Origin
While imprisoned on Alisbar, he met and formed the Starjammers with Corsair, Hepzibah and Ch’od, and associated himself with the group. He is a cyborg being, half man and half machine. Raza speaks in an archaic form of old English, which can be both an annoyance and a source of amusement to his allies. Through his cybernation, he has shown and displayed the abilities to morph his hand into a blade and store grenades and plasma blasters in various compartments of his body.
Creation
Raza was created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum in 1977 and first appeared in X-Men # 107.
Character Evolution
During his imprisonment on Alisbar, Raza created the group of smugglers and space pirates know as the Starjammers. He himself is a cyborg and has both human and machine elements in his body. Raza was married and has a son named Roin. His wife is now deceased. He has a grudge against Shi’ar because their former emperor is responsible for the killing of Raza’s race of people. Later, Vulcan became his mortal enemy after murdering his friend and fellow Starjammer, Corsair.
Major Story Arcs
The Starjammers teamed up with the X-men to fight the Imperial Guard who was D’Ken’s defense. They were later responsible for restoring Lilandra to her throne, but soon after she was killed by Razor who was in control of Darkhawk. During the Kree/Shi’ar war Raza played a key role. He fought Wonderman while transporting the Nega-Bomb. Raza and the rest of the Starjammers suffered from the horrible death of their leader Cosair who was killed by his son Vulcan. During the War of Kings Raza was infected by the mysterious symbiote known as ZZZXX and against his will became part of Vulcan’s imperial Guard. During the ending points of the War of Kings Raza was freed from ZZZXX by the Nova Corps.
Later Raza along with Cho’d fought along side the Guardians of the Galaxy while the rest of the Starjammers returned to earth. During this time its revealed that Raza still had a type of mental connect with ZZZXX and still had a urge of being with it again. Raza was finally relieved of all contact with ZZZXX when he forced it to take a Cancer-Verse counterpart of Professor Xavier as a host.
Powers and Abilities
Raza is a Cyborg which gives him superhuman strength, enhanced agility, speed, and superhuman reflexes. Raza can switch his robotic hand into a blade at will. Also due to his robotic body he can withstand and breathe in various alien enviroments. Raza is very good at hand to hand combat because of his training with the shi’ar.
Alternate Version
Age of Apocalyspe
He appears in the Age of Apocalypse reality but seems to have the same history as the mainstream Raza has.
Other Media
Television
Raza appears as a member of the Starjammers is the 5 part Phoenix Saga of The Animated “X-men” show.