You know, one thing that always disturbed me about the future depicted in the pages of Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes was that far from a future of peaceful racial co-existence, it seemed that all the people of different races, colors and creeds gave up trying to intermingle with each other and departed for planets of their own!
I first noticed this reading the story of Tyroc, the black man with the sonic scream that could teleport him wherever he wanted to go- hailing from an entire planet populated by blacks…my first thought was like, wow, Planet Earth must have pulled some MASSIVE super-segregation in the 30th century!
Which brings us to Dawnstar, a young girl coming from the planet Starhaven, and THIS one is populated by the descendents of American Indians (Anasazi, it seems) whom I guess realized were never gonna get their land back from those "dirty backstabbin’ Americans", and hopped the first rocket out to colonize a new planet!
They’ve somehow grown wings and are able to fly like eagles- for some reason, this oft-used relationship between the eagle and Indians makes sense to me, as the Eagle has always seemed synonymous with the Indian philosophy (is it un-PC to say Indian anymore?), think about that song “Eagle” by ABBA- very Native American in feel!
In fact, I hereby declare that ABBA song as the official theme song for Dawnstar!
Of course, being of Native American descent, her costume has tassles and fringe. All “Indian” characters costumes have to have that fringe! Well, maybe not. But just taking a quick glance at heroes like Thunderbird, Dani Moonstar or even Talisman, it sure seems like it to me!
Created by Paul Levitz and Mike Grell in
SUPERBOY starring the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #226
