Leonid Kovar and his archaeologist father investigated a meteorite that struck a secluded section of Russia in 1908. They discovered that it was actually a space ship. Touching controls inside the vessel, Kovar was charged with energies. Gaining superhuman strength, speed, endurance, Kovar became his country's first superhero as Starfire.. Early in his career, Leonid met the Teen Titans on a joint mission when the young heroes tracked down an international thief. During this team up, animosity grew between Kovar and Wally “Kid Flash” West, which would ignite into a combustible confrontation years later..
Pat Dugan was an inventor and chauffeur to the Pemberton family, as well as the best friend of the son Sylvester. Together, the lad and Pat became the costumed team known as Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, using their athletic aptitude to defeat their criminal opponents. Dugan developed various devices such as the flying Star-Rocket Racer car,used in crime fighting cases. The pair joined Law's Legionnaires, later known as the Seven Soldiers of Victory... and All-Star Squadron in the early 1940s on Earth-Two.
Kovar’s relationship with the Titans over the years grew more and more tenuous, culminating in a confrontation spurred on by his assignment to end the threat of radioactive infections in America caused by his fiancee, who had unwittingly spread her condition under the pretense of a diplomatic mission initiated by a disgruntled Soviet official. Red Star would next be show protecting his native homeland Russia during the Crisis on Infinite Earths
For years, the pair fought a variety of supervillains and criminals, until 1948 when they along with their fellows Legionnaires confronted and destroyed the alien Nebula Man. The resulting radiations from their gigantic foes’ destroyed body sent the Seven Soldiers to seven distinct past eras. Stripesy was also irradiated in such a manner that his physical strength increased to near superhuman levels.
Red Star retreated back to Soviet Union and became its sole superhero. He would next appear alongside the assembled superheroes and supervillains of Earths One and Two, as they were teleported aboard the Monitor's satellite during the critical final hours of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. On this occasion, he would have had opportunity to meet his counterpart Stripesy for the first time.
Stripesy had retired from his costumed career, eventually moving to Las Vegas and falling in love with a woman named Maggie. Together they had a son, although Pat's drive to build new machinery led to her leaving him. Among the equipment he developed was armament later used by Sylvester Pemberton's estranged nephew Arthur, who used them as the criminal leader of the Strike Force that terrorized Gotham City (until Star-Spangled Kid and his Justice Society allies brought them to justice). Pat and Sylvester later made amends in their friendship after drifting apart years earlier, and Dugan was employed by Pemberton to be the chief mechanic of his company Stellar Studios.
While Wyman, like his Earth-Two counterpart Lee "Crimson Avenger" Travis, was born into wealth... Wyman sought only justice. This he found both in publishing hardhitting newspaper articles exposing the criminals of his hometown Carterville as Wyman, and in capturing crooks in his alias of the Dagger. Both he and Pat persistently clashed with the crime lord of their city, Jeff Marlowe for a couple years. Once they captured him, both men retired from crime fighting and resumed their normal civilian lives fulltime. While Gleason never changed his costume nor wore a mask when playing sidekick, Gleason's identity remained secret!
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