Publisher: DC Comics
First Appearance: DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980)
Created By: Marv Wolfman and George Perez
Biography:
Princess Koriand’r was the second child of the king and queen of Tamaran, but because her older sister Komand’r lacked the Tamaraneans’ natural ability to fly, Kory became the heir. Komand’r resented this so much that she sold her planet out to their enemies, the Citadel, and had Kory turned over to the Citadel as a slave. After six years of humiliation and abuse, Kory (and Komand’r) was captured by the Psions, who subjected her to painful experiments that gave her the ability to shoot energy blasts called starbolts.
Eventually Kory escaped and made her way to Earth, where she joined the New Teen Titans. Despite being in a relationship with Dick Grayson, Kory returned to Tamaran and married a man named Karras to prevent a civil war. When Karras was killed, Kory and Dick decided to get married, but the ceremony was interrupted by their supposedly-dead friend Raven crashing the party and implanting Kory with her demon seed. (I think that happened at the end of Bridesmaids.)
Kory returned to Tamaran, fell in love with a general named Ph’yzzon, and married him. Then Raven attacked Tamaran in an effort to ferret out Kory, who still held her “seed” – actually the non-evil part of her personality. Raven was saved, but Tamaran – and Kory’s parents – were destroyed. Kory and Ph’yzzon founded New Tamaran with the survivors of the old planet, but it – and Ph’yzzon – were destroyed by the Sun-Eater. Kory then tried to create a third Tamaranean civilization, but that planet, too, was – you guessed it – destroyed.
Figuring enough was enough, she returned to Earth and the Titans – only to wind up lost in space with Adam Strange and Animal Man for a year. Then she lost her powers, regained them, cured two entire planets of a virus, rejoined the Titans, left the Titans, joined the Justice League, left the Justice League, discovered that Tamaran had been mysteriously restored, and finally joined Vril Dox’s team R.E.B.E.L.S. Whew!
In the DCnU, Kory is hanging out with Jason Todd and Roy Harper, and has amnesia or something. But she’s still totally stacked! That’s the important thing, right?
So What’s So Great About Her?
On the face of it, Kory is everything that’s wrong with female characters in comics. She’s an exoticized other, with her golden skin and strange eyes. Her backstory is loaded with abuse both sexual and otherwise. She flies around in a ridiculous set of barely-there purple straps, she learns new languages by kissing people, and her creator George Perez has flatly stated that she was designed to be fun for young male artists to draw. More significantly, for the first few years of her existence, her purpose in the comics was to play the Taye Diggs role in “How Dick Grayson Got His Groove Back,” and once Dick moved on, no one has seemed to quite know what to do with Kory. Also, she’s named after a spice.
But with a simple point of view switch, Kory goes from being the object of a male power fantasy to the subject of a female power fantasy. She’s seven feet tall and gorgeous, with super cool eyes and sparkly magical hair that leaves a comet’s trail when she flies. She can fly! She’s the extra-special younger daughter and a princess and a model and she can learn any language by touching a native speaker of it. Her best friends are a goddess and a witch (that is so like being beffies with the homecoming queen and the weird but cool goth girl at the same time).
More seriously, she’s been through a truly epic history of terrible abuse and has come out of it stronger and with her ebullient spirit intact. Though it’s ridiculous that so many female characters have rape and abuse in their backstories, that doesn’t make them any less indomitable or inspiring.
Plus, she’s a genuinely lovely person who everyone likes. Though, yes, she’s sometimes viewed by her teammates as naive or stupid, the truth is that she’s just exceptionally pure of heart. Love is uncomplicated for Kory: she loves nearly everyone she knows, without reservation or fear, which is a truly admirable trait. At the same time, she’s a fierce and flawless warrior – highly trained, incredibly powerful, and as fearless and unrestrained in battle as she is in love. She’s almost always the brick house of any Titans lineup, with the possible exception of Superboy – and between you and me, I think she can take him.
Sure, the costume has gone through several levels of ridiculous over the years, but hell, when I was 17, if I could’ve strutted around in skimpy sparkly purple armor? I so would have. And let’s never forget she’s the girl who tapped this.
Kory has tremendous potential, and when she’s written with a female audience in mind (so, you know, not the way she is in Red Hood and the Outlaws), that potential shines through brilliantly. I say give her her own book – one intended for a female audience – and watch her take flight.
Notable Appearances:
The New Teen Titans v1 #1-40
The New Teen Titans Annual #1
Tales of the Teen Titans #41-58
The New Teen Titans v2 #1-49
Teen Titans Spotlight #1, 2, 19
The New Titans #50-130
The New Titans Annual #6
JLA/Titans
Titans v1 #1-50
Teen Titans v3 #1-25
The Outsiders v3 #16-32
52 #1-52
Countdown to Adventure #1-8
Rann-Thanagar Holy War #1-8
The Last Days of Animal Man #2-6
Titans v2 #1-22
Justice League of America v2 #41-43
R.E.B.E.L.S. #15-28
Kory is currently starring in (sigh) Red Hood and the Outlaws.
what a great summation of kory! i would love for a writer who gets it to write her.
I’ll admit that my favorite old skool Teen Titan has always been Raven, but I would have killed for Kory’s hair and ability to fly.