Can we all agree that pets are real-life superheroes? Yes? Great. Sure, it is wonderful to watch Batman beat up bad guys in a dirty Gotham alleyway or swoon over Superman’s heat vision turning aliens into extra crispy bacon, but nothing compares to the kind of camaraderie that your furry (or non-furry) mate provides.
Clark Kent, for the record, appears to agree with us! DC has a long history of depicting a person’s close bond with their pet, dating back to before some of them obtained superpowers and created the Legion of Super-Pets. Super-powered animals/pets have never vanished from the pages of a DC comic book, despite making fewer appearances over the years.
In reality, thanks to artist Shane Davis, they made a very dramatic comeback in 2011. He humorously included a vomiting, feline Red Lantern that looked a lot like his own fuzzy friend, Dexter, while preparing the spreads for Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns #1.
Even if you do not like cats, writer Geoff Johns enjoyed the notion of a cat becoming a rage-filled anti-hero so much that he decided to run with it and give the character the full backstory treatment, including an origin narrative that will tear at your emotions and leave your blood boiling. If you ever meet this kitten, you will wish you had nine lives; this is Dex-Starr, The Most Brutal And Vicious Red Lantern – Explained.
The Traumatic Origin Of Dex-Starr
We’ve already mentioned Dex-Starr’s debut issue, Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns #1, where he appeared as Atrocitus’ homicidal “kitty”. But his true origins would be revealed years later in a backup of Green Lantern #55, co-created by Geoff Johns and Shawn Davis (Shane Davis’ brother). And looking at his story, it’s not hard to imagine why he ended up becoming a member of the rage-driven Red Lantern Corps. Dexter was an ordinary, silver-blue furred house cat, who was the youngest out of a litter of five.
Being the odd one out, he was unceremoniously cast aside by his previous owner and abandoned at the Brooklyn Animal Shelter. There, he met his new owner, and the reason his life would change forever. Though she was getting on in age, the woman was a very kind soul who deeply loved Dexter because he took away her loneliness.
Finding Dexter had a deep emotional impact on her life, and she admits as much when she says Dexter changed her life and if the silly cat could talk, she knew she would say the same to her. Human beings are social animals, and that is a big reason why we can’t help but love our pets. Their bond embodied true companionship, and Dexter and his unnamed owner helped heal each others’ issues.
Little did they know their acquaintance would be cut short, permanently. A burglar broke into their house one night and Dexter scratched the intruder, causing him to scream out in pain and wake up his owner. We don’t see what happens next; we’re just told that the woman screamed out for help and no one answered. In the morning, when 2 cops came to inspect the scene, they booted Dexter out because he could be a “contaminant”, not knowing she was a resident of the house and the only witness to potential murder. Heartbroken and homeless again, Dexter roams about before he starts living in a box on the street.
Two thugs decide to have their way with the defenseless cat and bag him up, flinging him over the Brooklyn Bridge as part of some twisted bet about whether he would die “upon impact”. Broken, battered, and utterly helpless, Dexter’s heart exploded with rage at the world, at the men who flung him into the roaring East River, and at the person who had taken away the only one who ever loved him.
That’s where the Red Lantern Ring found him, bonding to his tail and unleashing his previously-checked anger in a burst of hateful fury that saw him kill those thugs in cold blood. Now able to express his rage incoherent thoughts, thanks to the Ring and his beloved owner’s words, he vows revenge upon the man who murdered her and accepts his fate as Dex-Starr; one of Sector 2814’s Red Lanterns.
His origin story is heavily altered in the Injustice 2 prequel comic, but the end result is the same. In that storyline, Dex-Starr gets his Power Ring due to the actions of Ra’s Al Ghul. Intending to save all animal life from the tyrannical dictatorship of Superman, Ra repurposes an Amazo robot to eliminate all human life from an area while sparing any animals they happened to encounter.
He tested this new Amazo bot on the small town of Williams, Arizona, where it cut through the population of 3,023 in a few short minutes. Unfortunately, one of those casualties was Dexter’s family, who were mercilessly killed by an Amazo bot that actually put the cat aside before barging in to kill the people he loved. Consumed by loss, grief & rage, he receives the Red Power Ring and becomes Dex-Starr; that is how Batman’s entourage finds him.
Dex-Starr in Various story arcs
Being a core member of the Red Lantern Corps and the personal favorite of Corps leader Atrocitus, Dex-Starr has bared his rage-filled claws across some of the biggest storylines in Green Lantern history. In his debut appearance, Dex-Starr obliterates a Sinestro Corps member with his bloody Red Lantern vomit before joining his frenzied brethren in the defense of Ysmault- the homeworld of the Red Lanterns- from the attacking Lost Lanterns and Alpha Lantern Corps.
During the Blackest Night event, which saw every Lantern Corps that existed in correspondence with the emotional spectrum go up against Nekron’s Black Lantern Corps, Dex-Starr was a key representative of the Red Lantern Corps during the truce meeting and in the battles that took place between them and The Lord of the Unliving.
He even went face-to-face against the Anti-Monitor, who was trapped inside the Black Lantern Central Power Battery and was inadvertently powering the Black Lanterns. After Hal Jordan’s actions help defeat Nekron and all his minions, Dex-Starr decides to stay on his home planet and observe life on Earth during the Brightest Day issues alongside his master Atrocitus. On one occasion, they were on an E-train in New York when some robbers ran into their coach.
The poor felons couldn’t have chosen a worse compartment to enter. Dex-Starr purred at them innocently before eviscerating one of them with his Blood Vomit. As Atrocitus is diving information from the corpse of the other robber, Hal Jordan arrives and kicks Dex-Starr away with a boot construct, depriving him of his fresh-cooked meal.
It was also during this time period that Dex-Starr had a showdown with Lobo’s bulldog Dawg, though he made short work of the beast, embarrassing both him and his master. Lobo was given a Red Lantern ring by Atrocitus after this staged encounter, so we’re hoping to see this fight happens again. As part of the New 52’s Red Lantern run, Dex-Starr began showing his empathetic side.
During the Blood and Rage storyline, he encounters a group of aliens who happen to derive pleasure from torturing lesser species’ as he was flying around Sector 666. Reminded of his own trauma, Dex-Starr attacks them in a blind rage but ends up getting overwhelmed and severely injured.
That’s when Atrocitus arrives and slaughters the attackers for “hurting his kitty”. He then takes Dex-Starr back to Ysmault to heal. He also remains completely loyal towards his master when Bleez tries to execute a coup d’état in an attempt to take control of the Red Lantern Corps herself and can be seen getting petted by the mad tyrant after he’s taken care of her; an act that he loves till this day.
What Makes Dex-Starr So Deadly?
Don’t let his cute face and innocent purring fool you; that’s part of his M.O. Dex-Starr’s preferred tactic is to appear saint-like, fly up to your face and spray you with lethal blood vomit laced with Red Lantern energy that put an explosive exclamation mark on your life; literally. He got this ability after drinking the blood of his partner Rankorr, but that’s not the only thing that makes this feline so deadly.
As a bearer of a Red Lantern Power Ring, Dex-Starr’s heart has been functionally replaced by the ring, which makes taking it off fatal for his life. However, this is a small price for the powers he gains; and as a bonus, he can’t be killed if his heart gets ripped out. Red Lantern energy holds the unique distinction of having a caustic effect on the energies of other Lantern Corps. Their napalm-like strikes drain energy from their targets like poison until they’ve been drained of every bit of their energy.
This doesn’t seem to work against the Blue Lantern Corps, however, who were created to bring Hope to the universe and whose powers seemingly affect the blinding rage that chips away at Lantern energies and a Red Lantern’s sanity. Besides this singular trait, most other abilities granted by Dex-Starr’s ring are pretty standard Lantern affair. He can animate objects and move them according to his will, create realistic mirages, illusions, and light energy constructs, although the last one is a rarity due to his frenzied mental state.
His ring can duplicate itself, allows him to communicate with other Red Lanterns via a psychic link, and gives him the power to fly from planet to planet in mere hours; though he can always open up personal Wormholes to shorten the distance at warp-speed.
Channeling his rage, Dex-Starr can create protective bubbles and force fields, project beams, and fire destructive blasts that are lethal. Dex-Starr’s ring also grants him total control of his battlefield, as he can control the temperature and make it reach any extremity while Electromagnetic scanning allows him to see through walls without alerting the people he’s currently spying upon. In short, you better not try to pet this kitty if you ever come across him because he will mess you up bad.
In conclusion
Dex-Starr was supposed to originally have a bigger role in The Blackest Night, complete with a mouth-watering showdown against Krypto the Superdog, but sadly, his paws were filled with a Black Lantern Superboy-sized problem. Though he has gone up against another recognizable hound from DC’s array of colorful pets, we would be lying if we said that we don’t want to see the two go at it with each other and absolutely tear the house down.
And after that, he should fight Streaky; and then Comet, and then Beppo, and we get our point, just let him fight everyone, please, DC. Red Lanterns are often glossed over due to their rage-fuelled origins and their admittedly shady tactics, but people forget that at the end of the day, the side with the good guy more often than not. In fact, without Atrocitus and his Red Lantern Corps, there’s a good chance the Green Lantern character would have died out after the events of the Blackest Night.
With a cleverly deceptive look, a heart-rending backstory, and the most revolting-yet-lethal stream of vomit in comic book history, it’s easy for us to see why DC fans fell in love with this angry little feline who also happens to be one of the most brutal and vicious Red Lanterns in existence, second only to Atrocitus; it just so happens that we’re one of them ourselves.