Vance Astro (Earth-691)

Major Victory
Name	Vance Astro (legally changed from Vance Astrovik)
Current Alias	Major Victory
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	Guardians of the Galaxy (Earth-691) Formerly Guardians of the Galaxy (Earth-616), Avengers, Defenders
Relatives	Jerzy Astroyevicht (aka Jerry Astrovik; paternal grandfather); Katerina Astroyevicht (aka Katerina Astrovik; paternal grandmother); Arnold Astrovik (father, deceased); Norma Astrovik (mother); Starhawk (fiancée)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Height	6′1″ (1.85 m)
Weight	235 lbs (106.59 kg), 250 lbs (113.4 kg) (in bodysuit)
Eyes	Irises: Hazel
Hair	Black
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Mutant
Living Status	Alive; formerly deceased
Reality	Earth-691
Place of Birth	Saugerties, New York
Cause of Death	Killed by Korvac (Revived by Korvac)
Personal Information
Identity	Public
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Adventurer, formerly an astronaut, freedom fighter
Base of Operations	Starship Captain America II, Formerly Knowhere; Saugerties, New York City, Earth
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Arnold Drake, Gene Colan
First	Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (January, 1969)
First	Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (January, 1969)

 My name... M-my name is... I a-am Vance Astrovik. I am Major Victory of the G-guardians of the galaxy. Please, can s-somebody tell me when I am? 

—Major Victory

History

Vance Astro shared a similar history to his Earth-616 counterpart until, when he was 16 years old, Vance's mutant powers did not manifest leading him to join the Air Force. As a young man, Astrovik changed his name to Vance Astro. After a tenure in the U.S. Air Force, he was accepted into the astronaut program at a very young age and was chosen to be the first man to travel to the nearest star system. Doctors replaced his blood and coated his internal organs with some kind of preserving fluid before he was placed in suspended animation and his ship was launched into space on a mission that would last over 1,000 years.

However, when his ship landed on Centauri-IV in 3006 A.D., Major Astro was shocked to be greeted by Earthmen who had beaten him to the planet and colonized it. Dismayed that everything he had sacrificed had been for nothing, Astro decided to complete his original mission and catalogue the planet's flora and fauna, even though that mission was obsolete. While hiking in the mountains, Astro came across Yondu who was in the middle of performing his people's ritual of manhood. Yondu attacked Astro for interrupting the ritual but the threat caused Astro's psycho-kinetic ability to manifest itself in his defense. Afterwards, the two became reluctant companions and then friends.

Later that year, the Centauri-IV colony was attacked and destroyed by the Brotherhood of Badoon. With the first evidence of hostilities, Astro took Yondu aboard his survey ship and attempted to escape to the nearest known planet in the Centauri system but they were swiftly overtaken and captured. The Badoon also seemingly eradicated the entire native Centaurian race.

In 3007 A.D., Astro and Yondu were sent as captives to Earth, which the Badoon had recently conquered and enslaved after wiping out the colonies on Jupiter, Mercury and Pluto. While being presented to the Badoon leader Drang, Astro and Yondu escaped and soon ran into two other survivors of Badoon genocides, Charlie-17 from the Jovian Colonies and Martinex from Pluto. Astro soon found himself leading a group of fellow adventurers who named themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy.

The newly-formed team soon acquired an unfinished starship after accidentally discovering a long-abandoned city hidden in the ocean beneath the north pole of the Jovian moon Europa. After making the starship space-worthy, the team spent the next seven years fighting to free Earth from the Badoon.

In 3014 A.D., a woman named Tarin was accidentally pulled back in time to the late 20th century where she met some of that era's heroes. After hearing her description of what her future was like, Captain America, the Thing and Sharon Carter returned to the future with her. The presence of their symbol of liberty, Captain America, inspired the people to rise up and the combined forces of the Guardians, the Terran Underground and the heroes from the past managed to recapture New York City.

In 3015 A.D., after learning that a previous attempt by the Badoon to conquer Earth had been thwarted, the Guardians travelled back in time in an attempt to find Badoon records of that failed invasion that had been lost. They were unsuccessful but did befriend the Defenders who travelled back to 3015 with them and freed the fifty million enslaved humans from Badoon prison camps. The freed humans and the Guardians then fought to regain control of their world and defeated the male Badoon who were then removed from Earth by the Sisterhood of Badoon. Afterwards, Vance, like his fellow teammates, found himself unable to unable to fit in with civilian life on the post-invasion Earth so he joined them in leaving the planet and exploring the galaxy.

Astro destroyed the planet-killing Topographical Man by joining with fellow Guardian Nikki in a metaphysical act of love.

In 3016 A.D., Astro and the Guardians first encountered a time-lost Thor and with his aid they defeated Korvac but the villain escaped. After tracking Korvac down and almost capturing him again, the Guardians discovered that he had fled back through time to the late 20th century. Fearing that he planned to kill the young Vance Astrovik who lived in that time, the Guardians also travelled back in time aboard Drydock and soon encountered Thor and his fellow Avengers. Vance and the other Guardians were given honorary Avengers status.

While in the present, Vance attempted to convince his younger self to not take the same path he did. The young Vance's mutant powers emerged during the meeting. Satisfied that he had ensured that at least this Vance would not have to endure his life, Astro and the other Guardians returned to their own time period.

In 3017 A.D., the Guardians learned of another threat posed by Korvac and they again time traveled into the past to stop him.

Back in 3017 A.D., Vance found Captain America's Shield. He also fell in love with Aleta, who was still married to her estranged husband, Stakar, only to watch him absorb her into his body during a battle with Malevolence, the daughter of Mephisto. This act forced him and the rest of the team to vote Stakar off the team.

In 3018 A.D., the Guardians returned to Earth, where they were mistaken for bad guys by a team of freedom fighters, the Commandeers. Fortunately, that team was led by their old friend Tarin would quickly ended hostilities once she recognized the Guardians. After the two teams had reconciled and begun working together, they were attacked by a street gang calling themselves the Punishers, after learning about Frank Castle from docu-chip recordings made by Vance. A sniper shot Vance as he and the others were leaving their base, the former Sub-Basement of the Avengers Mansion. Although the sniper's aim was thrown off due to a last second save by the Inhuman Talon, the bullet still struck his temple and nearly killed him. As the Guardians and Commandeers fought the Punishers, Hollywood, formally Wonder Man, carried Vance to safety. Because the bullet was able to rupture his Adamantium containment suit, it is assumed the bullet was composed of Dargonite, Simon gave Vance some of his ionic blood while Sorcerer Supreme Krugarr used a spell to not only save his life, but destroy his containment suit and stop his body from aging rapidly.

The New Guardians of the Galaxy

Shortly after the Phalanx conquest, Starlord and his unnamed team came across Vance, along with part of the Avengers Mansion, frozen in Limbo Ice. Freed by Phyla-Vell, he then accompanied the team back to their base on Knowhere, joining their team and inspiring them to use Guardians of the Galaxy as their name. Suffering from amnesia, Vance was soon attacked by a Starhawk, who changed appearances and identities numerous times.

Powers and Abilities

Power Grid

Powers

• Psychokinesis: Vance Astro possesses the psionic ability of psychokinesis, the ability to affect matter with his mind. For some reason, Vance's psionic powers can only be manifested as "psyche-blasts", focused psychokinetic blasts of explosive force, that can disrupt the synapses in the minds of any living being they strike. Lately, Vance has shown some marginal improvement of the control of his psychokinesis, such as generating small psionic pulses to slow the descent of falling people, or gentle psychic bursts to move objects forwards or backwards (all without inflicting any damage on the people or objects).
  • All of these abilities were augmented by a transfusion of Hollywood (1,000 year old Simon Williams)'s ionically enhanced blood.

Abilities

Vance Astro is an above average athlete with a basic knowledge of unarmed combat learned while in the Air Force

Physical Strength

Athletic

Weaknesses

Without his suit, Vance ages rapidly.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Vance originally wore a purple astronaut suit intended to help his body withstand surviving a 100+ year long space journey. He picked up his traditional blue/white outfit, made of chainmail, when the original Guardians visited Io shortly after escaping from the Badoon. After facing Overkill for the first time, Adamantium was placed along his outfit to protect him. After Krugarr's enchantment protected him he began wearing an outfit similar to Captain America. Later on his symbiote-like suit which was given to Vance by the Beyonder protected him.

Weapons

Captain America's Shield: During the time when he carried Captain America's shield in combat, he would use his power to propel the shield and manipulate its flight path, simulating the Captain's use of the shield as a throwing weapon.

Transportation

Passport armbands, allowing him to use Knowhere's teleporters

Notes

• Vance's birthday was originally said to be July 3rd, 1962.
• There is a strong possibility that most (or all) of the appearances attributed to "Vance Astro (Earth-691)" that were published after Guardians of the Galaxy #62 do not actually feature the Astro from Earth-691 but are some alternate timeline versions of him.
  • For example, the Vance Astro who appeared in Guardians of the Galaxy (Vol. 2) #2 was wearing a total biospheric body suit when he identified himself as "Major Victory" but the Earth-691 Astro didn't start calling himself by that code name until after Krugarr had freed him from that suit.
  • Another example concerns the Vance Astro from the Guardians 3000 series. When this Astro travelled back to 2015, some of the present-day Guardians remembered having met him before (in the series mentioned above) but he didn't know them. More significantly, this Astro's memories revealed that he originated in a timeline where Earthmen reached and colonized the planet "4 Centauri" eight hundred years earlier than they did in Earth-691.
  • Additionally, the Starhawks associated with these latter Major Astros, although they were sometimes male and sometimes female, were singular beings and not two entities existing within a single physical form. They were therefore very unlike the Earth-691 Starhawk whose gender changed depending on whether Stakar or Aleta had control of their shared body.

Trivia

• If Jim Valentino had been allowed to keep writing the Guardians after helping form Image Comics, he would have killed off Vance in issue #50.

See Also

• 164 appearance(s) of Vance Astro (Earth-691)
• 18 minor appearance(s) of Vance Astro (Earth-691)
• 4 mention(s) of Vance Astro (Earth-691)
• 105 image(s) of Vance Astro (Earth-691)
• 7 quotation(s) by or about Vance Astro (Earth-691)
• 1 item(s) used/owned by Vance Astro (Earth-691)

Links and References

• Vance Astro (Earth-691) on Wikipedia.org

Footnotes

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