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Robert Rider was the younger brother of Richard Rider, aka Nova. Richard had always been insecure about Robbie being smarter than he was, but Robbie always looked up to his big brother.

At some point Richard confided in his family about his powers. Robbie was usually more supportive of Richard's role as a hero than their parents. At one point Robbie was kidnapped by a street gang called the Poison Memories who had a grudge against Nova's team, the New Warriors. The gang leader Kimeiko Ashu chopped off one of Robbie's fingers. Nova felt awful about this and later went to M.I.T. to talk to his brother and ask for his forgiveness. Robbie said there was nothing to forgive and he would gladly give up more fingers if that's what it took for his brother to save lives.[7]

Robert once earned a lot of money from selling a software program he designed. He used the money he earned from that to buy the Long Island home the Rider family used to live in.[8] Robert's parents had previously been living in Jackson Heights, Queens.[9]

Robert Rider (Earth-616) from Nova Vol 1 21 0001

As a Nova

While working as a scientist at Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S., Robbie was selected to help reconstitute the Nova Corps and became a member like his brother Richard. Robbie became friends with Darkhawk, with whom he worked at P.E.G.A.S.U.S..[10][11] Even though Richard believed Robbie was among the members of the Nova Corps who sacrificed themselves in the Cancerverse,[12] he instead had returned to Xandar in an attempt to jump-start the faded Nova Force. With no powers or a functioning ship, Robbie became stranded in the abandoned planet.[6]

Talon-R[]

Six months afterwards, Robbie was attacked by a group of scavenging Raptors. Using a device called the Inquisitor, the Raptors regularly forced Robbie into a simulated virtual reality with which he was brainwashed into serving the Fraternity of Raptors. Rejecting his previous life, Robbie even refused to be called "Talon Rider," going instead by the alias of Talon-R.

In order to help the Raptors' goal of finding the Infinity Stones, Talon-R set out to find a set of Nega-Bands.[6] Even though Talon-R secured a mummified corpse sporting Nega-Bands, his ship ended up in the hands of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who rechristened it as the Milano.[13] Talon-R and his fellow Raptors eventually tracked down the Milano and boarded it, retrieving one of the Nega-Bands in the process. As he was making his escape, Talon-R poisoned Rocket Raccoon with the tip of his claws.[2] Star-Lord used the other Nega-Band to confront and defeat Talon-R, and they struck a deal. Once Talon-R handed over the antidote, Quill was to give him the other Nega-Band. Star-Lord complied, but first opened a portal in which he threw the band. When Talon-R jumped through the portal to follow the band, he found himself stranded in a distant planet where its inhabitants had been turned into Ultron hybrid zombies.[14]

Infinity Countdown[]

Talon-R had reunited with the Fraternity of Raptors by the time they attacked the Nova outpost in Xitaung where the giant-sized Power Stone was being guarded.[15] During the attack, Talon-R encountered Rich, and berated him for the absence of the Nova Corps when he needed them. Their reunion was interrupted when they were both attacked by the Chitauri Warbringer,[16] and Robbie was gravely injured. Before being taken away by soldiers since the Raptors decided to retreat, Robbie made Rich realize a way to reduce the Power Stone to a manageable size, by imposing one's cognition over reality. Star-Lord put this concept to practice, and the Guardians of the Galaxy managed to seize control of the stone.[17]

Infinity Countdown Darkhawk Vol 1 3 Textless

As Dark Starhawk

Seeking to liberate the real Raptors from the Tree of Shadows, the Fraternity took Talon-R to the Shi'ar Outpost IV so he could open a doorway to the Null Space with the power of his Nega-Bands. To their surprise, the real Raptors were already free and no longer needed to bond with a living being to work, which prompted them to kill all the pretenders save for Talon-R, who used the Nega-Bands to protect himself.[18] Needing a living being to serve as the willing tribute of a ritual that would unlock the true power of the Starhawk within their ranks,[4] Commander Gyre convinced Talon-R to join them in their quest to bring order to the galaxy.[18] With a subdued Chris Powell serving as the forced tribute, Gyre completed the ritual and transformed Talon-R into the Dark Starhawk.[4]

Robbie and the Raptors planned to raze the Earth to eliminate their greatest threat, humanity, but they were confronted on the way there by Chris, Robbie's brother Nova, and Death's Head. Nova, horrified for discovering his brother was the Dark Starhawk, tried his best to reason with Robbie during the intense fight that broke out, but his words fell on deaf ears. Preferring to carry out his own version of order in the universe, Robbie killed Gyre and invited his brother to join the Raptors. When Death's Head exploded a Kree warp core, wiping out all the Raptors except for Robbie, Chris took the opportunity to reclaim his Raptor Amulet. Though heavily injured, Robbie somehow managed to hit his Nega-Bands together and vanished in a flash of light.[19]

Quest for the Time Gem[]

Robbie later assembled a new contingent of Raptors and obtained a new ship. He witnessed the Infinity Stones leave Earth after Adam Warlock gave them sentience and noted that one Stone remained on Earth and that the Raptors needed to find the Stones' new wielders.[20]

When they got the chance, Robbie and the Raptors kidnapped the new wielder of the Time Stone, Hector Bautista.[21] Robbie tortured Hector to make him hand over the Time Stone, but Hector had no means of summoning it and had no control over its power. Then the Raptors' ship was boarded by Wolverine, Loki, and the ghost dog Bats. Wolverine and Loki were soon subdued. So, Loki traveled back to Earth to retrieve Robbie's mother Gloria, hoping she could talk some sense into her son.[22]

Robbie had Wolverine placed in an incinerator so he could claim Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, but Wolverine escaped thanks to Bats giving him his Time Bat. When Loki appeared with Gloria, Robbie thought it was one of Loki's illusions and mortally wounded his mother, realizing too late that she was real. Hector was able to reverse this outcome after accidentally traveling several seconds into the past. Gloria then was able to talk Robbie down who claimed that he was looking for the Infinity Stones to reverse all the bad things that happened to their family. After reuniting with Wolverine, the Time Variance Authority appeared to arrest Hector for manipulating the time stream with the Time Stone (actually an illusion created by Loki),[23] but Warbringer then unexpectedly appeared to take the Time Stone. Robbie quickly created a force field to prevent everyone from floating out into space through the hole Warbringer made in the Raptors' ship.[1]

Robbie's force field held up, but Warbringer hit it with enough force to cause to go through the Raptors' ship. When Warbringer attacked again, Hector inadvertently froze time around him. After learning to better control his powers, Hector returned time to normal and froze time around Warbringer. When the damage Warbringer did to the ship was causing it to self-destruct, Loki created a portal for everyone to flee to Earth. After that, Gloria angrily told Robbie to get into their home so they could talk, but Robbie told her that he couldn't and flew off into space using the Nega-Bands.[24]

Attributes

Powers

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Raptors (Race): Like all the other members of the new Fraternity of Raptors, Robbie wears a suit of armor that resembles the Raptor Androids.[6]

Nega-Bands: Robbie has been wielding a pair of Nega-Bands since the battle for the Power Stone on Xitaung. He has used it to fly,[15] shoot energy bolts,[16] open a portal to the Null Space, and create a force field around himself[18] and others.[23]

Transportation

Unnamed ship; formerly a stolen Kree warship

Trivia

  • After the Worldmind and Ego were separated, Richard Rider demanded more structure from the new Nova Centurions the Worldmind had recently recruited. Many were powered down to lower levels and given lower ranks.[28]
    • Many recruits were bumped down to Millennians or mere Corpsmen but, going by his chest insignia, Robert was only downgraded from Centurion to Denarian, which is a reduction of only one rank.

See Also

Links and References

References

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