Despero

48 years ago - Despero is born on Kalanor, son of a prominent warlord. As a mutant with a third eye, he is treated as an outcast.

31 years ago - 17-year-old Despero, despite being barred from an education as a mutant, begins his genetic experimentation.

27 years ago - 21-year-old Despero's experimentation is discovered. He is cast out to wander and die into Kalanor's great nuclear desert.

21 years ago - 27-year-old Despero discovers the Flames of Py’tar deep in Kalanor's nuclear desert, awakening the mind-control powers of his 3rd eye. He begins experimenting on his people, building his science cult as he reaches out to other planets, searching for genetic anomalies.

12 years ago - 36-year-old Despero comes to Earth, samples Kryptonian DNA and captures Karen Starr for his experiments with Kryptonian physiology before he is finally stopped by the Justice League, his identity lost on an astral plane when his body is destroyed

11 years ago - 37-year-old Despero emerges on Kalanor with a new body forged in the flames of Py’tar. His science cult rises up to usurp control of his planet, and begins a new campaign of interplanetary conquest.

9 years ago - 39-year-old Despero defeats much of the Green Lantern Corp & destroys the Justice League Satellite. He engages in an extended battle of wills with J'onn J'onzz with the lives of the Justice League hanging in the balance, but is finally defeated when the Flames of Py’tar are extinguished by John Stewart, left to exist disembodied in the subtle realms.

2 years ago - 46-year-old Despero’s consciousness it placed in president Lex Luthor’s body by Johnny Sorrow. They are defeated by the combined Justice League, Justice Society & the Watchtower.

Now - 48-year-old Despero emerges again in a new body when the Flames of Py'tar are relit by Lady Styx, manipulating him to serve as her most powerful lieutenant.

While lots of comic characters undergo some big changes in their backstory and even in their core concept, you're going to be hard pressed to find a character that has experienced quite as many as Despero. Perhaps even more interesting is that unlike lots of comic characters, all of the changes Despero has seen are actually in canon... he really did undergo that shift in the story. This constant shifting of his persona and his place in the world might suggest that he's a hard character to place, but in fact Despero has thrived, serving as a constant ongoing presence in the world of the Justice League even as that presence has shifted wildly.

The fun here, then, is to actually embrace that wildly shifting character and use every version of him to its fullest. We've leaned hard into Despero, and we really like what we got from him.

Despero's Comic History

Despero appeared for the first time in 1960, in the very first issue of Justice League of America, although it should be noted that this wasn't the first appearance of the League itself; they'd appeared in three issues of the Brave and the Bold, sandwitched between appearances of the silver age Suicide Squad. The first issue really set the tone for exactly what the Justice League's series was going to look like, with the cover showing most of the League frozen in chairs while a weird fin-headed alien played chess with the Flash using pieces shaped to look like the League, a thought bubble revealing that this game was somehow making the Flash's frozen teammates fade from existence. Reading the issue, in addition to the promised chess game, Despero also wills duplicate Earths with divergent animal populations into existence, and then has to race the Leaguers to control them. He's ultimately defeated by the League's teen sidekick Snapper Carr.

Despero went on to make a few more appearances here and there over the next few decades across the book's publication, but it was really only ever an act of nostalgia as one of the League's very first nemesis, because he never really developed anything that you'd call a backstory, or motivation, or consistant internal logic. He was just a weird finheaded three eyed alien that had vague reality warping powers.

By 1986, DC continuity had undergone a vast upheaval in the recently completed Crisis of Infinite Earths, and most of the long-running books were in the middle of huge shifts in the status quo. The Justice League had already undergone a big change a few years previous by changing the lineup to the now infamous Detroit League, so the book was digging in on redefining some of it's classic villains, and here is where we see a massive change in Despero.

He shows up again with a completely new look (even his fin has been rearranged!) where we learn about his history and the history of his planet, Kalenor, where nuclear war had burned a whole city/contient off its surface leaving the Flames of Py'tar. a towering ever-burning column of nuclear radiation that created vast deserts of wantering mutants. Despero had become the ruler of the planet, but when he suffered defeat at the hands of the Justice League his shame was too great to bear, leading him to surrender himself to the Flames of Py'tar, which mutated him into this new form, granting him control over reality itself.

This new version of Despero was vastly more powerful and threatening, but crucially, also actually had some degree of inherent story to him, establishing him as a great League-specific villain.

Despero appeared in several ongoing story arcs across a few of the ongoing League series of the early 90's until... try to follow along here... a tiny space robot named L-Ron, the assistant to intergalactic merchant Manga Khan, managed to swap bodies with Despero, and piloted his body into space, only to come back and actually JOIN the Justice League Task Force, serving as their huge pink gun-toting former alien warlord You know, that old chestnut.

The original Despero regained his body in fits and starts, appearing as a big powerful threat in books like Supergirl (the Linda Danvers, fallen angel variety), and Young Justice. He morphed slowly in this era into a giant, violent punching guy who was capable of fighting whole groups of heroes, making him an ideal threat for big teams. His psychic powers, and the fact that he was essentially a disembodied entity, allowed him some story flexibility... which we believe really culminated in one of our favorite standalone stories, the hardcover book JLA/JSA Virtue & Vice, which really hits the peak of both of these major DC teams, pitting them against the original sins trapped in the Rock of Eternity, as well as the team up of Johnny Sorrow & Despero. It's a great story, and really gives one of the best versions of Despero.

He's continued to appear long into the New 52 & Rebirth eras, but his appearances have mostly been single issue pop-ins when they need some ridiculous threat to pit against the heroes, without adding much more to his story.

Our Despero Story

Despero has such a wide variety of stories under his belt that it's really up to us to work out what elements of him we want to include, and how we want to use him. Right off the bat, We want to include the idea that he started as a completely different character. We're getting a little creative with that, suggesting that his third eye marks him as an outcast and mutant among his people, and inspires his interest in genetic mutation... and it's during his initial moses-like banishment into the desert leads him to discover the semi-magical nuclear Fires of Py'tar which unlock his latent psychic powers, and allow him to build his own science cult, expanding to other planets looking for test subjects.

This is where we're getting a little creative. We need some incredibly weird, out of this world explanation for how Karen Starr winds up with Kryptonian powers, and Despero, whose own body will undergo an incredibly strange, only pseudo-scientifiically explained transformation, gives us the perfect story explanation. The idea that this alien geneticist would come to Earth, where so many other aliens seem to reside, and try to splice a human subject with the physiology of the lone Kryptonian left alive in the galaxy... It really does explain itself, but it also means that this is a technique that, once Despero is disembodied and undergoes a vast transformation in the Flames of Py'tar. can never be replicated. It lets us build a fully self-contained version of Power Girl while also really giving Despero a purpose and goal in his original form that he never really had in the comics.

Once the newly re-embodied Despero emerges in his vastly mutated, infinitely more powerful form and usurps control of his people, starting a campaign of conquest across the stars, he becomes an amazing tool for us to use to challenge huge groups of characters. We pit him against the Green Lantern Corps, giving John Stewart a moment to really rise up and show his own heroic potential, but also using him as the catalyst for the destruction of the Satellite Era Justice League. He can be responsible for the destruction of the Satellite. We also imagine that this is the moment when we see the infamous chess game sequence... it takes on a wholly different tone if it's the giant, scary version of Despero playing chess with Martian Manhunter, fighting to distract him as John Stewart tries to make his way to Kalanor to extinguish the Flames of Py'tar.

Of course, even with his body lost, the idea that Despero continues as a consciousness adrift in the mystic subtle realms allows him to be found by Justice Society baddie Johnny Sorrow, and for him to take over the body of Lex Luthor for us to use the Virtue & Vice storyline. These are very specific, story-driven appearances, but this is exactly how Despero SHOULD be used.

Despero's Look

Obviously, one of the biggest elements of Despero's look is the massive change he underwent from his initial appearance. It's fascinating that this change is actually explained in canon, and even feeds into his story. His original appearance with its sideways fin is actually how his species looks... although we're adding the idea that he's unique in having a third eye.

From there, he did actually go through a few evolutions in appearance after his huge change, the main one being that he actually got bigger over time, but the evolution of his costume was actually driven by story as well; the version of Despero we had across much of the 90's was actually his body being piloted by the consciousness of a little helpful robot character, but I have to be honest, this is my absolute favorite look for him. This is exactly what I imagine an intergalactic warlord wears. I also love the idea of this huge alien carrying giant 90's space guns. What can I say... I'm predictable.

Of course, once Despero becomes more of a disembodied entity that takes over new bodies and forges them into his own shape... He's less likely to have a specific costume. In canon, his main thing is to find a flag of some kind and tear it into a cape... although I would like to request that even this version of the character please wear pants? He gets drawn with his crotch in shadow way too often.

Despero's Future

As our timeline is closing, we're actually bringing Despero back for another story. We're building up the intergalactic threat of Lady Styx quite a bit, having her bring in all sorts of hugely dangerous villains to serve as her lieutenants. It's all meant to serve as the impetus to build up a brand new Omega Men team, which is going to have some insanely powerful heroes on it, so they need some insanely powerful baddies to fight. Despero is perfect for this, and the idea that Lady Styx gets his help by reigniting and controlling her own version of the Flames of Py'tar really leans into Despero's story. He can be something new, returning to his classic warlord persona, chomping at the bit to get out from under Lady Styx's control but unable to do so as long as she controls the Flames of Py'tar.

After this story is completed? Look... I fully accept that the whole idea of Despero being a good guy was a contrivance of 90's era comic logic, but there was a character there that I really liked. I'm not saying that part of the evolution of the Omega Men is going to involve that storyline... mostly because i'll never be able to convince anyone else that it's a good idea. What might happen, however, is he finds a way to access a permanent body for himself, but one that can only sometimes access his full level of power, so he's constantly working to fuel himself... which means maybe we get to see him carry some giant 90's guns? I can always dream.

Related Characters & Teams