Starfire #7 (DC, 1977)

Believe it or not, Starfire was the first heroine to receive her own title in DC Comics since Supergirl. Created by David Michelinie (who also created Star Hunters, and Claw the Unconquered), the series followed a princess named Starfire on an alien world involved in war between two races, the Warrior Priests and the Lightning Lords. Both factions had summoned alien races for help, the Mygorg and the Yorg, but those aliens turned against them and have now taken over their lands, fighting against each other for the rights to rule their new-found world.

Starfire is the child of two Mygorg slaves, and due to her beautiful appearance she is taken in by the Mygorg King to live as a princess. But when she turns eighteen, the Mygorg King decides to marry her, which causes Starfire to escape. She is saved by a warrior priest named Dagon, and the two fall in love. Dagon trains Starfire as a powerful warrior priestess, but he is captured and killed in the process. Starfire vows revenge and plans to free her people from slavery.

Still with me? The story was a bit convoluted and tended to jump all over the place, which is probably why the series did not sell well and only lasted eight issues. In fact, Starfire's costume got skimpier by the end of the run, in what I believe was an attempt to sell more copies. Her original costume gets damaged and her bra popped out in issue #6, and then the costume gets torn to pieces and she is left in her bra, shorts and thigh-high boots by this issue. It's a sexy new look that suits her well, and oddly enough she never really uses the giant broadsword on the cover, going with a newfound blaster pistol as her weapon-of-choice.

Issue #7 is my favorite of the series, largely due to Steve Englehart's writing and Mike Vosberg's art. The story begins as Starfire has silently invaded the Citadel, the main fortress of the Lightning Lords. She is soon ambushed by a dozen Yorgs, and opens fire as her costume gets torn off in the process!

Meanwhile, a sorceress named Lady Djinn ponders what to do about Thump, her captive and Starfire's ally. Lady Djinn controls a powerful sentient computer network called the Keeper. She is interrupted as the Yorg's inform her that Starfire has infiltrated the Citadel.

Lady Djinn and the Yorg attempt to ask the Keeper for help in finding Starfire, but the computer rejects their requests and decides to help Starfire instead!

What the Keeper does next is interesting. It attempts to teleport four of Starfire's captured allies into the Citadel to assist her, but they all die in the process! It finally succeeds in teleporting Moonwatcher, but not before alerting his Mygorg captors.

Meanwhile, Starfire is still blasting away at the Yorgs, scantily-clad style:

Starfire finds Thump and Moonwatcher, and after some catching up she tells them about her new toy, a powerful laser-gun she found in a weapon cache:

Lady Djinn and the rest of the Yorgs continue to search for Starfire, but encounter a new problem as an angry Mygorg army arrives, searching for their missing prisoners.

Starfire and crew reach the Keeper and ask for help in escaping the Citadel. But the Keeper does not have enough power!

It does however reveal that Thump was actually the Keeper's original programmer, and had been turned into a monster by Lady Djinn. Starfire pleads with Thump to try and remember his past as a programmer so he can manually control the Keeper to escape. As Thump takes over the controls his past begins to come back to him.

The Mygorg discover the Yorg hiding in the Citadel and believe it's an ambush. A battle breaks out as Lady Djinn escapes, only to reach the Keeper as Starfire and crew teleport out.  Lady Djinn pleads for the Keeper to save her, and it agrees...

...by killing her! Because Thump had one last command for the Keeper...to self-destruct and destroy the Citadel with it. And the Keeper obeys its last command, killing everyone inside!

And that is basically it for the Lightning Lords. This was one of those comics where you just did not expect an ending like that, and I have to commend Steve Englehart for surprising me with this neat twist. Starfire would get one more issue, written by Tom DeFalco. It introduces a new chapter that we'll never really get to see play out, which is unfortunate.

A few years later another character named Starfire is introduced in DC comics in the New Teen Titans, and the popularity of that orange beauty with long hair (that shoots out into a contrail) has pretty much assured me that I'll never see another Starfire series again.