Blog

She’s been through a lot but never lets it keep her down. She can fly, punch, and shoot energy beams with the best of them. Starfire! Probably best known for being on Teen Titan cartoons, she’s been a favorite of many for her cheerfulness despite sorrows. So who is she? Let’s find out!

Koriand’r “Kory” of the planet Tamaran was the middle child of royalty but due to her elder sister’s inability to fly, Kory was set to rule. This infuriated her sister, Komand’r, and created a life long grudge against Kory. Her sister would even betray their whole planet getting the two of them kidnapped and Kory tortured. Spending a long time in this horrible situation and then captured by a different set of sadistic aliens, Kory would finally escape and head to Earth, which was the nearest planet.

Now on Earth, Kory would enjoy her freedom from her past and live among humanity. The first human she’d encounter was Robin, Dick Grayson, along with the other Teen Titans. She would join the team and when not working with them, live life as a supermodel. Kory would enjoy a long career with the Titans and even find a romance with Dick Grayson.

While with the Titans she would have many adventures and friendships. She would confront her sister on several occasions able to get the better of Komand’r and remain on Earth. Her relationship with Dick Grayson would lead to them almost getting married but their friend and teammate Raven was being evil at the time and disrupted their festivities before they could finish the ceremony. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for their relationship as the marriage was already not looking like a good idea prior to Raven’s rampage. The two would remain friends and occasionally reunite but eventually would realize friendship was the best course of action.

During a trip on a teleporting Zeta Ray Beam, Kory would get lost on a planet along with Animal Man and Adam Strange. This would begin a nearly year long adventure for them traveling through space back to Earth. They’d deal with a variety of things like drug fruits, Lobo, and Lady Styx who would go on to become an ongoing threat to them and the Earth. Through their adventures Kory would become good friends to both Animal Man and Adam Strange and when it seems that Animal Man dies, she keeps his jacket to make sure his family can at least have something of his when they return. Thankfully they would be rescued and returned to Earth by Mogo, the Living Planet and Green Lantern.

When Kory attempts to give the Baker family, Animal Man’s wife and children, his jacket back she sees that not only is Animal Man’s family under attack by followers of Lady Styx, but that Animal Man is alive! She is exhausted after everything that has happened and once the fighting is over, passes out. When she awakes, Kory realizes that Animal Man and his family have been taking care of her and she is now powerless.

Deciding that without her powers and with acceptance from the Baker family, Kory become the after school babysitter for the children while she figures out what is going on with herself. Lady Styx returns to threaten the Earth by a virus that causes its victims to become unruly mobs. The city of San Diego is infected and while trying to stop the virus from spreading Adam Strange returns to help restore Kory’s powers which allows her to cure the infected.

When demons attack Kory and other Titans members, the old guard reunite to stop Raven’s father, Triton and his recently discovered sons. The team is able to fight them off but Kory and Dick have a brief encounter due to demonic influence that confuses them about their relationship with one another for a brief period. Kory would stop a hostile take over of the planet Rann from her sister and make sure the entire star system was safe from Komand’r.

In the New 52, Kory is sold into slavery by her sister to save her home planet from the evil Citadel. They would conduct experiments on her and torture her. When she is finally able to escape she goes to Earth. Tamaranians have short attention spans when it comes to humanity and so Kory spends most of her time just experiencing humanity and what they have to offer the way someone might try things at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

There you have it! I think for a lot of folks, Starfire from the Teen Titans cartoon is their gateway into the character and that’s still honestly one of the best ways to get to know her. The cartoon really showed us that while she comes from a sad background, she doesn’t let that keep her down. That’s a great lesson for a lot of folks. See you next time!

Suggested Reading
DC Comics Presents #26
Teen Titans
Countdown to Adventure
Starfire

Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net