THAYRI

Official Name: Thayri

Nature: Extraterrestrial planet, unrevealed star system (but presumably part of the "Golden Galaxy"), Milky Way Galaxy (presumably);
    population wiped out in the 18^th Century A.D.;

Environment: Life-sustaining biosphere;
    it was described as a sun-washed world

Gravity: Unrevealed (but presumably possessed a gravitational field in which it was comfortable for aliens virtually identical to humanity to function)

Atmosphere: An unspecified combination of gases (likely mostly nitrogen and oxygen);

Natural Satellites: Unrevealed

Artificial Satellites: Unrevealed

Natives: The man who would become Terminator (identity unrevealed); numerous unidentified (all others apparently deceased)

Population: Unrevealed

Capital City: Unrevealed

Government: Unrevealed

Languages: Unrevealed (likely Galadorian or some variant)

Monetary Unit: Unrevealed

National Defense: Unrevealed

Major Resources: Art and Music

Planetary Defense: Unrevealed

Places of Interest: None known

Prominent Residents: The man who would become the Spaceknight Terminator in the 18^th Century (see comments)

Visitors: Unidentified Galadorians (medics) and Dire Wraiths

First Appearance: Rom#16/2 (March, 1981)

History:

(Marvel Legacy: The 1980s Handbook) - Thayri was a Galadorian outpost.

(Rom#16/2 (fb) - BTS) - The sun-washed planet of Thayri was a joyous world, alive with art and music.

(Rom#16/2 (fb) - The only known city had buildings of artistic and/or high-tech design.

(Rom#16/2 (fb) - BTS) <Presumably some time in the latter 18^th Century (see comments)> - Dire Wraiths came to Thayri, infesting it with the Wraith Plague.

    Apparently that same day, the population began to succumb to the plague, and songs stopped that same day (see comments).

    A visual symptom of the plague was the purplish discoloration that spread over the skin of the plague victims.

(Rom#23: Space Notes: Bill Mantlo) - The Wraith Plague, like many of the powers and weapons of the Dire Wraiths, was only effective when it was tapped into the source of the Wraiths' evil, the dreaded Dark Nebula (actually, the Black Sun within the Dark Nebula).

(Rom#20/2 (fb) - BTS) - The Wraith Plague spread, cancer-like, through every cell in the bodies of its victims.

(Rom#16/2 (fb)) - Presumably responding to some sort of distress call, Galadorian medics came to Thayri in multiple ships and wearing environmental protection suits, and they swiftly assessed the whole world to be dead or dying.

    This was the first time any Galadorian had witnessed the ravages of the Wraith plague. They used levitation-grapple beams.to handle the stricken, avoiding direct contact to reduce the risk of becoming infected themselves.

    Only one of the people of Thayri survived transport within a life-support system to Galador. 

(Rom#16/2 (fb) / Rom#20/2 (fb) / Rom#26 (fb)) - Despite their best efforts, the greatest surgeons on Galador were unable to find a way to stem the plague's advance within the body of the lone survivor, into whose every cell  the plague had spread. Faced with the choice of whether or not to allow the plague victim to die with his planet, the Prime Director of Galador had the victim's brain patterns imprinted upons the circuitry of the ebony Spaceknight armor known as Terminator.

(Rom#16/2 (fb) - BTS) - The sole survivor's diseased cells were immediately destroyed.

.

(Rom#16/2 (fb) - BTS) - Much later, after the Dire Wraith attack on Galador itself had been repelled by the Spaceknights and the Wraiths were scattering across space, a squadron of Drakillars came across a Galadorian hospital ship and decided to use the Wraith Plague on it. They succeeded in crippling the hospital ship and infecting everyone aboard, but also began blasting holes in its hull, killing most of the people aboard, but not all of them.

(Rom#16/2) - Before the Drakillars were finished, the Spaceknights Rom, Starshine and Terminator came across the continuing attack. The trio swiftly destroyed all of the Drakillar squadron, and then entered the hospital ship to search for any survivors. At one point, they came across a chamber where dead bodies were floating weightlessly in the absence of artificial gravity, with the flesh of the dead appearing purple in the starlight that entered through a hull breach. Eventually, the Spaceknight trio came across a small number of survivors who had been protected from decompression by airlocks and were huddled around the stardrive engines. When a doctor amongst the survivors demanded that the Spaceknights kill all of them as quickly as possible, Rom and Starshine were shocked and puzzled, but Terminator knew what had to be done and he fired his blacklight eyebeams into the power-core of the hospital ship's stardrive engines, triggering an explosion that completely destroyed the starship and killed all of the survivors. In the aftermath, when Starshine accused him of being a heartless mass murderer of his own people, Terminator told Rom and Starshine about his past on Thayri, how the Dire Wratihs had used the incurable Wraith Plague to kill everyone on the planet, and how the survivors had wanted the Spaceknights to destroy them because they knew that there would be a risk of infecting the rest of the Golden Galaxy if they were to be taken to Galador in an attempt to save their lives.

(Rom#23: Space Notes: Bill Mantlo) - At some point after their disastrous defeat at the hands of the Spaceknights, the Dark Nebula (somehow) became sealed off to Wraithkind. Being thus unable to tap into the source of their evil made it impossible for the Dire Wraiths to use the Wraith Plague against their enemies.

Comments: Created by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema.

"200 years ago"

    The flashback in Rom#1 took place "200 years ago," which would have been around 1780 A.D. when the story was published in 1979.

    The sliding timescale moves that date way forward, and Rom#1 would be around 9 years before the stories currently being published in the Marvel Universe (so like 2016 at the time this profile was written in 2025 A.D.).

    However, I would think that the date of initial Galador-Dire Wraith conflict should stay fixed in time in the late 18^th century A.D. rather than being moved forward into the 1800s.

    Or should it? Significant amounts of time have passed that having it stay fixed in time would make the initial conflict between the Wraiths and Galadorians 250 years ago, rather than 200 years ago...

    Terminator said, "The songs died the day the Wraiths came."
    That would seem to indicate that the plague was extremely fast-acting, and no one was in any condition to play music that same day. Of course, his statement could be a bit of hyperbole, and the truth may be that the day they arrived was the start of end of song on Thayri. Regardless, like the Don McLean song, that was the day the music died...

Comments courtesy of Donald Campbell

   Thayri has the distinction of being one of only SIX named planets created as part of Rom's backstory. It was the fourth of those planets to appear in the series, and may have been meant to be one of the "outpost planets" that had been settled by the people of Rom's homeworld Galador.
Thayri was confirmed as a Galadorian outpost in Marvel Legacy: The 1980s Handbook--Snood

Second story in Rom#16 has dialogue suggesting Terminator didn't consider himself Galadorian - when the medics from Galador arrive he notes it was "the first time any Galadorian hid (sic) witnessed" the plague, and that "I was the only one of my people to survive." 

Rom#21's second story offers circumstantial evidence that he is Galadorian (by species if not place of birth), in as much that he knows of Javelin's history - it might be that he learned this during his time as a Spaceknight, but it's not like Terminator is gregarious and likes chatting with his fellow Spaceknights about their pre-cyborg days. Since he talks about how Javelin was famous, it sounds like he knew of Javelin because of that fame. Not confirmation of shared species, but if you are hearing about sporting events on another world then those worlds have to have some existing ties. 

Rom#25 supports Terminator being Galadorian, as on the second to last page he states to Rom "for 200 years I have misled our people" - Our, not your.  

I figure all those comments from Terminator work if Thayri was a Galadorian colony in a similar way to the 13 colonies/ early United States being a British colony - in other words, his comments in Rom#16 are because he considers himself a Thayrian. not a Galadorian, the same way Founding Father Robert Morris would have said he was American despite being born in Liverpool, England. Terminator is ethnically Galdadorian but a citizen of Thayri.
--Loki

    However, the name "Thayri" was only mentioned once (in Rom#16/2) and there have never been any in-story references to it having been a Galadorian colony. Aside from its appearance in Rom#16/2, Thayri does also appear in Rom#20/2 and Rom#26, but only in single panels that are part of retellings of Terminator's origin.

    Both images are just recreations of a scene first depicted in one of the images that are part of the main profile, but I've chosen to include them here, to the right, because otherwise Thayri only appears in three panels, so why not display the other two images even if they are just recaps?

   For the record, the other five planets that were named were: Galador, Angelica, Agricon. Thuvria, and Wraithworld. A seventh planet, the one where Rom was betrayed to the Dire Wraiths by Gloriole, was visited but never identified.

   Thayri is an integral part of Terminator's Tragic Origin Story, but that story is not without its flaws:

• The idea that the Dire Wraiths had an overwhelmingly-effective weapon that could easily wipe out entire planetary populations but only used it twice, once against a planet and once against a single starship, seems rather implausible. Some explanation for why the Dire Wraiths didn't use it more often would have been appreciated.
  
       Like, maybe the Dire Wraiths were just so evil that they were willing to risk their lives in order to get a greater sadistic thrill by killing their enemies more directly? A better reason would be that there was some very high cost associated with creating the Wraith Plague, one that expended so much of their black magical resources that using the Wraith Plague more frequently would have left them significantly more vulnerable to attacks by the Galadorian Spaceknights?
  
  
  
• The biggest problem with this origin story is how what is stated to have happened to Terminator changes over time.
  
• In Rom#16/2, Terminator tells Rom and Starshine that the Galadorian surgeons had salvaged what living cells of his they could and grafted them into the Terminator armor while destroying his diseased cells.
• However, in Rom#20/2, Rom stated that the Wraith Plague had spread through all of the lone survivor's cells so that only way his life could be saved was by preserving his brain patterns so that they could later be programmed into the cyborg Spaceknight armor of Terminator.
• Finally, in Rom#26, Rom recalled that the survivor's brain-patterns had been programmed into the ebony Spaceknight armor because "there had not been enough living tissue left to rejuvenate him."
  
• The real reason behind this change may have been a realization that the stories in Rom#11 & 19 had indicated that Galadorian science would have been able to restore both Archie Stryker and Karas to human form even though half of their organic bodies had been destroyed, something that would mean that the Galadorians should have been able to recreate the survivor's body if any living tissue remained, so Terminator's origin was changed to remove that option. While I understand why the change was made, an in-universe explanation for why the origin changed would have been appreciated. Even something as simple as Terminator being in denial about the fact that he was no longer even partially organic would have sufficed.

   Also, the young humanoid male who became Terminator really should have been given a real name. I'm just saying, it's bad enough to make him into nothing more than brain patterns programmed into cicuitry, but the fact that he didn't even have a name of his own gives him less of an identity to begin with, don't you think?
--I absolutely agree. It's frustrating when real names aren't given during origins, etc.--Snood

   While it seems likely that the Dire Wraiths would have used their Wraith Plague to attack Galador's most distant colonies first, the fact that Rom was supposedly the first Galadorian to become a Spaceknight suggests that the attack on Thayri occurred after the Prime Director had called for people willing to sacrifice their humanity in order to save Galador and Rom had been the first to volunteer. That in turn could imply that Thayri was closer to Galador than to the outskirts of the Golden Galaxy. However, it still seems strange that the Galadorians were able to investigate Thayri, find the survivor, transport him to Galador and transform him into Terminator in time to defend Galador if Thayri was attacked after Rom volunteered. Then again, there is evidence that the Dire Wraith invasion of the Golden Galaxy was a slow-and-steady one that focused on destroying the outer colonies before making the final attack on Galador itself, so maybe there was time.

   According to the first story in War of Kings: Warriors#1 (September, 2009), centuries ago the Strontian race swore undying and eternal loyalty to the Shi'ar throne after a Shi'ar Majestor (the father of T'Korr) provided them with the cure to the Wraith Plague that had been afflicting them. It has never been confirmed that this was the same "Wraith Plague" that the Dire Wraiths used on Thayri. However, if it was the same deadly disease, then it's a shame that the Shi'ar Empire never bothered to share the cure with the Galadorians.

    This profile was posted on 11/19/2025, Bill Mantlo's 74^th birthday.

    Terminator will get his own profile eventually, maybe next year...

Profile by Snood and Donald Campbell.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Thayri  has no known connections to

• other "Thayri" planets, places, races, characters, groups or items...
  

images: (without ads)
Rom#16/2, pg. 5, panel 1 (Galadorians arriving on stricken Thayri);
          panel 2 (Galadorian scanning one of the afflicted);
          panel 3 (pulling away resident via levitation grapple (and apparent containment field/possibly life support);
          panel 4 (survivor grafted into armor-->Terminator);
Rom#20, page 19, panel 5 (recap1);
Rom#26, page 10, panel 5 (recap2);
           panel 6 (brain-patterns programmed into Terminator armor)

Appearances:
Rom#16/2 (March, 1981) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Sal Buscema (artist), Jo Duffy (editor)

Marvel Legacy: The 1980s Handbook (January, 2007) - Jeff Christiansen (head writer/coordinator), Sean McQuaid, Al Sjoerdsma, Michael Hoskin, Stuart Vandal, Mark O'English, Ronald Byrd, Anthony Flamini, Mike Fichera, Barry Reese, Madison Carter, Chris Biggs, Eric J. Moreels & Chad Anderson (writers), Michael Short (assistant editor), Mark D. Beazley (associate editor), Jeff Youngquist & Jennifer Grunwald (editors)

Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z hardcover#10 (November, 2009) - Jeff Christiansen, Stuart Vandal, & Sean McQuaid (head writers/coordinators), Mike Fichera, Madison Carter, Markus Raymond, & Mike O'Sullivan (coordination assistants), Mike Fichera, Ronald Byrd, Michael Hoskin, Madison Carter, Mike O'Sullivan, Rob London, Eric J. Moreels, Markus Raymond, David Wiltfong, Gabriel Shechter, Richard Green, Jacob Rougemont, Chris Biggs, Mark O'English, & Anthony Flamini (writers), Brian Overton (copy editor), John Denning & Alex Starbuck (assistant editors), Mark D. Beazley (editor, special projects), Jeff Youngquist & Jennifer Grunwald (editors)

First posted: 11/19/2025
Last updated: 11/19/2025

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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