STARHAWK

Publication Date: 27th Apr 2023
Written By: Monolith.
Image Work: Douglas Mangum.
Alternate Versions

ALTERNATE VERSIONS

The original Guardians of the Galaxy have, essentially, not appeared since 1996. Numerous similar but divergent timelines have been depicted, but the continuing adventures of the Guardians from Earth-691 have not been explored.


Guardians 3000 effectively rebooted the Guardians of the Galaxy. An unstable timeline (due in part to the Incursion crisis and Korvac’s mad attempts to circumvent it) led to a new version of the team existing in 3014. While they still remembered being honorary Avengers and traveling into the past, their future was radically different. Earth had NOT been liberated by the Guardians. The Brotherhood of the Badoon had not only conquered Earth, they were at war with the entire galaxy. Starhawk was presented as a “half-human, half-alien” quantum-mystic who possessed psionic powers, reality folding tricks and genuine gifts of divination and precognition. The One-Who-Knows no longer seemed to live a cyclical lifespan and spontaneously changed from male to female in a time glitch. This was apparently a change to reality itself instead of the classic transition between Stakar and Aleta.

Starhawk was sensitive enough to recognize the Guardians were fighting a war they had previously won. He divined that an Earth girl named Geena Drake was a chrono-sensitive able to detect the changing nature of time around them. While meeting with the lingering forces of the galaxy at the Hideaway Parliament, the Guardians were attacked by Badoon under the control of the A-Sentience, bio-mechanical entities which were this future’s version of the Stark. A time-skip reversed the death of the team, and rebooted Starhawk from a version of Stakar to Aleta. Geena recognized the changes and was able to alert the team before they died a second time. The Guardians tracked the source of the temporal chaos to a thousand years ago, traveling back in time to the last days of the Incursion crisis. They met the modern Guardians and a reincarnation of Korvac trying to rewrite the future to his specifications. Korvac failed and the multiverse collapsed, leaving the Guardians to be reborn in the Eighth Cosmos some other way.

 


Throughout Guardians of the Galaxy (2nd series) #1-25, multiple incarnations of Starhawk interacted with the present timeline. Circa 3009 A.D., the Timeflux War consumed the attention of the Council of Guardians of All Galaxies, a multiversal congregation of Guardian teams and divergent selves. (It's not entirely clear whether this council existed prior to the Timeflux War, or was gathered because of it.) The “past imperfect” threatened the “future tense” as an event known as The Error one thousand years prior was altering their timelines, creating new and darker futures. Starhawks were uniquely adept at fighting this war, as they were able to somehow pass experiences down between alternate selves, a switchboard of shared recollections as each reality changed for the worse. Various Starhawks faced various threats with their Guardians, including the Badoon, Korvac, the Martians, the Stark and the Galactic Avengers Battalion.

Several versions of Starhawk traveled back in time to prevent the Error, but they were blind to what the cause of the Error truly was. In encountering the 21st century’s Guardians, a Starhawk first believed a temporal anomaly version of Major Victory – thawed from Limbo ice from a fissure in space-time – was the source of the Error. This initial conflict with the amnesiac major at Knowhere made the local Guardians see Starhawk as a threat. Starhawk escaped into the future, passing his knowledge down the line. Another Starhawk scouted Knowhere before a third, female Starhawk assaulted the Guardians again. She was detained but spent months telepathically probing the Guardians and the people of Knowhere to find the truth of the Error.

Eventually, Starhawk recognized that the Error related to the War of Kings, and the rending of space-time known as the Fault which occurred at the conclusion. She broke free and teleported back to her future with several Guardians. Finally stopping to explain herself, Starhawk showed the past Guardians how the Fault had consumed nearly all of her reality. This Starhawk sacrificed herself so the Guardians could pass a message back to their timeline to prevent the Fault. The Guardians then fell across space-time to meet another Starhawk and his Guardians. This Starhawk absorbed the memories of his fallen counterpart and helped the past’s Guardians find a time machine to get home. Instead, they wound up in a new future where Adam Warlock became the corrupt and evil Magus to stop the Fault because of their message, creating the Error and making things even worse. Finally, Kang the Conqueror and entire flock of Starhawks pulled the Guardians into Limbo. They armed the Guardians to return to the past at the exact moment necessary to stop the Fault’s progression and prevent Adam Magus’ rise. The future appeared saved, the Timeflux War ended, but the Council of Guardians wasn’t certain. Preventing the Fault led to the rise of Magus, and preventing Magus led to the return of Thanos as Death’s Champion, leaving the future precarious as the past continued to rewrite itself.


On Battleworld, Baron Michael Korvac ruled the domain called the Forest Hills, protected by Starhawk and the Guardians. Stakar served on Overwatch, his unique senses anticipating threats and coordinating Guardians as they patrolled and protected the streets of their domain. Korvac was powerful enough and aware enough to pose a threat to God Doom, and so he inhibited his powers and knowledge of them until he felt subconsciously strong enough to oppose Doom. Korvac’s power began to leak unknowingly from him, causing his wife Carina and others to suffer the Madness, speaking heresy against Doom’s law and becoming powerful mutations. By the time Starhawk and the Guardians realized their baron was the source of the Madness, their domain had been targeted by Doom’s Thors. Korvac helped Starhawk and the Guardians to escape judgment, going into hiding.


In Earth X, a variation of the Guardians of the Galaxy traveled back in time to the present of Earth-9997. They were from a point in the timeline shortly after Starhawk joined the Guardians,before the Badoon were fully expunged from the Earth. Their plan was to find some way of mutating future humanity into soldiers to survive the Badoon war and overcome the invaders. At first, they sought the Terrigen Mists after hearing aboard how they mutated modern humanity into Inhumans, but the mists were permanently woven into the atmosphere. Eventually, they recruited Arno Stark of X-51’s Heralds for his experience with radiation and mutation, returning to their own time period.


In What If..? (2nd series) #19, the Vision assumed control of the Earth’s computer network, and parleyed that into being granted stewardship of the entire planet. By 2136, Ultra-Vision led a United Earth in colonizing their solar system and preparing for further expansion. Starhawk was a member of the Cosmic Avengers alongside Thor and legacy heroes such as CommanderAmerica, Irondroid, the Tachyon Torch and Jhen the Gammazon. As Stakar was traditionally born in the near future, this Starhawk was presumably not a time-traveler but a 100+ year old Arcturian citizen instead of the 1000+ year old Guardian of the Galaxy. He was reportedly discovered in suspended animation by Earth’s early star-explorers, though, which does raise some questions. In any case, as The One-Who-Knows, Starhawk alerted United Earth that the Kree and Skrulls meant to prevent their expansion. The forces of Supremor and Mega-Skrull were defeated by the Cosmic Avengers, bringing an end to the Earth/Kree/Skrull War.


When Kang and the Apocalypse Twins competed in reshaping the future from the Age of Heroes,Immortus assembled an Infinity Watch to fight against them. Based in 3193, Starhawk was a member of this Infinity Watch alongside his fellow Guardians Yondu and Martinex, plus versions of the Silver Surfer, Captain Mar-Vell, Adam Warlock and a Vision empowered by the Phoenix Force. They presumably hailed from different timelines, although this wasn’t confirmed. Once the Avengers Unity Division brought down the Twins’ tachyon dam, Starhawk and the Infinity Watch traveled to the modern era to aid the contemporary heroes against Kang.


In What If..? (1st series) #32, Michael the Enemy won his battle with the Avengers instead of faltering at the end, killing all of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Knowing that his battle had nevertheless drawn the attention of the higher powers of the universe, Korvac prepared to fortify Earth to carry out his plans. He resurrected Starhawk, Thor, Iron Man, Hercules, Vision and Wonder Man, mentally reprogrammed to serve his will. They acted as he demanded to attack various potential threats like the Watcher and the High Evolutionary, even Galactus. When all of the remaining universe stood in defiance of Korvac, however, he chose to activate the Ultimate Nullifier and cast them all into oblivion rather than lose outright.


In one version of the 31st century, the Galactic Avengers Battalion conquered known space in the name of Emperor Rickard and humanity’s manifest destiny. In this reality, seen in Avengers Forever, Starhawk and the Guardians of the Galaxy were freedom fighters opposing these Avengers instead of the Badoon or Martians.