hoped to avoid the unwanted attention of bullies by keeping to himself. Unfortunately a gang of children, led by one particularly brutal child, targeted him because of this. This bullying ultimately led to an attack where they gave "A star for Starr" and with a broken bottle carved 5 jagged lines around and over his right eye. As well as blinding him in that eye the stress from the event caused all his hair to fall out and his cries forever turned his voice into a harsh grating sound. After that Starr's life (until meeting Jesse Custer) would become dedicated to seeking order in the world.
One by one the children responsible for his attack died in a series of accidents and unfortunate tragedies. Their deaths were always at least one year apart, although two were brothers and together were burned to death in a house fire. The last, the gang leader, died on Starr's 10th birthday from drinking herbicide, the result of which caused his spine to contract until the back of his head touched his heels. Starr, though obviously responsible, was never implicated in these deaths as he had refused to name his attackers after he was assaulted, wanting to exact revenge by himself.
Herr Starr began his career as an agent of the German anti-terrorism unit GSG 9. (This is an anachronism, as GSG 9 is presented as being operational and well-established in 1972, when it did not exist until 1973) He excelled in all fields of training, except unarmed combat. During this class the instructor, a bully well known for victimizing and humiliating his students, challenged Starr to a sparring match. In response Starr pulled out his handgun and shot the instructor in the knee-caps. When challenged as to how he would survive without training in unarmed combat Starr replied that he had "no intention of being unarmed."
In the late 1970s, Starr was recruited into the Grail, the most secret and powerful organization on Earth. The Grail's secret is that Christ did not die at all but was drugged in a death like state, later rescued and eventually marrying and having children. The Grail protects the bloodline, planning to set off a partial Armageddon in 2000, with the intent of making the descendant of Christ now the new Savior. As such, the Grail went about controlling the world, making all decisions for every leader on the planet in preparation for the day when nuclear war would be seemingly averted by the return of the Messiah and peace would reign on Earth.
Starr proved his worth to the Grail when assigned to eliminate a former member living in a mental hospital: Starr blew up the entire hospital so the member is lost with the other inmates, reasoning that while one death would be investigated, the destruction of the whole hospital would leave the authorities without any idea where to start looking. When questioned about the innocent deaths, he replies rhetorically "How many children died at Sodom and Gomorrah?"
Starr rose quickly in the ranks of the Grail, eventually becoming Sacred Executioner, second only to the Grail's leader Allfather D'Aronique. He becomes notable for his ruthlessness and the fact he doesn't care for relationships, only sex. In 1990, he comes to the conclusion the Grail is doomed. After 2000 years of in-breeding "to keep the bloodline pure", the would-be savior is a mentally retarded and physically gawky child who frequently urinates in public and speaks gibberish. Starr knows the world would never accept this and decides to kill the child and find someone more acceptable, even though the rest of the Grail, including Allfather D'Aronique, hangs on to the faith that the child would manifest divine powers and become a worthy leader. When he hears of Jesse Custer and his power of "the Word," Starr decided that he made the perfect candidate for an alternative Messiah and planned to use Custer in his scheme to overthrow the Grail's leadership.
In "Proud Americans," Starr murders his way to the position of Allfather, (he pushes D'Aronique out of a helicopter, which results in the death of Christ's descendant and an unnamed soldier as well, when D'Aronique lands on them) giving him control over the Grail. With the position comes immense power, and Starr is able to commandeer a United States army tank division to attack Jesse and the Saint of Killers in Utah and then order the American President to order a nuclear warhead dropped on the Saint in Monument Valley.
Throughout the course of the series, Starr undergoes one humiliating injury after another:
- When an underling is ordered to find him a hooker, he accidentally hires a male prostitute who sexually assaults Starr.
- He has his left ear shot off by Tulip.
- Jesse cuts a massive gash across his bald scalp so Starr's head resembles a giant penis. He spends the rest of the series hiding it with a Panama hat.
- When a nuclear bomb knocks his helicopter out of the sky, Starr wakes up in the company of three inbred hillbillies who turn out to be cannibals who have already eaten his right leg. Starr tricks a mentally retarded cannibal into handing over his gun by wiping the man's overly sloppy rear end ("For what I am now forced to do, I will one day wreak vengeance on God Himself.") He manages to shoot and kill all three cannibals, only to have two of them land on top of him.
- Getting out from under them, Starr hops one-footed across the desert, tripping and falling all the way. He finally calls for rescue and when asked what he wanted, answers "A hot bath, a week's sleep, a prosthetic limb and Armageddon, in that order."
- When a member of the Grail Council gets close to proving Starr's treason, Starr kills him and his Russian bodyguard, only to be attacked by the man's savage Rottweiler. He manages to shoot it but not before it has chewed off his genitalia.
All this takes its toll on Starr's mind and he decides the Grail and its dreams of control and order are not worth what he's sacrificed. He kills the Grail Council, assembling a private army and hunting down Jesse at the Alamo. He finally ends up charging Tulip, who shoots him several times, finally jamming the gun under his chin and blowing the entire top of his head off. He has time to utter a final, disgusted "Shit" before collapsing dead.
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