Pulsar Stargrave
| Pulsar Stargrave | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Superboy #223 (Jan 1977) |
| Created by | Jim Shooter and Mike Grell |
| In-story information | |
| Species | Coluan |
| Place of origin | Colu |
| Notable aliases | Brainiac, Brainiac 4 |
| Abilities | stellar energy manipulation |
Pulsar Stargrave is a fictional supervillain featured in DC Comics as a foe of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
A native of the planet Colu, Stargrave originally claimed to be the father of Brainiac 5. In appearance, Stargrave looks like an ordinary Coluan (green-skinned and humanlike) with no hair.
According to Pulsar's own account, he was a scientist whose ship's life support failed during an expedition; he put himself into suspended animation hoping for rescue. He was found by alien explorers, but believed dead, so his body was sent into a nearby star just as it went supernova, merging with his body and giving him the ability to harness and control stellar energy. Later, Pulsar Stargrave was revealed to be the original Brainiac, who had fled from Superman into the future.
Stargrave is an extremely powerful figure, on par with other Legion opponents such as Mordru and the Time Trapper. In his quest for galactic conquest, he manipulated Brainiac 5 in a complicated scheme to frame Ultra Boy for murder and to cause Brainiac 5 to go insane as a result. However, following the time twisting events of Legion of The Super-Heroes V4 #5, in which the villain Glorith replaced the Time Trapper as the Legion's main time travel villain, his role in the framing of Ultra Boy and Brainiac 5 was replaced by Glorith.
His last pre-Crisis appearance was in the DC Special one shot edition of Legion of Substitute Heroes in 1985. The special gave yet another origin to Stargrave, positioning him as an unnamed cosmic horror type creature who had impersonated a member of the Colu species/Brainiac. While attempting to enslave the homeworld of Matter Eater Lad, the Legion of the Substitute-Heroes and Matter Eater Lad defeated the villain, with Matter Eater Lad biting off Stargave's nose in the course of the battle.
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Pulsar Stargrave was reinvented as Mr Starr. The new version of the character was a villain of the 20th century L.E.G.I.O.N., rather than the 30th century team.
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