Origin
Ripley Ryan is a writer for Ms. Magazine, hired by Tony Stark to do a human interest piece on Carol Danvers. During her and Carol’s initial meeting they were attacked by Mahkizmo, now calling himself Nuclear Man. After Carol proved stronger than he thought, Nuclear Man retreated into an invisible barrier he manifested over Roosevelt Island and took Ripley as his captive. Carol raced after them into the post-apocalypse world on the other side to save her and all the other women who were trapped behind the barrier. Once saved, Ripley thanked Carol implying her article would be a good one. Instead, it was dramatically titled “We’re All Doomed” and was picked up by the Daily Bugle.
Creation
Ripley Ryan debuted in Captain Marvel #1 by writer Kelly Thompson and artist Carmen Nunez Carnero. She debuted as a journalist supporting character before getting multiple power sets. She was eventually pulled into the spinoff of the Infinity Wars event, which ended with Adam Warlock imbuing the Infinity Gems with the ability to choose their own destinies. Her connection to the gems was introduced ahead of the Infinite Destinies event that would chronicle the Gems’ new chosen hosts, but Infinite Destinies was delayed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, leaving a decent sized gap between the first occasion of her connection to the gems and the publishing of the event.
Major Story Arcs
Fallen Star
Dr. Minerva was desperate to stop the endangered Kree race from going extinct. She set up shop on Earth and tried combining Kree DNA with humans to create new super soldiers but none were a success. When she learned Carol Danvers was actually half Kree, she decided to weaken Carol so that Carol would be just as desperate and help Minerva on her quest. She released giant creatures for Carol to fight, allowing her to infect Carol with a power siphoning virus and a transmitter for that power.
By placing the receiver in Ripley, she finally found a successful super soldier, except Ripley could only be powerful as Star in Carol’s presence. Ripley, mad with power, used her journalist prowess to run a smear campaign against Carol. She outed her as a Kree making her vulnerable to public perception and swooped in to siphon her strength and save the day, making Carol look even worse.
When Minerva finally reached out to Carol, Ripley felt betrayed. She turned on Minerva, which forced Minerva to reveal everything to Carol, who made a final play against Star in Times Square. In the middle of battle, Carol ripped the transmitter from her own body, severely wounding herself and dampening Star. Star wasn’t down completely though. She had infected the rest of New York with Minerva’s virus and began siphoning power from millions of civilians. In a last ditch effort, Carol lunged at Star and ripped out the receiver. Star toppled over, powerless but alive. Stark Unlimited saw to her wounds and then sent her to The Raft.
As she contemplated how she could have survived, her gaping chest wound glowed red, signaling she was now in possession of the Reality Gem, which she used to escape.
Reality Gem
Plagued by nightmares about Captain Marvel punching through her chest and her time behind the barrier, Ripley had trouble laying low after escaping The Raft. Every time she used the gem, it worked like a beacon getting the attention of a number of super people: including Loki, the Black Order, and Wanda, the Scarlet Witch. Wanda took a special interest in her. Not only were Star’s reality warping abilities affecting her own, but Wanda wanted to stop Star from making the same kind of mistakes she had.
The Black Order was still following orders from Thanos to track down all the Infinity Stones. Black Swan caught up with Star before the rest of her team. Sick of letting the stones dictate her life, Swan made cryptic arrangements with Star, which Star uses when the rest of the team shows up to take the stone from her by any means necessary.
Free of the Black Order, Captain Marvel, and the Scarlet Witch, she came to the realization that she could do whatever she wanted if she tapped into her full power.
King in Black
Star was recruited by the Kingpin for a team of Thunderbolts during Knull‘s invasion of Earth. Kingpin singled her out as the heavy on the team, explicitly telling the rest of the team that their job was to make sure she didn’t die before she could get close to Knull.
The team’s first stop was Ravencroft, where they recruited a few more members and received plans from Norman Osborn. They were to retrieve the corpse of The Sentry, recently died at the beginning of the King in Black event, and Star was to warp him into a bomb to take out Knull.
Taskmaster, knowing it would kill them and given secret orders by Kingpin to set the team up to die, had a sudden change of heart. He was able to stop Star from creating the explosion, thus saving the team. She vowed to stick with the team on Kingpin’s payroll, knowing that the other heroes would prove victorious like they always do.
Infinite Destinies
Ripley was having fun with her reality powers one day when she got bored of getting things for free. So, she warped herself into her old high school, Midtown High, to get an alumni list and hunt down her old bullies. This got the attention of another Midtown High alum, Spider-Man.
According to him, Avengers briefings described Star as not having enough control over her powers to be a real threat, especially after all the mind-control and reality warping Spider-Man has already dealt with. He tracked her down to her mother’s gravestone where she had manifested a house and a less abusive version of her mother.
Confronted by Spider-Man, Star eventually got the “with great power comes great responsibility” speech. Unfortunately, that gave Star the time to recharge and go “…somewhere Spider-Man won’t find…” her.
Soon after, she was hunted down by Nick Fury Jr. , who was taking advantage of Nighthawk‘s resources to find her. He’s been hunting the Infinity Stones ever since he got word they were being hosted by random people, as the stones are on The Abaddon Index, SHIELD‘s extinction level threat list.
Infinity Score
Star was locked in a coffin by Nick Fury Jr. in a storage container when said storage container was stolen by Black Cat. Cat admits to Star that she’s working for Doctor Doom, who needs Star’s help, but really Cat is playing Star to heal Cat’s mother’s cancer. Eavesdropping on Cat and her crew, she learns that the Infinity Stones get stronger the closer together they are, so Cat is going to look for more hosts.
With Overtime and Quantum‘s help, Star gets her cosmic upgrade and heals Cat’s mom. Upon realizing Cat’s ruse, she lashes out, but they are stuck in a dummy hospital set up by Fury, who anticipated their plan. Star was forced to fight her own way out, cutting her off from the other two Infinity Stone hosts.
Powers
Kree Siphon: When implanted with Minerva’s Kree power siphoning receiver, she was able to siphon off energy from anyone infected with Minerva’s virus. This included Carol Danvers, which granted Star enhanced strength and durability, flight, and energy blasts.
Reality Gem: With the Reality Gem implanted, Star is able to manipulate reality with enough focus and willpower while stating a superpower out loud. This includes but is not limited to: flight, strength, manipulating other people’s behavior, and materializing weapons made of red energy.
- Full Potential: After tapping into her full potential, she was shown to teleport, shapeshift, and glow like a being made of pure energy. Her current limits seem to be her own imagination, but it is still unclear.
- Infinity Circuit: The closer she is to other Infinity Hosts, the stronger she becomes. “Powered by the user’s mastery of time. Can allow a person to access to the multiverse.”