Vance Astro

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This article is about Vance Astro aka Major Victory, the member of the Guardians of the Galaxy; for his alternate timeline counterpart, formerly known as Marvel Boy and currently as Justice, see Vance Astrovik; for other characters named Major Victory, see Major Victory (disambiguation).

Vance in his Major Victory costume. Pic taken from OHOTMU Master Edition. Artist unknown

Vance Astro, also known as Major Victory, is a fictional character, a superhero in the future of the Marvel Comics universe, and a founding member of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

[edit] Fictional character biography

Vance Astrovik was born in Saugerties, New York, the only son of a small-town butcher and his wife. Going into the U.S. Air Force at the age of 18, Astrovik (who changed his name to Astro when he was 21) became the youngest man to be accepted into the astronaut training program several years later. In 1988, Astro volunteered for the first manned interstellar mission ever conducted by the United States. In this alternate future, Reed Richards never released his own experimental faster-than-light ship to the government, and they were unaware that he even has such a capability.

His ship, Odysseus I, was not equipped for faster-than-light speed; hence the journey to Earth's nearest interstellar neighbor, a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, would take about 10 centuries. To protect him from aging, Astro was covered with a skin-preserving copper alloy (which was later revealed to be adamantium) bodysuit, and his blood was transfused with a kind of preservative fluid. Astro was launched into space from the Houston Airport in the fall of 1988.

While on his way to Alpha Centauri, the ship automatically awoke him from his suspended animation in order for him to perform routine course adjustments. During the periods he was awake, sometimes for a year in duration, Astro eventually went insane from loneliness on several occasions, only returning to a semblance of normality after the ship automatically put him back in suspended animation again. During his long periods of sustained dream-state activities, Astro's latent psionic powers emerged. By the time he arrived on Centauri IV almost a thousand years later, he had full control over his psychokinetic abilities.

Upon arrival, Astro learned that Earth had beat him to Centauri IV by two hundred years, having developed a faster-than-light drive since the time he left. Although Earth was unable to intercept his flight, the Centaurian people afforded him a hero's welcome. Disturbed by his reputation, Astro was determined to carry out the mission he was assigned a millennium ago, even though it would now be superfluous. While engaged in a geophysical survey, he encountered Yondu, one of the humanoid natives of the planet. When the alien Badoon launched an attack on Centauri IV, annihilating the human colony and methodically eradicating the natives, Astro and Yondu attempted to escape in Astro's ship. They were overtaken and transported to Earth. There they escaped and joined with two other survivors of Badoon's massacre to form the Guardians of the Galaxy. After liberating Earth, the Guardians set out on a random course across the galaxy, in the hopes of safeguarding freedom everywhere.

Years later, on a trip to the present-day Marvel Universe, Astro encountered his younger self and convinced him not to join the USAF. He also accidentally awoke the younger Vance's telekinetic powers, ensuring the divergance. The younger Vance Astrovik would later join the New Warriors, first as Marvel Boy, then as Justice, and eventually became a member of the Avengers for a short time. (Because all of the Guardians of the Galaxy are reserve Avengers, Vance holds the distinction of being the only Avenger to appear twice in the roster--as himself, and as Justice.)

After returning to his own time, Astro became involved with his teammate Aleta after she was freed from her physical merger with her ex-husband Starhawk. Then, after retrieving Captain America's shield, he was critically injured. Vance was healed by Krugarr, Doctor Strange's former apprentice and the current Sorcerer Supreme, and was freed from his containment suit. He then adopted a costume similar to that of Captain America to go with the shield and took the name Major Victory.

[edit] Powers and abilities

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 maninfested 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 inflicitng any damage on the people or objects).

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

[edit] Other

• Major Victory is also the superhero name of one of the contestants on Stan Lee's reality show Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, as well as that of up to three patriotic heroes from DC Comics (see Major Victory (DC Comics)).

[edit] Links

[edit] External

• Major Vance Astro, extensive biography with exhaustive references