A Sun-Eater is a fictional, artificially-created living weapon in the DC Comicsuniverse. It has played an important role in various storylines.
DC Comics, Inc. is an American comic book publisher. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. since 1967. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, and produces material featuring numerous culturally iconic heroic characters including: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Hawkman, Cyborg and Supergirl.
The DC Universe (DCU) is the fictional shared universe where most stories in American comic book titles published by DC Comics take place. DC superheroes such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are from this universe, and it also contains well known supervillains such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, and Darkseid. In context, the term "DC Universe" usually refers to the main DC continuity.
Adventure Comics is an American comic book series published by DC Comics from 1938 to 1983 and revived from 2009 to 2011. In its first era, the series ran for 503 issues, making it the fifth-longest-running DC series, behind Detective Comics, Action Comics, Superman, and Batman. It was revived in 2009 by writer Geoff Johns with the Conner Kent incarnation of Superboy headlining the title's main feature, and the Legion of Super-Heroes in the back-up story. It returned to its original numbering with #516. The series finally ended with #529, prior to DC's The New 52 company reboot as a result of the Flashpoint storyline.
James Shooter is an American writer, occasional fill-in artist, editor, and publisher for various comic books. He started professionally in the medium at the age of 14, and he is most notable for his successful and controversial run as Marvel Comics' ninth editor-in-chief, and his work as editor in chief of Valiant Comics.
Fictional weapon history
A Sun-Eater is a living nebula with the ability to drain whole stars of all their energy; this snuffs out the star and causes its planetary system to freeze (and all living beings in it to die). The Sun-Eaters were created by the alien race known as Controllers as a way to destroy entire worlds that they judged to be too "evil." Each Sun-Eater was kept in a dormant state until needed, watched over by a Controller.
A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases. Originally, the term was used to describe any diffuse astronomical object, including galaxies beyond the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy, for instance, was once referred to as the Andromeda Nebula before the true nature of galaxies was confirmed in the early 20th century by Vesto Slipher, Edwin Hubble and others.
A planetary system is a set of gravitationally bound non-stellar objects in or out of orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although such systems may also consist of bodies such as dwarf planets, asteroids, natural satellites, meteoroids, comets, planetesimals and circumstellar disks. The Sun together with its planetary system, which includes Earth, is known as the Solar System. The term exoplanetary system is sometimes used in reference to other planetary systems.
The Controllers are a fictional extraterrestrial race existing in the DC Universe. They first appear in Adventure Comics #357, and were created by Jim Shooter, Mort Weisinger, and Curt Swan.
A creature called a Sun-Eater was depicted as a minor character in the Legion story in Adventure Comics #305 (February, 1963); it was a fiery green humanoid that roams through space, feeding on solar bodies, absorbing their heat and energy. In a brief vignette, the creature is driven off by Mon-El's heat vision.[1]
Another entity called the Sun-Eater (also called "It") was first seen in Adventure Comics #352 (Jan. 1967), in a story that took place in the 30th century, the setting of the Legion of Super-Heroes, by writer Jim Shooter. To stop the colossal nimbus from ravaging the Milky Way Galaxy, the Legion recruited some of the worst criminals in the Galaxy to help them (these criminals would stay together to form the Fatal Five afterwards). But in the end, only one way to stop it was found: an "Absorbatron" bomb would have to be detonated inside its core. Only Superboy was invulnerable enough to deliver the bomb inside, but he had been weakened by radiation inside the Sun-Eater (from the red suns it had already consumed). Ferro Lad, a new addition to the Legion who possessed the power to turn into living iron, could resist going inside the Sun-Eater, but not the bomb's explosion. Heroically, he stole the bomb and delivered it anyway, killing himself and destroying the Sun-Eater, thereby saving the galaxy.[2][3]
The Legion of Super-Heroes is a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino, the Legion is a group of superpowered beings living in the 30th and 31st centuries of the DC Comics Universe, and first appears in Adventure Comics #247.
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. The name describes the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος. From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter between 150,000 and 200,000 light-years (ly). It is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and more than 100 billion planets. The Solar System is located at a radius of 26,490 light-years from the Galactic Center, on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas and dust. The stars in the innermost 10,000 light-years form a bulge and one or more bars that radiate from the bulge. The galactic center is an intense radio source known as Sagittarius A*, assumed to be a supermassive black hole of 4.100 million solar masses.
The Fatal Five are fictional characters, a supervillain team of the 30th century in the DC Comics universe. They were created by Jim Shooter and first appeared in Adventure Comics #352 (1967) as enemies of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
During a period when Superman was sent bouncing back and forth through time following a confrontation between Booster Gold and a renegade member of the Linear Men, he aided the Legion in confronting another Sun-Eater of the type seen in the 1967 story. Although Legion member Wildfire tried to plant another bomb in the heart of the Sun-Eater, the plan failed when he was detected and the Sun-Eater's internal defenses forced him to retreat. While Superman and the other Legion members occupied the Sun-Eater's attention, Wildfire traveled to the heart of the Sun-Eater and abandoned his containment suit- he was naturally a being of pure energy-, leaving Shrinking Violet to reconfigure his suit's internal workings to turn it into a weapon. The Sun-Eater was subsequently destroyed, with Superman throwing Violet to safety at the last minute, although the resulting explosion sent him hurtling through time once again.[citation needed]
Superman is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, the character first appeared in Action Comics #1 on April 18, 1938. Superman regularly appears in comic books published by DC Comics and has been adapted to radio shows, newspaper strips, television shows, movies, and video games.
Booster Gold is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Dan Jurgens, the character first appeared in Booster Gold #1 and has been a member of the Justice League.
The Linear Men are fictional characters, a fictional superhero team in the DC Comics universe. They first appeared in Adventures of Superman #476.
Another Sun-Eater appeared in DC Comics Presents #43, in a story set in the 20th century. The space villain Mongul killed a Controller and unleashed his Sun-Eater to destroy Earth in revenge for his defeats at the hands of Superman. The Legion travelled through time to the present to help Superman save the world. While Superman fought Mongul, Wildfire apparently sacrificed himself by exploding his anti-energy body inside the Sun-Eater's core, but he managed to re-form.
After the Zero Hour event, history was changed so that the events chronicled in earlier stories had never occurred. In the new Legion continuity, the Sun-Eater was a myth, invented by the President of the United Planets to unite the member worlds against an external threat, thereby increasing her power base. This plan was exposed by the Legion. During this storyline, it was mentioned in passing that Sun-Eaters had last been seen in the late 20th century.
This led into the Sun-Eater's first post-Zero Hour appearance, in the Final Night miniseries (1997) (set in the present day, rather than the Legion's future). A rogue Sun-Eater destroyed several planets, eventually reaching the Solar System and snuffing out the Sun. The heroes of Earth were powerless to stop it, until Parallax sacrificed his powers and life to destroy it and reignite the Sun.
In 2005's The Return of Donna Troy miniseries, it was discovered that a planet called Minosyss hosted a Sun-Eater factory hidden deep inside. One of its Sun-Eaters was used to kill Hyperion and Thia, two of the Titans of Myth.
In the series 52, Lobo, Starfire, Adam Strange, and a member of the Green Lantern Corps named Ekron defeated Lady Styx by pushing her into a group of Sun-Eaters. Animal Man was later able to tap the powers of the Sun Eaters, acquiring "migration maps", the ability to survive in space, and other traits.
During a battle with the Justice League, Starbreaker claimed that Sun-Eaters were the larval form of his species.[5]
Other versions
All-Star Superman
In the non-continuity title All-Star Superman, a baby Sun-Eater was part of the intergalactic zoo in Superman's Fortress of Solitude. It was fed on miniature suns, created by Superman with a cosmic anvil from New Olympus. The infant creature was eventually released into the wild by Superman, but came to his aid when he was fighting Solaris only to be killed by the evil star.
In other media
Television
In the two part Legion of Super-Heroes animated episode "Sundown", a Sun Eater is released from a weapon holdings platform by a renegade Controller. It is a living metal sphere capable of generating a massive energy cloud that can drain stars of their energy. Brainiac 5 explains the Sun Eaters were created during an interstellar war called the "Great Crisis". Created to scare the two sides into ending the conflict, the weapon was only used twice, but then proved impossible to destroy or dismantle. The Legion teams with the Fatal Five to create a weapon that can destroy it. When the weapon fails to detonate due to a faulty connection, Ferro Lad sacrifices himself to act as a conductor.
Film
In the All-Star Superman film, the Sun-Eater fulfills the same function as it does in the comic.
Matter-Eater Lad is a superhero in the DC Universe. He is a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes and possesses the power to eat matter in all forms, as do all natives of his home planet, Bismoll. He first appears in Adventure Comics #303.
Ferro Lad is a fictional character, a comic book superhero and member of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th century of the DC Comics Universe. He is Andrew Nolan of Earth. He is known in Post-Zero Hour continuity simply as Ferro.
Ultra Boy is a fictional character, a comic book superhero in DC Comics. He is a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th and 31st centuries of the DC Universe. Ultra Boy gained his powers when the vehicle he was flying through outer space was swallowed by an ultra-energy beast, exposing him to radiation while inside. His real name is derived from the biblical figure Jonah who also survived being swallowed by a "large fish".
Element Lad is a fictional character in the 30th and 31st centuries of the DC Comics Universe, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. A native of the planet Trom, he has the power to transmute chemical elements.
Sun Boy is a fictional character, a superhero in the 30th and 31st centuries of the DC Comics universe. Sun Boy is a Legion of Super-Heroes member with the ability to unleash internal solar energy to whatever degree he wishes, from enough to light a single candle to enough to melt nearly any obstacle.
Mano is a fictional character that is a DC Comics supervillain living in the 30th century and, as a member of the Fatal Five, a foe of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Created by Jim Shooter, the character first appeared in Adventure Comics #352.
The Final Night was a 1996 comic book crossover storyline published by DC Comics that ran through a weekly self-titled limited series and a score of tie-in issues spanning most of DC's ongoing titles in the month of September 1996. It featured the Justice League of America, several members of the Legion of Super-Heroes and more than two dozen allied heroes, villains and scientists of the DC Universe banding together in the face of global calamity when an extraterrestrial entity called the Sun-Eater envelopes and extinguishes the Sun, causing Earth to freeze and wither into ecological collapse.
Validus is a fictional DC Comics supervillain, an enemy of the Legion of Super-Heroes and a member of the Fatal Five.
Omega is a fictional DC Comics entity created to be the physical embodiment of universal hate. Omega first appeared in Superboy and the Legion of Super-heroes vol. 2, #250, and was created by Jim Starlin, Paul Levitz, and Dave Hunt.
The Miracle Machine is a fictitious device in the DC Comics universe. The machine first appeared in Adventure Comics #367, April 1968.
Shanghalla is a fictional planetoid in the 30th century DC Comics Universe. Its name appears to be a portmanteau of Shangri-La and Valhalla.
The 1958 version of the Legion of Super-Heroes is a fictional superhero team in the 31st century of the DC Comics Universe. The team is the first incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and was followed by the 1994 and 2004 rebooted versions. It first appeared in Adventure Comics #247 and was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino.
"The Death of Ferro Lad" is an American comic book story arc that was published as "The Fatal Five" by DC Comics, and was presented in Adventure Comics #352-353. It was written by Jim Shooter, with art by Curt Swan and George Klein. The story arc includes the first appearance of the villainous Fatal Five. It is also notable for featuring the first "permanent" death of a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
"The Adult Legion" is a story arc that was published by DC Comics, and presented in Adventure Comics #354-355. It was written by Jim Shooter, pencilled by Curt Swan and inked by George Klein. The story arc features one of Superman's encounters with the Legion of Super-Heroes as adults, and foreshadows several plot twists which occur in the years that follow.
"One of Us Is a Traitor" is a story arc that was published by DC Comics, and presented in Adventure Comics #346-347. It was written by Jim Shooter, with pencils by Shooter and Curt Swan. The story arc features the first appearance of the Khunds and four new members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, one of whom is revealed to be a traitor.
"The Terra Mosaic" is a story arc that was published by DC Comics, and presented in Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 4, #25-36. It was written by Keith Giffen and Tom and Mary Bierbaum, and was pencilled primarily by Jason Pearson. The story arc takes place during the "Five Years Later" period of the Legion of Super-Heroes' original continuity. It features the introduction of "Batch SW6" — time-displaced duplicates of the regular, adult version of the Legion — who become key participants in a war to free Earth from the control of the Dominators.
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