Thursday, May 1, 2008

On other planets, ladies can be descended from cats and birds

Starfire- Lilandra

Ahh, Starfire! The third DC character to go by that name, and an alien princess with a voluptuous figure that’d make nerds forget Red Sonja! She’s best known as the wide-eyed, decidedly un-pulchritudinous adolescent unfamiliar with terran customs from the Teen Titans cartoon: a few years ago, I met a ten year old girl who claimed that Starfire was her favorite character ever.

As an Titan, a case could be made that Koriand'r should be paired with Storm, but offworlders must be paired with offworlders here. So she’ll be paired with another alien princess, one that was conceived as the intended of Charles Xavier— my personal preference, which is worth less than nothing, is that a elder statesman like Xavier shouldn’t be running around with good lookin’ space frails.

Commonalities:
Both are princesses of alien races, both of which are descended from non-simian creatures (Tamaraneans from felines, the Shi’ar from avian) and both are formidable warriors.

Differences:
Chiefly, Lilandra altogether severe, regal and not at all exuberant, like Kory. And Lil doesn’t fly around and shoot laser bolts via absorbed sunlight.

Alternate histories:

SF: Koriand'r is a warrior princess of Tamaran, the throneworld of the Vegan interstellar empire. When her older siblings (one of whom is known as Blackfire) becomes mad with power, she flees for Earth. She recognizes the mentor of the Titans as her true love, and recruits said team to assist her in deposing her brother. Koriand'r and aforesaid mentor sporadically pursue their relationship on and off Earth, as she assumes leadership of her empire.

LI: A princess of the Shi’ar race named Lilandra flees her homeworld after she’s sold into slavery by her sister, known as Deathbird. Lilandra makes it to Earth and encounters the X-Men, which she promptly joins and serves with for several years. She is tutored in terran ways by Marvel Girl and enters into a relationship with and later plans to marry team leader Cyclops; their wedding is disrupted and she is subsequently betrothed to two Shi’ar men. Lilandra returned to Earth, mentored younger mutants and has most recently joined a revived X-Men.

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