Sun-Eater
The Sun-Eater are a superweapon that feature in DC Comics.
Contents |
History
Pre-Crisis
Sun-Eaters were a powerful weapon capable of destroying a star and were created by the Controllers. This alien race had developed the Sun-Eaters as a way to destroy entire worlds that they deemed to be too 'evil.' Each Sun-Eater was kept in a dormant state until needed, watched over by a Controller. Many years ago, the interstellar warlord known as Mongul learned of the Sun-Eater and killed the Controller in charge of watching over it. With the power of the Sun-Eater at his command, he turned it against Earth, the ultimate revenge against his most hated foe - Superman. Fortunately, for Superman, he found a helping hand in the form of a group of time-traveling heroes from the 30th century known as the Legion of Super-Heroes. While Superman fought Mongul, Legion member Wildfire apparently sacrificed himself by exploding his anti-energy body inside the Sun-Eater's core, but he managed to re-form. (DC Comics Presents v1 #43)
Post-Crisis
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.
Several years ago, a Sun-Eater made its way into Earth's solar system and consumed the sun. Earth's heroes knew that the world had less than a week before the lack of sunlight would make the planet incapable of sustaining life. Initially, they attempted to alter the Sun-Eater's initial trajectory, by funneling it through an over-sized Boom Tube, but this strategy ultimately failed. They also attempted to lure the Sun-Eater away with an artificially constructed secondary sun as bait. This too met with unsatisfactory results. Despite all of their vaunted efforts, the Sun-Eater still succeeded in consuming the sun. (The Final Night v1 #1)
An interstellar refugee named Dusk arrived on Earth to warn humanity of an imminent, artificial cosmic anomaly designated as a Sun-Eater, which was rapidly travelling through space to consume Earth's sun. The star-sized nebulous mass arrived in the solar system and immediately enveloped the sun, completely blocking its light and plunging Earth into darkness, freezing temperatures, and widespread societal chaos. Earth's heroes and scientists convened a global strategy meeting, prompting the New God Mister Miracle to construct a massive Boom Tube to shune the entity to another sector. However, the Sun-Eater simply absorbed the massive boom tube energy signature and continued its feeding cycle uninterrupted. With the sun rapidly depleting and Superman rendered powerless due to the lack of solar radiation, Lex Luthor and the heroes engineered a specialized starship equipped with a high-yield sun-igniter payload. The mechanical system required manual calibration at the core of the star, prompting a reformed Hal Jordan to fly directly into the center of the Sun-Eater's mass. Jordan unleashed his remaining reality-altering cosmic energy to fully reignite the sun's internal nuclear fusion engine, completely vaporizing the Sun-Eater from the inside out at the cost of his own life force. (The Final Night v1 #4)
The Guardians of the Universe came into possession of a miniature Sun-Eater and were using it as a means of imprisoning the mad Kryptonian, Superboy-Prime. Red solar radiation robs a Kryptonian of their super-strength, and the stored radiation present inside the Sun-Eater is adequate enough to keep Superboy contained. (Infinite Crisis v1 #7)
Animal Man's powers were later upgraded that allowed him to tap into the abilities of lifeforms across space. This allowed him to tap into the powers of a group of Sun-Eaters allowing him to survive in space. (52 v1 #43)
While investigating anomalous energy spikes across deep space, a combined task force of the Justice League of America and the Shadow Cabinet encountered an ancient, malevolent cosmic entity known as Starbreaker. The villain revealed to the heroes that his true physical heritage was the adult, fully matured evolution of a Sun-Eater, having achieved a corporeal humanoid state after consuming countless stars across centuries. Starbreaker used his vast energy-manipulation skills to augment the abilities of the human criminal Shadow Thief, using him as a proxy to siphon the ambient kinetic and psychic energy of Earth to fully rejuvenate his physical shell. The heroes launched a desperate counter-offensive to disrupt the siphoning fields. Firestorm and Doctor Light used their combined abilities to aggressively absorb Starbreaker’s external energy shield, actively destabilizing his physical composition. Before the cosmic predator could reconstitute his mass, a reality-displaced version of Batman named Paladin fired a highly specialized cosmic-disruptor firearm at point-blank range, completely shattering Starbreaker’s physical form into inert atomic particles and forcing his essence to disperse into deep space. (Justice League of America v2 #34)
In one instance, a Sun-Eater was destroyed using a highly advanced Entropy Bomb. The Sun-Eater had attacked an unidentified star system, and an alien pilot attempted to launch the weapon, but the Sun-Eater attacked him, nearly destroying his ship. Fortunately, Superman was within hailing distance, and carried the bomb into the heart of the Sun-Eater and destroyed it. (Action Comics v1 #847)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Sun-Eaters
When she was 600 years old, the Countess Belzebeth was bewedded to a powerful and wealthy Luciphagiean archduke by the name of Lord Vorlokk of House Nosferaculux by her father and patriarch of their particular nobility namely the Starbreaker. (Green Lantern: Blackstars v1 #2)
The much feared and hated Controllers came to had taken Belzebeth's grandmother and stripped her down into sun-eater state to plague the galaxy on their command. She ended up running afoul of Superman and was slain at an unknown location and date. It was then and there the recently widowed scion of deathless aristocracy vowed she would decimate the world which brought ruin to her family clan. But not before waging a futile war against the Controllers for freedom of her people, gathering an army of like minded cosmic vampires of the fiefdom to finally do away with their peoples much dreaded extortioners. Only to be betrayed and left at the mercy of said cosmic power's by her own subjects. Add insult to injury, as she was struck down and vivisected by the celestial tyrants, her grizzly demise at their own masters' hands was witness by her fellow vampires. All any of whom opted to do was cheer the Controllers on for doing away with a mistress none of them ever truly admired let alone respected. Hurt and bereft of her physical form after ceaseless experimentation, Belzebeth's tattered remains were found and resuscitated by a rogue Controller named Mu. Whom took pity on the derezzed waif whom his brethren had flayed alive and then discarded after they were done with her. (Green Lantern: Blackstars v1 #2)
Overview
In appearance, the Sun-Eaters were gargantuan, nebulous entities that resembled vast, sentient clouds of living darkness or roiling black smoke. They lacked a traditional biological anatomy, instead manifesting as amorphous, shifting masses of negative energy that could stretch across millions of miles to envelop entire stars. Within their void-like forms, they possessed a series of internal "nuclei" that functioned as the focal points for their gravitational and thermal absorption, allowing them to drain the nuclear fire from a sun until it was reduced to a cold, dead cinder. They exhibited no discernible sensory organs, moving through the vacuum of space with a silent, relentless momentum that suggested a purely parasitic intelligence driven by an insatiable hunger for solar radiation. Their physical presence was so immense that they could blot out the light of an entire galaxy as they approached their prey, appearing more like a localized cosmic apocalypse than a living creature. (Adventure Comics v1 #305) The Energy-Vampires of Vorr were actually the larval form of Sun-Eaters, and evolve into the larger, more abstract Sun-Eaters upon reaching sufficient maturity. (Green Lantern: Blackstars v1 #2)
They had natural migration maps and a homing ability to navigate through space. (52 v1 #43) Their shoals travelled in their intergalactic migrations from the outer edge of Space B where they could access any point in time and space in the universe. (52 v1 #47)
In the natural metamorphic cycle which all Vorr denizens undergo to become world enders, as Vorlokk shed his humanoid form to ascend as a Sun Eater. (Green Lantern: Blackstars v1 #2)
Members
- Starbreaker :
- Belzebeth : at the tender age of 600 years old, Belzebeth was bewedded to a powerful and wealthy Luciphagiean archduke by the name of Lord Vorlokk of House Nosferaculux by her father and patriarch of their particular nobility; Starbreaker. (Green Lantern: Blackstars v1 #2)
- Vorlokk :
Notes
- Sun-Eaters were created by Jim Shooter where they made their first appearance in Adventure Comics v1 #305 (February, 1963).
Alternate Versions
- In All-Star Superman v1 (2006), an alternate version of a Sun-Eater appeared in the All-Star Superman reality that existed in a world within the Multiverse. The Sun-Eater functioned as a catastrophic cosmic parasite unleashed by Lex Luthor and Solaris to accelerate the death of the solar system. The baby Sun Eater was part of the intergalactic zoo in Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Having been matured in captivity within the Fortress of Solitude, the juvenile creature was originally a pet that Superman had nourished with tiny, manufactured miniature suns, created by Superman with a Cosmic Anvil from New Olympus. It was ultimately released into the vacuum of space to intercept the rogue star Solaris. The beast acted as a biological shield for Earth, aggressively hurling itself at the tyrant sun and latching onto its fiery surface to drain its nuclear energy. It underwent a rapid, final maturation as it consumed the lethal radiation emitted by Solaris, weakening the villainous star enough for Superman to deliver a final blow. During this desperate struggle, the Sun-Eater sacrificed its own existence, dying in the process of neutralizing the cosmic threat, which left Superman to face his final hours alone as the radiation it had failed to absorb continued to ravage his cellular structure.
In other media
Television
- In Legion of Super-Heroes, a Sun-Eater appeared in the setting of the animated television series during its season 1 finale. It was said to be an ancient weapon contained that transformed from a small sphere into a vast energy cloud that moves to destroy a sun. A rogue Controller was responsible for freeing it from its vault as he was against his peoples view of order and instead wanted to bring chaos to the universe where the Sun-Eater was dispatched to destroy Earth leading to a battle with the Legion of Super-Heroes. It was ultimately destroyed when Ferro Lad sacrificed his life in order to detonate a bomb at the Sun-Eater's core thus stopping it before it could accomplish its goal.
- In Supergirl, a Sun-Eater appeared in the setting of the live-action television series set in the Arrowverse. An infant Sun-Eater was kept by Superman where he kept it safely contained at the Fortress of Solitude. A Morae sent from Leviathan was responsible for freeing it with the baby Sun-Eater looking to consume Earth's sun until it was returned to its previous size by Kara Zor-El who took it back to its enclosure.
Films
- In All-Star Superman, the Sun-Eater appeared in the setting of the animated film adaptation. Similar to the comic, this Sun-Eater is shown to be a living organic being resembling a mass of tendrils that floats through space. Superman found it starving in the orbit of Jupiter and had it at his Fortress of Solitude where he fed it artificial suns forged from his Cosmic Anvil. It comes to Kal-El's aid in the fight against Solaris where Superman callede it the natural enemy of a rogue sun. An angry Solaris called it an abomination when the Sun-Eater tried to encompass the supervillain but was killed by the tyrant sun.
Appearances
- Adventure Comics v1: (1963)
- 52 v1:
- Green Lantern: Blackstars v1:
