The Teen Titans’ Starfire is an alien princess from the world of Tamaran. A virtual paradise, populated by a proud, but beautiful and sensual warrior race. (Think of co-ed Amazons without the attitude.) When Starfire—or, rather, Koriand’r—was a child, the world was invaded. The war went badly, and the king ultimately agreed to sell his daughter into slavery in exchange for Tamaran’s freedom. (Years later she escaped her captors and ended up on Earth.)

Tamaran’s story unfolded during the 1980s in The New Teen Titans and The Omega Men (which featured Kory’s brother). Koriand’r returned home to help stop a civil war, but then her sister wrested the throne from their father. Komand’r (a.k.a. Blackfire) surprised everyone by becoming a much better—and fairer—ruler than anyone expected. Eventually Kory returned home to stay.

As The New Titans wound its way to a close in 1996, the story returned to Tamaran, now embroiled in a new war—one which ultimately destroyed the planet. The survivors settled on an uninhabited world to rebuild, dubbing it New Tamaran. (New Teen Titans #126-230, 1996)

Then things got nasty.

Just a few months after the final issue of The New Titans, DC published a prologue to the year’s big crossover, The Final Night. The sun-eater, before setting its sights on Earth, destroyed New Tamaran utterly, with no time for an evacuation. Starfire, exiled just hours before by her suddenly-evil-again sister, was believed the only survivor.

Fast forward a few years. Starfire talked the Titans into helping repel an invasion by the Gordanians, but it quickly became clear that it was the Tamaraneans who were invading the homeworld of their former conquerors. The Titans’ Tempest (formerly Aqualad) found a diplomatic solution and convinced the Gordanians to share the world of Karna with the displaced Tamaraneans—as long as Koriand’r took her place as ruler. (The Titans #16-18, 2000)

So of course, the following year’s big crossover event, Our Worlds At War, starts off with what? Karna being destroyed by Imperiex. (Our Worlds At War Secret Files, 2001). Starfire returned to Earth, a queen without a people.

The Tamaraneans have had three worlds destroyed out from under them in the last ten years (closer to two or three in story time). The rag-tag survivors may number as low as the hundreds or thousands by now.

I’ve seriously come to the conclusion that, if DC needs to destroy a recognizable planet in order to establish a threat that’s headed toward Earth, they’ll pick the latest planet the Tamaraneans have settled on.

(Maybe they should hook up with Pariah.)

So now we’ve got two “event” series taking place in space: The Rann-Thanagar War and The Return of Donna Troy. There appear to be two groups of Tamaranean survivors involved. One has fallen under the thrall of the original Titans of Greek mythology. (Troia’s origin established that they had been exiled into space when Zeus took over.) They’re off conquering planets for the Titans under the belief that they’re protecting the universe from Rann and Thanagar. The other, led by an inexplicably-resurrected Blackfire, has allied themselves with Thanagar with the intent to betray them at the last minute and take Rann for themselves.

If they succeed, you can bet on Rann getting destroyed a few months later in Infinite Crisis.