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| “ | Come, be part of us. Soon it will be our world. | „ |
| ~ Starro (controlling Superman) to Batman in Batman Beyond. |
| “ | Many primitive cultures across the universe have referred to it as "God." But in the annals of the Green Lantern Corps, it is known as-- "Starro". | „ |
| ~ Salakk on Starro. |
Starro is a gigantic starfish-like alien from the DC universe that invades worlds via sending innumerable smaller clones of itself out to infest a target: these clones proceed to attach themselves to a victim's face and possess them, making them mindless slaves to Starro's will.
Biography
Batman Beyond: The Call
Starro is an ancient creature that has lived for centuries on its home planet, a world of water, where it had spent most of its life, and was apparently the last surviving member of its species.One day, Starro sunned itself on a rock as a strange craft appeared in the sky. It never occurred to Starro to be scared, until it was too late to flee. Being the last of its kind, Starro became an object of the Preserver's interest and was included in his collection of unique specimens. Starro tried repeatedly to escape, but to no avail; it simply was not strong enough to escape the Preserver's enclosure. Years later, the alien was rescued by Superman and placed in his Fortress of Solitude.[2] Though it was still little more than a prisoner, now Starro had a plan: Starro decided to gain control of Superman since it witnessed the Kryptonian's strength.[3]
Starro makes its move on Superman. Decades later, Superman was feeding Starro when it jumped up at his face and grabbed hold of him. From that moment on, Starro took psychic control of Superman. During the subsequent years, the alien remained concealed under his costume and used Superman to breed thousands of psychic-parasitic clones. It planned to release the creatures into the ocean and thus conquer the world.
Starro/Superman chases Batman. When the time came to enact its plan, Starro/Superman attempted to dispose of the Justice League Unlimited (presumably in fear they might jeopardize its plans). After nearly killing Micron, Starro/Superman enlisted Batman's help to find the traitor among the JLU ranks (most likely to sidetrack everybody). But when Starro/Superman failed to do away with Warhawk, Superman was exposed as the culprit though the team wasn't aware of Starro's existence. Starro/Superman retreated to the Fortress of Solitude, where he was confronted by the JLU. After Superman was subdued by a shard of Kryptonite, the heroes discovered Starro attached to Superman's chest. Realizing it was a water creature, Aquagirl made telepathic contact with it, uncovering its plans. The tables were soon turned, however, when Starro's spawn took over Aquagirl, Warhawk, Kai-Ro and Big Barda. Starro/Superman was released, and went in pursuit of Batman. After crashing the Batmobile, it let its guard down and Batman tackled it with an electrocuting grapple. Starro was stunned and lost its mental grip on Superman, who managed to break free. Starro was subdued while Batman and Superman fought off its brethren. When finally all the alien starfish were contained, Barda suggested on killing Starro and its spawn, Superman insisted on showing them mercy, as Starro never asked to come to this world, and was taken from its own world against its will. Aquagirl made contact with Starro and was able to determine the location of its home planet. She input the coordinates into Big Barda's Mother Box, and then Starro and its spawn were safely boom-tubed back home.
Batman The Brave and Bold
Starro in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Starro's first appearance in Batman the Brave and the Bold was in the episode Revenge of the Reach! where the Challengers of the Unknown were investigating a meteor that crashed on Dinosaur Island. When the meteor opened, Starro clones were unleashed, and quickly took control of the Challengers. The apparent herald of the invasion, The Faceless Hunter, then unleashed Starro clones upon Atlantis. They quickly took over everyone, including Fluke and eventually Aquaman himself. Even Adam Strange and his people of Rann fell prey to the clones. Over time, hundreds of heroes were brought under Starro's control. Those not susceptible to mind control such as Red Tornado were destroyed and the preparation for the coming of Starro the Conquerer began.
The Starro invasion finally came to the breaking point and with most of the world's heroes under his control, the Faceless Hunter started to summon his master. Despite the best efforts of a rag-tag team of heroes led by Batman, including Firestorm, Captain Marvel, Booster Gold and B'Wana Beast, Starro reached Earth. The heroes tried to fight him and after an extended battle Captain Marvel (in his Billy Batson form) destroyed Starro by summoning his magic lightning. The lightning was unable to reach Billy due to Starro hovering over them and struck the beast instead. Upon realizing this, Firestorm urged Billy to summon the lightning again and again, which killed Starro. (The same trick did not work as well in the second half of the story, when The Faceless Hunter found a way to combine all of the "dead" Starro spores into a giant semi-humanoid "Starro" beast.)
Powers and abilities
Starro is an alien amalgamate conqueror with both a humanoid central mind commanding spores which resemble either giant or small terran starfish. An asexual creature, Starro's spores are capable of generating clones that act in accordance with the original's will. The clones are parasites by nature, and can attach themselves to a humanoid's face, and subsequently take control of the host's central nervous system, thereby controlling the host. Control of the host is lost once removed from the victim.
Both variants of the parasite are capable of energy absorption/projection; flight; changing color and self regeneration while the larger ones have a high degree of invulnerability, the giant versions also have much more potent mental capabilities being able to indirectly influence the minds of a potential host race, capable of lulling countless people into an induced slumber and accessing their thoughts via dreams. Their size can also vary from being as big as city blocks to larger than a small planetary ocean body, in which case said Starro probe can radically alter the very climate, topography and geography within their vicinity akin to terraforming. A future Starr conqueror spore eventually comes to weaponize 5 Qwardian power rings on each of its pointed tentacles, the ring can create objects based on the wielder's thoughts but only those fuelled by fear instead of willpower. Given the difficulty in their usage the starro's capacity to use five at once indicates a mastery of the fear element and its usage in battle, as shown when he personally went up against multiple iterations of titans all at once.
The humanoid "Starro the Conqueror" possesses telepathy strong enough to control the entire Starro alien race, and possesses immeasurable levels of physical resilience further bolstered by the energies drawn from the victims of his Starro probes. Being physically strong enough to behead the all but invulnerable Despero in single combat, Starro the Conqueror is all but impervious to physical harm much like his larger Starro clones; also akin to said spores the humanoid Starro can reproduce its own Starro clones from the mother Starro on his chest; a unique power of his own making is the ability to convert normal Earth-based starfish into Starro-based spores.
Appearances in Other Media
- Starro appeared in an episode of The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure.
- Starro makes a cameo appearance in Superman: The Animated Series. It was seen in the episode "The Main Man", as one of the creatures held in the Galactic Preserver's private zoo. At the end of the episode, Superman takes Starro, along with a host of other alien species, back to the Fortress of Solitude to reside there, unaware of the creature's malevolent nature.
- Starro has made appearances in the Young Justice animated series. It is seen in the episodes "Downtime", "Misplaced" and "Insecurity". Starro (though it is never explicitly named as such) appears in the episode "Downtime," where it is discovered frozen in ice by a group of Atlantean scientists. Black Manta leads his crew of mercenaries on a mission to steal Starro from Doctor Vulko's lab, but the plan is thwarted by the intervention of Aqualad and Garth. As a last resort, Black Manta destroys Starro before it can be unfrozen, but a small sample of the creature is later recovered and sent to S.T.A.R. Labs to be studied. It is mentioned that the sample is regenerating itself, implying the creature is still alive despite having been frozen for thousands of years. In the episode "Misplaced," Sportsmaster and the Riddler steal the sample from S.T.A.R. Labs. In "Insecurity," Professor Ivo, the Brain and Klarion the Witch Boy set to work creating a series of spores from the sample of Starro, infused with both technology and magic. In "Usual Suspects," Red Arrow (who is revealed to be an unwilling traitor) uses the Starro (Starro-Tech) spores to infect the Justice League, bringing them under the control of Vandal Savage. Though "the Team" saves the League, Savage was able to use six of the League's strongest members for a planned attack on the planet Rimbor. In season three, it is revealed that Starro is not the only one of his species, all sharing a desire to conquer and control living beings. The Starro frozen in ice had come to Earth and tried to conquer it near the beginning of human history, but was stopped by Savage. In the present, another Starro attempts to conquer Earth by using its power to form an immensely large warfleet. Determining Earth's heroes would be unable to deal with the situation, Savage personally led the attack against what he would find to be an ancient enemy, and killed the new Starro.
Starro appeared in special episode of Robot Chicken about DC heroes, where he fights against Justice League and Legion of Doom.
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