Dawnstar is a superheroine appearing in comic books published by DC Comics, primarily as a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th and 31st centuries. She was created by Paul Levitz and Mike Grell, and first appeared in Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #226 (April 1977).
Fictional character biography
Dawnstar (her real name, she has no Legion code name) is from the planet Starhaven, a world colonized by Native Americans who were abducted from Earth by an unknown alien race in the 13th century. Her name is derived from the appearance on Earth of the planet Venus, the "morning star", and which is the reason she wears an eight-pointed star ornament on her forehead.
Dawnstar's people are of Anasazi Indian heritage. Starhavenites have pairs of large white-feathered wings that grow out of their upper backs, the result of genetic engineering by the unknown alien race that resettled them and triggered their metagenes. Their appearance is somewhat similar to Thanagarians.
Dawnstar's parents are Mistrider and Moonwalker, and her younger brothers are Greybird and Greatfire. During her late childhood and early teens, her parents built a thriving business on their daughter's ability to guide spaceships through hazardous areas of space. She also worked as a guide to hunters of animals.
Dawnstar received an invitation from Legion financier R.J. Brande to attend the Legion Academy, and reluctantly accepted the opportunity. She was first introduced to the Legionnaires at age 16 as a recent graduate of the Academy. Her tracking and navigation talents earned her full membership on her first mission. Her Legion stipend went to pay for enhancing her home world's defenses.
She served in many missions with the Legionnaires, contributing her often underrated talents at tracking and high-speed travel to perform many rescues of her colleagues, as well as investigations of personal disappearances and similar mysteries. She also brought these talents into many Legion adventures in other times, especially the 20th century. Notable here is her early role in the Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985).
Dawnstar had a lengthy, tragic romance with fellow Legionnaire Wildfire. They each respected the other's defiant, outspoken personality, although they counseled each other on working with their talents as part of a team instead of acting as individuals. Wildfire had been turned into an anti-energy being in a containment suit, and thus had no physical body, so the two were unable to have physical relationship. Later in Justice League of America #9 (2007), Dawnstar was shown in a relationship with a woman indicating she is bisexual.
After the Legion's timeline was "reset" by the Legion's battle with Mordru, Dawnstar was shown as having been possessed by an evil entity called Bounty in the new timeline, who amputated her wings and forced her to use her tracking powers as an assassin. Dawnstar was later freed from the entity's control. She was spiritually healed, but her destiny was never resolved, as she vanished shortly before the Legion's timeline was erased by the events depicted in Zero Hour (1994) and by the ensuing reboot.
Current status
Legion of Super-Heroes (vol. 5) #15 (February 2006) featured a Barry Kitson cover which depicted Dawnstar alongside classic Legion members Blok and Tyroc. The solicitation for this issue hinted that the Legion would become the "greatest heroes of the Multiverse". Dawnstar appeared only briefly with other Legionnaires from previous iterations of the team, as a character in a "campfire story" showing the Legion's influence and the legends and myths that had sprung up around it. This cameo appearance does not appear to have been meant to take place in the series' continuity, nor was it included in the trade paperback (although it was included in a later collection).
In a JSA-JLA crossover story, "The Lightning Saga", Dawnstar (along with many other pre-Crisis Legionnaires) was seen as a statue in Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Several members of the JSA and JLA tracked Dawnstar's flight ring to Thanagar, but she had left it there with a woman as a promise to return.
Dawnstar, with her wings and original appearance, then united with other Legionnaires in the 21st century in an effort to save someone's life (they hold rods that resemble those used for a similar action, to save Lightning Lad, in the original Silver Age Legion stories). Although it was predicted that at least one was risking his or her own life, no one died, and the Legion contingent returned to the 31st century.