When the Kree Empire’s deposed leader, the Supreme Intelligence, seeks to restore the Empire to its rightful place in the cosmos, he assembles an elite group of super-powered Kree warriors to carry out his maniacal plans. Enter Starforce.
The Last Best Hope
As the extraterrestrial Kree Empire wages an interstellar war against the Shi’ar, deposed Kree ruler, the Supreme Intelligence, conspires to reclaim the Empire, and begins gathering superhuman Kree to serve him as his Starforce.
Tense Allegiance
To facilitate recruitment of Starforce’s team, the Supreme Intelligence activates the Supremor, an android fashioned after his own appearance, which he often employs for physical combat. Supremor’s first recruits include the amnesiac Ultimus, imprisoned on Earth by the Deviant known as Lord Tantalus for centuries who had no memory of his origins, but he learns from Supremor that he is the last known surviving Kree Eternal; Shatterax, first of a new class of techno-warriors who had already helped defend the Kree against the Avengers; Korath, one of the scientists behind the cybernetic Pursuer warriors who turned the experiment upon himself when the project was abandoned by the Kree government; and the scientist Dr. Minn-Erva, AKA Doctor Minerva, and her lover, the soldier Att-Lass, AKA Captain Atlas, who together tried to steal the Nega Bands of fellow Kree warrior Mar-Vell, AKA Captain Marvel, but lost them to the Shi’ar.
Later, Ronan the Accuser is added to Starforce’s ranks. Cal’Syee Neramani, AKA Deathbird, a Shi’ar royal and defector is a sleeper agent working for Starforce, who only comes to the Supreme Intelligence’s aide when directed.
Once the Supreme Intelligence gathers his Starforce team, he makes them swear their allegiance to him, but keeps a great many details of his grand design secret.
The dynamic between the team members is tense at first. Shatterax questions Atlas’ commitment to the Empire as its greatest warrior, boasting about his own role in once rescuing him from the Shi’ar Imperium. When Minerva comes to her lover’s defense, Atlas silences her to fight his own battles. Ultimus comes between them to quell an impending fight and reminds them that they are needed for the Empire. After disputing, they come together to battle their enemies and restore the Kree to their former glory.
Terrans, Shi’ar, and Skrulls
The Avengers, AKA Terrans to the Kree, are an enemy of the Empire and therefore Starforce. When the Avengers visit the Kree homeworld Hala on a diplomatic mission, they witness an assassination of Kree rulers that oppose the Supreme Intelligence. While the Supreme Intelligence reclaims leadership over the Kree, Starforce arrests the Avengers. Another team of Avengers defeats Starforce shortly thereafter.
While the Shi’ar and Skrull Empires are situated in close proximity to the Kree Empire, they are typically enemies. Longtime foes, the Skrulls, infiltrate the Shi’ar council and use the Shi’ar Nega-Bomb to decimate the Kree race, which Starforce is powerless to stop having been defeated by a second group of Avengers. While some of the Starforce team knew about the plan—a plan designed by their leader the Supreme Intelligence—others were not and it breaks apart the group.
Kree Collaborators
The Supreme Intelligence’s main goals are to rule the Kree and jumpstart their evolution. He does so by manipulating events during the Kree-Shi’ar war and decimating the Kree race with help from the Skrulls and the unwitting help of the Shi’ar. Minerva, as the only scientist on Starforce dedicated to improving the Kree by any means necessary, plans in secret with Atlas to have offspring that will be effected by the bomb’s radiation. Her plan if successful would alter the fabric of the Kree and create a superior race.
Shi’ar royal Deathbird and sister to Shi’ar Empress Lilandra Neramani, assassinates two key Kree rulers on secret orders from the Supreme Intelligence so that it could regain power, but is arrested by Starforce.
After Starforce’s failed assassination attempt on Lilandra, Lilandra goes on to authorize a devastating weapon against the Kree, the Nega-Bomb, which decimates their population. Though she has a change of heart realizing her council was infiltrated by Skrulls, it was too late and leaves a scarce number of surviving Kree refugees. She leads the remaining Kree and adds the Starforce team members Korath, Shatterax, and Ultimus to her Imperial Guard.
Starforce’s Story
The Avengers visited the Kree home world Hala to seek a diplomatic solution to the war between the Shi’ar and the Kree. Earth’s solar system had become embroiled in the Kree-Shi’ar conflict by the close proximity of a stargate which allowed passage between the two empires. While on Hala, the Avengers were present at the murder of Kree rulers General Ael-Dan and General Dar-Benn by Shi’ar assassin Deathbird. The Supreme Intelligence reclaimed leadership of the Empire (having secretly facilitated Deathbird’s mission), and installed Starforce as an official Kree army.
Starforce arrested the Avengers and Deathbird. Ronan, most prominent of the Kree judges called Accusers, was added to Starforce’s ranks, and accompanied Korath, Shatterax, Supremor and Ultimus to Shi’ar space to assassinate the Shi’ar ruler Lilandra; however, another team of Avengers were in negotiations with the Shi’ar, and they helped the Shi’ar Imperial Guard defeat Starforce.
The Shi’ar had prepared a Nega-Bomb using the captured Nega Bands in an attempt to wipe out the Kree. Lilandra also intended to execute all of Starforce, but the Avengers pleaded for their lives, and when Lilandra found that longtime Kree enemies the Skrulls had infiltrated her council, she called off the executions in honor of Starforce’s members. She freed Starforce member Ultimus to inform the Supreme Intelligence of the plot and kept the others as collateral. Lilandra was also persuaded to recall the Nega-Bomb, but Skrulls serving the Supreme Intelligence commandeered the weapon and detonated it in Kree space, decimating the population as part of the Supreme Intelligence’s attempt at jumpstarting Kree evolution.
The Supreme Intelligence was seemingly killed by the Avengers in the aftermath, but he escaped thanks to his allies. Doctor Minerva and Captain Atlas seemingly committed suicide, but actually went into hiding, intending to fulfill the Supreme Intelligence’s ambitions by bearing children that would benefit from their irradiation by the Nega-Bomb.
Lilandra claimed Kree territory in the name of the Shi’ar, and named Deathbird her viceroy on Hala, assigning Korath, Shatterax and Ultimus as counterparts to the Imperial Guard. Ronan quit Starforce, and the Supremor was imprisoned.
When the Avengers member Wendell Vaughn, aka Quasar came to Hala to offer assistance to the survivors, Deathbird and Starforce attacked him and rejected his overtures. Unable to convince them he was an ally, Quasar departed. Later, the rogue Kree admiral Galen-Kor initiated a breakout on Hala, recruiting escapees for his personal army. Norrin Radd, AKA the Silver Surfer, aided Starforce in attempting to recapture the prisoners, but Galen-Kor and his forces escaped.
When Ultimus’ old foe Tantalus rampaged through Kree space on his way to reclaiming his homeworld Armechadon, Starforce encountered Tantalus’ enemies from Earth, the Underground Legion. Learning that Tantalus had escaped confinement on Earth, Ultimus insisted on Starforce aiding the Underground Legion, and they joined the battle against Tantalus on Armechadon, which ultimately resulted in Tantalus’ death at the hands of his own son, Lucian, AKA Blackwulf.
Deathbird later returned to Shi’ar space to aid against the Phalanx, abandoning her post as viceroy. After the Kree regained their autonomy, the members of Starforce were branded traitors by the new ruling regimes and forced into exile. Many of them, including Korath, settled on the Kree fringe world Godthab Omega, where sympathizers on various hubworlds kept them informed of current events in the Empire.
While on Godthab Omega, several former Starforce members allegedly committed suicide over their fate; if true then which members did so remain unrevealed. Korath aided an exiled Ronan against agents of the worldshaper Gregory Gideon, AKA Glorian, only to later fall under the influence of the Ultron-influenced Phalanx as one of the Select, who alongside former Starforce member Shatterax failed to capture reborn mystic, Adam Warlock, AKA Magus. Then Ultron killed Korath to teach the other Selects that he would not tolerate such failures in the future.
