Whatever Happened to the Starfish Conqueror?

Starro the Starfish Conqueror was a mysterious entity originating from outerspace. When he arrived on Earth-One, he sought to dominate that world's lifeforms. To this end, he mutated three duplicates, although each of these was dispatched by five members of the newly formed Justice League of America. From a local boy in Happy Harbor, Snapper Carr, the Leaguers learned of Starro's vulnerability... lime, which the lad used on his family's lawn during the alien invasion.

As such, Green Lantern used his power ring to dowse Starro in a thick covering of lime, which immobiized him. Something similar worked on Earth-Two with the shark-shaped spacecraft made of Metal-X, which Green Lantern alongside his Justice Society allies drenched the animalistic alien in acid.

As for Starro, a fragment of the creature had survived and nurtured itself in the poisonous waters of Earth-One, spawning a duplicate that gained even greater mental abilities while gaining a weakened immune system when removed from these toxic waters. However, despite retaining the transmitted memories of the original, this new Starro needed years to grow to maturity. Meanwhile, a fake Starro was built by T.O. Morrow to battle the League when they teamed up with the Society. This synthetic Starro of Earth-One was like the Metal-X ship of Earth-Two, a cybernetic rather than biological being.

Back over on Earth-Two, the actual doppelgänger of Starro and its replicants was the undersea tyrant Nyarl-Amen and his Fishmen, which launched an attack on Hawaii that was repelled by Doctor Fate. Decades later, Fate along with his Justice Society colleague Hourman faced the Psycho-Pirate, who spawned a replica of Nyarl-Amen along with other older adversaries of the hero to briefly confuse him.

Once strong enough, Earth-One’s Starro enlisting the aid of various marine life as well as members of Aqualad's undersea people. Starro sought revenge against Aquaman, who was one of the five originally defeating him. However, the Marine Marvel used his telepathic abilities to summon porcupine fish, which sprayed fresh water on the antagonistic alien. Aquaman then called upon his League teammate Green Lantern to dispose of their enemy, yet even still, Starro was able to jettison another fragment into space to fight another day.

And so it was that yet a third Starro, not counting the three starfish he mutated during his first appearance, appeared to once more war against humanity. This time, Starro was largely successful in mentally dominating millions of New Yorkers, including several members of the Justice League. However, Starro misjudged the Red Tornado, who unlike the other Leaguers was not human and so was not suspectible to the creature's mind control tactics. Leading the charge with his remaining teammates, Reddy was able to shut off the source of the alien's strength, while the other heroes used ice cold freezing blasts from Firestorm and Green Lantern to render this Starro inert. However, Starro had a contingency plan with yet another fragment of his former body.

This latest piece entered a space warp, arriving on Earth-C, whereby a new Starro was created in that univere. This version only had the memories of the original, and of the duplicate that had fought Aquaman, unaware of his counterpart's third attempt in New York.

This Starro's arrival on this new world inadvertently created the circumstances that empowered six new superheroes, who would become Captain Carrot and his Zoo Crew. Together with a visiting Superman, who had been displaced from Earth-One in the same space warp, these new champions were able to replicate the lime dowsing technique used by the League years earlier. This time, it finally seemed as if the threat of Starro had finally been extinguished, and indeed under normal circumstances this would indeed have been the case. However, unlike what had previously transpired, another entity engineered an unlikely resurrection of the Starfish Conqueror... Brainiac!

Brainiac along with Lex Luthor of Earth-One assembled a legion of doom from various eras and from five Earths, in order to implement of coordinated attack on three of those Earths. Starro was dispatched with several other supervillains to Earth-S, yet despite his awesome abilities, it proved unable to defeat Superman. This was no doubt due to the fact that Brainiac sent the being to a section of Earth-S placed under a deep freeze by the Icicle, Captain Cold and Killer Frost... a tactile mistake for the rogue robot. Whether this Starro was the original or replica that battled the League on Earth-One, or the clone that battled the Zoo Crew on Earth-S, is unknown?

The Starros of Earth-One, Earth-C and Earth-S, Metal-X of Earth-Two, the Starros of the Post-Crisis Earths... each were terrifying space-faring foes of mankind. And yet, despite their massive mental might, they each came up short when faced with their World's Greatest Superheroes!