Dawnstar

Dawnstar
Art by Greg LaRocque and Larry Mahlstedt, from Legion of Super-Heroes (v3) #17
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Superboy [and the Legion of Super-Heroes] #226
Created by	Mike Grell Paul Levitz
In-story information
Species	Genetically modified human
Place of origin	Starhaven
Team affiliations	Legion Academy Legion of Super-Heroes
Abilities	Flight (superluminal), can survive in a vacuum, long-range tracking

Dawnstar is a fictional character in the DC Universe of the 30th Century, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Dawnstar is her real name (she has no Legion code name), and she is from Starhaven, a planet colonized from Earth in the 23rd Century. Her name is derived from the planet Venus, the "morning star." This is why Dawnstar wears an eight-pointed star ornament on her forehead. Dawnstar is of American Indian heritage, although no specific tribe was ever linked with her.

Character biography

Dawnstar's unique powers include the ability to track life forms and objects across light years of distance and through interstellar space. She can survive in deep space for long periods of time without a spacesuit or oxygen. Dawnstar and other Starhavenites have pairs of large, white-feathered wings that grow out of their upper backs, the result of genetic engineering. In deep space, she can travel at faster-than-light speeds. In an Earth-normal atmosphere or in a sizable gravity well, her speed is diminished. She wears a Legion flight ring to signal for help, for monitoring of her location, and for other non-flight uses.

Dawnstar's parents are Mistrider and Moonwalker, and her younger brothers are Greybird and Greatfire. During her late childhood and early teens, her parents built a thriving business on their daughter's abilities. Dawnstar would guide spaceships through hazardous areas of space.

Dawnstar received an invitation to attend the Legion Academy, and reluctantly accepted the opportunity. She first appeared in Superboy [and the Legion of Super-Heroes] #226 at age 16 as a recent graduate of the Legion Academy. Her tracking and navigation talents earned her membership on her first mission. Her Legion stipend went to pay for enhancing her home world's defenses.

She served in many missions with the Legionnaires, contributing her often underrated talents at tracking and high-speed travel to perform many rescues of her colleagues, as well as investigations of personal disappearances and similar mysteries. She brought these talents into many Legion adventures in other times, especially the 20th Century. Notable here is her early role in the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Dawnstar had a lengthy, tragic romance with fellow Legionnaire Wildfire. They each respected the other's defiant, outspoken personality, although they each counseled each other on working with their talents as part of a team instead of acting as individuals. Wildfire was an anti-energy being in a containment suit, and thus had no physical body. When he briefly was able to partially reverse this, they attempted a physical relationship, but were unsuccessful.

File:DawnstarCrisisHC2000.jpg

Dawnstar had a notable early role in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. (From cover art by George Pérez and Alex Ross)

After the "reset" of the timeline of the Legion early in LSH v4, Dawnstar was shown as having been possessed by an evil entity called Bounty, who amputated her wings and forced her to use her tracking powers as an assassin. Dawnstar was later freed from the Bounty entity's control. The storyline was never resolved, as her timeline was erased by the events depicted in Zero Hour and by the ensuing reboot.

Since Zero Hour in DC's continuity, Dawnstar has not reappeared in any Legion stories. Before the current, once-again-rebooted Legion story line, a character was depicted called Shikari from a non-human species, the Kwai, who had insectoid wings, an armored exoskeleton she could activate for space travel, and pathfinding (rather than tracking) powers of similar scope. Some Legion fans believed that Shikari was intended to be a post-Zero-Hour Dawnstar, but this was denied by various Legion writers.

Recent appearances

File:DawnstarReturns.jpg

Art by Ed Benes from "The Lightning Saga," JLA 9

Legion of Super-Heroes v5 #15 (February 2006) featured a Barry Kitson cover which depicted Dawnstar alongside classic Legion members Blok and Tyroc. The solicitation for this issue hinted that the Legion would become the "greatest heroes of the Multiverse."

The solicitation and cover turned out to be misleading. Dawnstar appears briefly with other Legionnaires from previous iterations of the team, as a character in a "campfire story" showing the Legion's influence and the urban legends and myths that had sprung up around it. The appearance was a cameo, and does not appear to have been meant to take place in the series' continuity.

The recent relaunch of Justice Society of America (December 2006) featured a page that previewed the storylines for 2007. The second of these appeared to show Dawnstar's arm, wings, and Legion ring, along with dialogue of her pledging to track down Starman.

In an interview with Wizard, writer Geoff Johns confirmed that this was indeed Dawnstar's arm, and that

"You'll see this [followed up on] very, very soon. All of these [scenes] take place in the first year, but this one is coming very soon."

In part two (JSA 5) of a JSA-JLA crossover story, "The Lightning Saga," Dawnstar (along with many other Pre-Crisis Legionnaires) is seen as a statue in Superman's Fortress of Solitude. In part three (JLA 9), events suggest that she's had a relationship with another woman on Thanagar. Dawnstar reunites with other revived Legionnaires in a still-mysterious effort to save someone's life, with at least one of them thought to be putting his or her own life at risk. (They hold rods that resemble those used for a similar action, to save Lightning Lad, in the original Silver Age Legion stories.)

External links

• A Hero History Of Dawnstar