BIOGRAPHY - Page 3
With Carol Danvers, Lilandra and Xavier having effectively joined the Starjammers in recent months – all three of them used to having positions of authority – Corsair still made sure he was the one calling the shots; after all, this was still his team and his ship. At some point, the Starjammers landed to a bazaar planet and a disguised Corsair tried to clinch a deal with a local trader who could get them repairs for their ship. Xavier blew his cover, though, when he recognized his student, Illyana, being sold as a slave in an auction. Later, on the Starjammer, Corsair reprimanded Xavier for his thoughtlessness a
nd even shut down Lilandra when she tried to defend Charles, reminding her she was not an empress anymore. A battle involving Magus and the New Mutants ensued, in which the Starjammer sustained heavy damage and the deserted planet they used as a base was ruined. [New Mutants (1st series) #50-51]
A few months later, the Starjammers successfully commandeered an imperial freighter. Corsair threatened to push the freighter’s captain off a platform to outer space if he didn’t provide information about their exact mission. Paralyzed with fear, the captain was unable to speak, making Chris lose face in front of his crew. Ch’od wondered whether Corsair would truly kill the captive, whereas Raza scornfully believed that Corsair wasn’t man enough to slay him. Eventually, the captive revealed they were seeking the Phalkon, a legendary, immense source of power coveted by Deathbird. The Starjammers decided to split up to different locations, hoping to locate the Phalkon before Deathbird and use it for their rebellion. Corsair found himself in a forest, on a moon in the Grof system. While there, he did some soul-searching and admitted to himself that he had never returned to Earth permanently because his children would remind him of the life he had lost. He also realized the true reason he remained active in this rebellion was for the sake of his partner, the feisty Hepzibah.
During a brief respite throughout this adventure, Corsair and Hepzibah managed to have some intimate time together, and Corsair once again realized how crazy he still was for her after all these years. The Phalkon was eventually revealed to be none other than the Phoenix Force inside Rachel Summers. Following a climactic battle, Deathbird’s plan to siphon the Phoenix Force was foiled. The Starjammers used the residual Phoenix Force to temporarily turn Xavier into Bald Phoenix, using him as an emblem to incite people to rebellion. [X-Men: Spotlight on… Starjammers #1-2]
The rebellion finally came to a successful end when the Starjammers, aided by the X-Men, defeated the imperial forces and Lilandra was pronounced the rightful Empress once again. However, it was soon revealed that the Starjammers were captured and replaced by the shape-shifting Warskrulls. Thanks to the X-Men, the Skrulls were defeated. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #275-277]
Unfortunately, peace wasn’t meant to last. A total war broke out between the Shi’ar and the Kree Empires and, in response, Lilandra arranged to have a deadly weapon carried through stargates. Corsair voiced his objections about ferrying this extremely dangerous piece of machinery through 
a transfer point located in his native solar system. Lilandra retorted that the war meant infinitely more than Corsair’s sentimental attachment to his home planet and asked the rest of the Starjammers if they shared their leader’s view. Surprisingly enough, the team backed Lilandra and a furious Corsair refused to participate in this mission. The war ended in triumph for Lilandra, who now also ruled over the Kree Empire. [Operation: Galactic Storm crossover]
Not long after that, a Kree man secretly contacted Raza and Hepzibah and asked them to travel to Earth and assassinate Avengers’ Black Knight for murdering the leader of the Kree, the Supreme Intelligence, during the Shi’ar-Kree war. In exchange, he would tip off Raza to the location of his son, who had been taken as a child to the Shi’ar slave pens. Raza and Hepzibah accepted the assignment but told Corsair nothing, predicting he would object. Instead, they suggested to Corsair a trip to Earth to visit their former teammate, Carol Danvers, at the Avengers mansion. Cyclops and Professor X happened to be there at the time and Corsair had a happy and unexpected reunion with them. He caught up on everything that had happened while he was busy 
fighting in space, including the fate of Cyclops’ wife, Madelyne, and his infant son. During the reception party, Raza attacked Black Knight. He then took to the streets and the Avengers, together with Corsair, went after him. Upon discovering Raza’s motive, Corsair was taken aback: after all these years, Raza had never told him about his son. [Avengers (1st series) #350-351]
The Starjammers returned to space and were soon embroiled in another crisis, the so-called Troyjan war, helping the Silver Surfer and the Hulk against the forces of the Troyjan Empire. [Incredibly Hulk (2nd series) #415-416] By this point, despite their old hatred for their Shi’ar and for what they had suffered under D’Ken’s rule, the Starjammers did the bidding of Lilandra and the Empire. The team was dispatched to Earth on behalf of the Empress to arrest the fugitive Shi’ar Cerise, now a member of the Excalibur. Cerise was accused of crimes against the Shi’ar Empire. The Starjammers arrested her, even though Xavier and Excalibur vouched for her innocence. Puzzled, Corsair contacted Lilandra and tried to shed light to what had happened. He and Lilandra quarreled and the empress angrily reminded him to honor their tentative alliance. Even though it was revealed that Cerise had valid reasons for doing what she did, Corsair was still compelled to do his duty and escorted her back to the Shi’ar homeworld to serve her penalty. [Excalibur (1st series) #68-70]
Notwithstanding his Shi’ar affiliation, Corsair still offered his help to complete strangers if he felt he could give it. At one point, the Starjammers were pulled into a relatively unexplored system, Bianca IV. The locals asked for the Starjammers’ help against a demonic entity that guarded some energy crystals inside a mine, those crystals powering their entire planet. Corsair disregarded his fellow Starjammers’ pleas to refuse helping the locals and again demonstrated his innate humanity, offering his services to them and saving their planet from destruction. [Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) #149]
After bearing witness to the Shi’ar’s ruthlessness in the war against the Kree and following the annexation of Kree territories, the Starjammers began ferrying Kree refugees to the Clench, a cluster of anarchist worlds, hoping to save them from the Shi’ar. Things became more complicated when the Starjammers happened upon the Uncreated, a militantly atheist race bent on destroying all religious worlds in the universe. The Shi’ar remained ignorant of this new threat and Corsair was undecided about whether he should warn them: after all, life in the universe could prove to be equally unbearable, whether under Uncreated rule or under an increasingly more unchallenged Shi’ar.
Now fully in the midst of a life crisis, Corsair was conflicted about what role he should play in the future and whether he should even keep using the codename ‘Corsair.’ He was tired of living the life of a pirate and wanted to move on to a quieter life. Being constantly on the move, he hadn’t even been able to attend Cyclops’ recent wedding to Jean Grey on Earth. He just wanted to be able to fully trust the Empire in Lilandra’s hands and even expressed regret at helping these Kree refugees, since, after all, their lives under their own military powers had been equally bad or even worse than their life under Shi’ar rule. He confided to Hepzibah that he felt they weren’t doing any good as pirates and could in fact try doing something completely different – together.
Corsair’s new outlook on things only served to demonstrate how estranged he was becoming from the increasingly belligerent Hepzibah. Hepzibah’s hatred for the Shi’ar was stronger than ever and she was fed up with doing Lilandra’s bidding, so she encouraged her lover to resume his old role as a space pirate, plundering and raiding the Shi’ar. However, Corsair was of a different mind altogether. He had hoped, in vain, that Hepzibah would tire of this life and would like to settle 
down into a life with him. He didn’t want to lose her but he also couldn’t let this endless cycle of fanaticism and revenge go on. With the immense responsibility burdening his shoulders, Corsair managed to prevent the upcoming destructive war between the Shi’ar and the Uncreated, even though his actions led to the Uncreated’s massive suicide. He even prevented Hepzibah from further attacking the Shi’ar in their moment of vulnerability. In exchange for helping them, Lilandra fully pardoned the team for their recent crimes. Corsair planned to retire after this adventure and hoped that, over time, Hepzibah, who was obviously cross with him, would come to share his views. [Starjammers (1st series) #1-4]
Despite Corsair’s resolution to retire from his life as a Starjammer, the team was later caught up in another convoluted affair involving Wolverine, the Collector and Galactus. Always the pragmatist, Corsair knew when he was unable to salvage a situation and, when Wolverine asked his help into stopping Galactus from consuming a planet, Corsair refused and barely managed to save Wolverine from being on the planet when it was devoured. [Wolverine (2nd series) #134-138]
With the Starjammers’ relationship with Lilandra and the Shi’ar mended, the team lent their support to the Empire again, helping them capture Silver Surfer, who had recently been forced to serve as Galactus’ herald again. The Surfer teamed up against Galactus together with the Starjammers, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four to save Chandilar. [Galactus the Devourer #5-6]
The Starjammers continued acting in the interests of the Shi’ar, with the ship even serving as personal flagship of Empress Lilandra when Earth was designated as a penal colony for alien criminals. Corsair was upset enough as it was with Cyclops’ recent apparent death, so he at least wanted to make sure Professor X would do his best to save Earth. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #387] Earth was indeed saved and Cyclops soon resurfaced alive. A reunion between father and son was long overdue and they went together on a camping/fishing trip on Earth. However, the awkwardness was palpable and it was obvious Corsair still knew nothing next to nothing about his son; they were still complete strangers to each other. Furthermore, Cyclops’ old complain that 
Chris had abandoned Alex and him as children came back to haunt him. Scott and Chris got into a fight, with Chris slapping his son and Scott admitting that he didn’t want to have any more children, afraid he would be a lousy father to them, much like Chris had been to him. Finally, Corsair explained that the reason he never came back for them was because he couldn’t face his failures: his inability to protect his family. After all these years, Corsair offered an apology, explaining he did what he thought was best. Their pent-up emotions vented, the two men sat down for dinner and made peace with each other, with Scott falling asleep on his father’s arms, like when he was a child. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #391]
Returning to space, Corsair got himself and the Starjammers mixed up into what seemed an innocuous adventure out of a swashbuckling story: the rescue of an alien princess. The rescued princess turned out to be a deranged, would-be despot who planned to annihilate whomever crossed her. She also made arrangements to marry Corsair as a prize for setting her free. Naturally, Corsair quickly realized his error of judgment and Tallibone was apprehended. [X-Men Unlimited (1st series) #32]
A few years later, a coup d’état involving Deathbird took place among the Shi’ar council and Lilandra was captured. Corsair immediately mobilized the Starjammers, as he didn’t want the Empire to fall back into the hands of Deathbird. The Starjammers teamed up with a few X-Men and Corsair was reunited with Havok, who had rather upsetting news to relate. Apparently, Chris’ unborn son had survived after all these years. Kept as a slave in D’Ken’s pens, he had grown up to become a powerful, albeit cruel mutant named Vulcan, who had already killed various people and was now allied with D’Ken, the latter of whom had reawakened from his longtime coma. Son or no son, Corsair professed he would take Vulcan down.
The two teams launched an attack against D’Ken. Before the attack, Corsair watched a transmission of Vulcan’s wedding to Deathbird; according to Hepzibah, seeing his son married to a Shi’ar royal probably made him cringe. During the attack, Corsair tried to reach out to Vulcan, attempting to call him to order. This gesture enraged Vulcan, who lashed out at him for failing to be a father to him and then murdered him. Later, Havok, Polaris and Rachel Summers, together with the Starjammers (minus Hepzibah who had been separated from them), buried Corsair on an uninhabited little planet which he and Hepzibah sometimes visited together. Havok became the new leader of the Starjammers in honor of his father and in order to continue his legacy. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #482-486]