Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Characters Case File #357: Star-Dancer

Comics can be really weird sometimes.  Case in point:  how do characters that can survive the vacuum fly through space?  Sure, most just fly, but then you get the Silver Surfer on his cosmic board, Firelord being pulled along by his staff, and the Black Racer, the New Gods’ own Grim Reaper, who flies through space on a pair of skis.

But then I learned about Star-Dancer.  And she, well, dances.  Obviously.

Star-Dancer didn’t appear in many comics.  In fact, as near as I can make out, she’s appeared twice, and the more noteworthy is her first appearance.  That would be in Marvel Two-in-One #79.  That was a team-up book, and she was the adversary for this issue, taking on the Thing and a Golden Age hero named Blue Diamond.  What powers did Blue Diamond have?  As near as I can make out, none.  But Star-Dancer was one Shanga from the far-off planet Zhalla’Kia, a planet of nearly immortal beings with powers and abilities a lot like the Silver Surfer and others welders of the Power Cosmic.  You know, lots of powerful energy-based powers and abilities.

Oh, and she flew through space at incredible speeds by dancing.

Anyway, Shanga was doin’ her thing out in space when something tripped her “matrix-sense,” so off she goes to planet Earth, getting into a fight with the Thing and retired hero Blue Diamond…just like I said above.  However, she claimed Blue Diamond was to be her one, true love, and when it became clear that the Thing couldn’t punch her out, she transformed Blue Diamond into a diamond man himself, and then the two flew off into space to enjoy, well, whatever it was they were gonna enjoy.

Well, if you think someone like that with great power and a great sense of rhythm might go on to be a major player in the cosmos…well, read above again.  She only had one more major appearance when the powerful and mysterious godlike being the Stranger came to collect her for his lab to do…something.  He was the Stranger.  He didn’t exactly share much.  The cosmic hero Quasar would later raid the place, and presumably she was freed then, but she didn’t actually appear in that book, so draw your own conclusions.

As for Blue Diamond, he somehow returned to Earth and started getting treatments to return his body to a human form.  Not much of a romance then…

So, that was Star-Dancer, a character so bizarre I figured I should just toss her out there and be done with it because sometimes this column pretty much writes itself.