Who's This? A guy whose fashion icon is Starro.
The facts: A Gardner Fox/Gil Kane creation from Green Lantern (vol. 2) #37 (June 1965), Evil Star is a recurring GL villain that was also used in Darkstars in the 90s. In animation, he appeared in The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, in a Green Lantern segment.
How you could have heard of him: Evil Star has appeared since Rebirth, in a variety of Green Lantern titles, including Morrison's The Green Lantern. J. K. Simmons(!) voiced him on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Example story: Green Lantern #159 (December 1982), "When Evil Stars Begin to Fall!" by Mike W. Barr, Keith Pollard and Mike DeCarlo
So our boy Hal Jordan is flying around in his new spaceship when he finds a habitable planet and investigates. Strangely, it seems abandoned. Even more strangely, a giant hand suddenly blots out the stars.
I don't know about you, but I'd be less worried about the shadowy hand than the fact this system seems to be teeming with planets! The hand is so huge, it's actually light-years away, so Hal has to warp to it. And as you might expect given the subject of this article, it belongs to Evil Star. He's absorbing energy to rejuvenate his aged body.
I've always found the Starlings properly creepy because they look like human children. They're stellar creations from Evil Star's mind, but it just looks like he likes to hang out with children. Brrr. No. When last seen, E.S. was imprisoned by the Guardians, and he's more than happy to allow Green Lantern to stall for time and regain his strength (his words!) by recounting how he got out. Basically, the Guardians funnelled power from their prisons to fight Nekron, which allowed the Starlings to break out, and they freed him. Now they swarm GL at their master's behest, and they're invulnerable to the ring.
Where did Hal go? He's projected an illusion that he's one of the Starlings. When Evil Star sends them to look for him, GL stays behind and zaps him in the back. I don't normally think Hal Jordan is the most imaginative with the green light constructs, but I'll hand it to Mike Barr, this is pretty fun:
Barr really sees the possibilities in the Green Lantern ring, next using it to mind probe Evil Star and find out what his plan is. Hal goes too far back, retracing Star's origin story, which he probably knew already (I mean, this guy goes on a monologue at the drop of a hat), so the only new information is that he was going back to that empty planet for whatever reason... It's his homeworld, which he massacred. Evil Star wakes up, starts to glow yellow (ah-HA!) and exposes his plan: The stellar radiation he's absorbed will allow him to turn people as evil as he is (in other words, project the same effect his star-band has had on him). Hal offers himself up as a sacrifice: "Make ME evil, but spare THEM (everyone else)!" You think, Hal has a plan, it won't work, but...
You know he's evil because 1) he has bed hair and 2) he has Parallax's mask! Foreshadowing! Evil Star brings GL to an inhabited planet where he starts to cause destruction, but when it would go too far, he's assailed with thoughts of Carol, Thom and Abin Sur. Evil Star, you fool, don't you know that GL's highest attribute is willpower?!
Another smurt move from Hal Jordan (I know, right?!), using the indestructible Starlings as a shield. He then rips the guts out of the star-band, leaving only the components that keep Evil Star alive (but also, evil). And it's back to space prison for him as Hal ruminates on how the villain can't help it, if his own experience with evil star energy is anything to go by.
Who's Next? Cagliostro's closet raider.
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