BASTIANITE race
BASTIANITE race
Classification: Semi-humanoid extraterrestrial race
Location/Base of Operations: Planet Bastian, Walker system, Siminian galaxy
Known Members: Eqnuus, unidentified priest
Affiliations: None identified
Enemies: Galactus, Morg
First Appearance: Silver Surfer III#71 (early September,
1992);
(identified) Annihilation: The Nova Corps Files (2006)
Powers/Abilities: The Bastianites demonstrated no superhuman abilities or advanced technology. Via being contacted by the waters of the Well of Life, they could heal from virtually energy wound. They have green blood
Traits: Once a war-like people, the Bastianites became a peace-loving people, worshipping the Well of Life as the holy bounty of the creator.
Type: Bilaterally symmetric semi-humanoid bipeds
Eyes: Two (on head; solid light yellow color seen)
Fingers: Four (including opposing thumb)
Toes: Unrevealed (possibly spatulate)
Skin color: Light blue or green (see comments)
Average height: Approximately 4'10"?
History:
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb)) <"Ages ago"> - When the Bastianites were young and
savage, the great warrior-king Eqnuus was wounded in a great battled. He
wandered, his lifeblood flowing from mortal wounds, until he came to a pool. He
sought to slake his thirst while waiting for death to claim him, but, when the
waters touched his lips, Eqnuus' wounds were miraculously healed; saved from the
abyss, Eqnuus became enlightened. He put aside the ways of war and spread the
word of "The Well." He led his people from their barbaric past.
The Well healed the sick and gave the Bastianites the power to create a peaceful world. It redeemed them from their sins, and the Bastianites honored it as the holy bounty of the creator.
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb) - BTS) - Holy skins (presumably animal
skins on which stories were written) told the tale of Eqnuus' discovery of
the Well of Life. An order of priests were formed, and they vowed to guard the
Well and keep its secrets. The story was also carved in the cavern of the walls
surrounding the Well.
(Silver Surfer III#71 (fb) - BTS / Annihilation: The Nova Corps Files: Morg (fb) - BTS) - Seeking a world upon which his master, Galactus, could feed, the herald Morg came upon the planet Bastian.
(Silver Surfer III#71 (fb)) - The bloodthirsty Morg chose to personally search any target planet and eliminate any potential opposition. After slaughtering a group (nine shown on panel, but presumably many more fell before Morg), Morg reported back to Galactus that the planet was well suited to rejuvenate his new master, and that there would be no resistance from the population.
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb) - BTS) - Morg was intrigued by a group of Bastianites laying down their lives in a futile effort to stop him from entering a cave.
(Silver Surfer III#72) - After Morg announced that there would be no opposition from the population, Galactus was eager to implement the siphoning process and ordered Morg back to the planet. Morg agreed, but added that he first needed to find what was so precious to the natives. Easily subduing a group of five spear-wielding natives with an energy blast, Morg entered the cave, in which he found a priest kneeling and praying. Morg raised the priest in the air and asked why this place was so heavily fortified. The priest did not want to reveal the Well's secrets to an off-worlder, but when Morg assured him he would die if he did not speak, and also told the priest his people would be spared if did reveal what Morg wished to know. In order to save the lives of his people, the priest agreed to tell Morg of the most holy Well of Life.
After the priest revealed the Well's history, Morg asked clarification that it was a source of power. When the priest confirmed it was a source of most precious gifts -- to each, that which is desired -- Morg crushed the priest's neck, leaving him to die and telling him his people would soon join him. As Morg stepped into the Well, the dying priest warned that the waters of the Well were for anointment, not immersion, and that such power was not meant to be...Nonetheless, Morg continued into the Well, submerging himself completely.
(Silver Surfer III#73) - Seething with power, Morg burst from
the Well's surface and flew to Galactus' ship. Despite Morg's insistence that he
had enhanced his own power so that he could better serve him, Galactus was
somewhat disturbed, questioning whether the cosmic might with which he had
imbued was not sufficient. Galactus then instructed Morg to deploy his siphoning
structure to the planet as he greatly hungered and wished to be restored to his
full strength.
(Silver Surfer III#75) - As Galactus initiated the siphoning sequence on Bastian, Morg responded that Galactus could proceed as he wished, as this world was ripe for harvest to feed his hunger. After Galactus' equipment opened the planet's core, the previous heralds of Galactus -- Air-Walker, Firelord, Nova, Silver Surfer, Terrax, gathered to take down the bloodthirsty Morg -- confronted Morg, accusing him of sacrificing a once-flourishing world and tell him he could not be allowed to continue. Ultimately, after Morg slew Nova, the Surfer convinced Galactus to withdraw Morg's power cosmic (the power he had given Morg), leaving him with only the Well's energies. That might proved insufficient against the other heralds, and Terrax seemingly slew Morg; however, a spark of energy shone within Morg's skeleton soon after (apparently Galactus preventing his true death, or possibly the Well restoring his fading life force).
I'd imagine Galactus completed his feeding on Bastian either during or after the above struggle, but that it unconfirmed.
Comments: Created by Ron Marz, M.C. Wyman, and Tom Christopher.
The origins of the Well of Life are unrevealed. Maybe it was a natural phenomenon of the planet; or a creation of their creator being (assuming such a being existed and directly interacted with reality on Bastian).
Bastian: Morg's first world?
I think it would be worth noting (in the Comments section) that Bastian was
the first world to which Morg had led Galactus. I mention this because Morg's
profile in the Nova Corps Files implies that Morg had led Galactus to "heavily
populated worlds" and thus was responsible "unthinkable fatality levels"
BEFORE he ever reached the Walker system and obtained the planet Bastian's
mystical power. As far as I can tell, that idea has no in-story evidence to
support it. In fact, the only way that the profile could be correct would be
if Morg had led Galactus to these planets between pages 9 and 21 of Silver
Surfer #71, and I don't see that happening, do you? At least, not unless it
took the Surfer a lot longer to gather the other former Heralds than the story
implies.
--Donald Campbell
For the world being consumed in #75 to be Bastian, the gathering of the former heralds depicted in issues #71-74 would have to place entirely before Morg found Bastian at the end of issue #71. Remember, in past stories we've seen that it only takes Galactus a matter of minutes to consume a planet so it's unlikely that the Silver Surfer and Firelord could have zipped around the universe gathering Nova, the Air-Walker and Terrax in the time that it took Galactus to deploy his feeding mechanism. So, the sequence would be:
Morg beats up the Silver Surfer and abandons him (issue #71).
The Surfer recovers and gathers the other four former heralds (issues #71-74).
Morg leads Galactus to Bastian, finds and bathes in the Well of Life and is confronted by Galactus about his enhanced power (issues #71-73).
As Galactus feed s on Bastian, the ex-heralds arrive to confront Morg (issue #75).
Alternatively, the events on Bastion that were depicted in issues #72-73 could have taken place between issues #71 & 72 for the Surfer and Firelord, and Morg could have found a second planet for Galactus by the time the gang of former heralds confronted him in issue #75. The way the storyline is written, either sequence of events could be what the writer meant to happen.
Having reviewed the Nova Corps Files entry, I think the quotes
taken out of context make it seem like multiple worlds.
In context, I think it can be taken either as more than one
world OR as a description of Morg’s general behavior pattern, which would be
built upon after these issues.
I think “Morg chose a heavily populated world” is a weak enough
statement, that given the profile (and the Xandarian Worldmind) has the
benefit of observing/recording additional such behavior, slightly altering the
phrase to “Morg chose heavily populated worlds” is fair enough. It might also
have said, “Morg swiftly demonstrated that he would happily choose heavily
populated worlds”; and "leading to unthinkable fatalities" could have said
"which would lead to unthinkable fatalities"; these clauses would have been
ideal, but space is always at a premium in published profiles where we have a
certain word count per page. Looking at the Morg profile in Annihilation: Nova
Corps Files, we had plenty of room for more text; but we don’t have access to
spacing/layout of the profiles when we write/edit/review/submit the text. By
the time we have pdfs of the profile, we are at “error/omission” correction
only. I don’t see this as an outright error of the profile given what we know
from subsequent stories, but I certainly agree it is not completely clear and
potentially misleading. Then again, the Nova Corps Files were in-universe
profiles provided by the Xandarian Worldmind, and it may not have placed
priority on exact temporal relationships but rather on the critical assessment
of the profiled being.
I’d say the same is true of the hardcover profile on Morg,
which stated that he “located worlds for Galactus to consume” and then covered
the events on Bastian. The handbooks are always limited by the amount of text
we can include, and sometimes multiple re-writings to reach our ultra-concise
style to include all critical information as well as the maximum number of
images as possible leads to something not being explained as clearly as we
would have in an ideal world…like the Appendix website!!! ;)
Anyway, I think it is quite likely that Bastian was the first world to which Morg led Galactus, but it is possible that there may have been another world…maybe the first one was lacking in energy and/or Galactus was at a real low, and one planet did not allow him to reach his full power (and perhaps his recent humblings in the Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War led him to try to increase/maximize his power?).
I also think it quite likely the planet in #75 was Bastian, but the world was never identified by name in the whole "The Herald Ordeal" story arc, so that's just my assessment. There may or may not have been more worlds before or after Bastian, so the ideal of whether the Nova Corps File is in error is pretty ambiguous at this point...
Bastians' skin color
When I read your profile on the Bastianite race I thought it was strange that you listed their skin color as "Light blue" when it was clearly "Green" so I took another look at the two issues in which members of that race appear. I was surprised to find that we were both right: the Bastianites in Silver Surfer III#71 all have green skin (and green blood) and are wearing white tunics with light blue boots while the Bastianites in Silver Surfer III#72 have light blue skin and are wearing green tunics with yellow boots.
The real-world explanation is that either the colorist or the printers made a mistake, but what sort of in-universe explanation could there be? One possible explanation is that maybe Bastiantites have light blue skin when they are alive (even if only barely alive) but once they die their skin turns green? Or maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe the Bastianite race was not mono-colored but, like the M'Ndavians, the Nanda, the Kree and Terrans, had a range of skin colors? And maybe it just happened that the group killed by Morg in issue #71 were all green-skinned while those killed by Morg in issue #72 were all light blue-skinned (and that all the green-skinned dead from issue #71 just happened to be "off-panel" while Morg was confronting the light blue-skinned ones in the latter issue)?
The idea of that the Bastianites seen
in issue #72 might actually have been a different group from those seen in
issue #71 could also explain the difference in the colors of their tunics and
boots. Maybe the green Bastianites (who seemed to be weaponless) were
civilians while the light blue Bastianites (with their spears) were guards for
the Well of Life?
--Don Campbell
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Bastianites have no known connections to
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb)) <"Ages ago"> - When the Bastianites were young and savage, the great warrior-king Eqnuus was wounded in a great battled. He wandered, his lifeblood flowing from mortal wounds, until he came to a pool. He sought to slake his thirst while waiting for death to claim him, but, when the waters touched his lips, Eqnuus' wounds were miraculously healed; saved from the abyss, Eqnuus became enlightened.
Eqnuus put aside the ways of war and spread the word of "The Well." He led his people from their barbaric past.
The Well healed the sick and gave the Bastianites the power to create a peaceful world. It redeemed them from their sins, and the Bastianites honored it as the holy bounty of the creator.
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb) - BTS) - Holy skins (presumably animal skins on which stories were written) told the tale of Eqnuus' discovery of the Well of Life. An order of priests were formed, and they vowed to guard the Well and keep its secrets.
--Silver Surfer III#72
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb) - BTS) - Seeking a planet his newest master, Galactus, could consume, Morg discovered the planet Bastian. Intending to conquer any opposition to Galactus, Morg discovered a group of natives futilely sacrificing themselves to keep him from entering a cave.
(Silver Surfer III#72) - Easily subduing the natives, Morg entered the cave, and found this priest kneeling and praying. Morg raised the priest in the air and asked why this place was so heavily fortified. The priest did not want to reveal the Well's secrets to an off-worlder, but when Morg assured him he would die if he did not speak, and also told the priest his people would be spared if did reveal what Morg wished to know. In order to save the lives of his people, the priest agreed to tell Morg of the most holy Well of Life.
After the priest revealed the Well's history, Morg asked clarification that it was a source of power. When the priest confirmed it was a source of most precious gifts -- to each, that which is desired -- Morg crushed the priest's neck, leaving him to die and telling him his people would soon join him. As Morg stepped into the Well, the dying priest warned that the waters of the Well were for anointment, not immersion, and that such power was not meant to be...Nonetheless, Morg continued into the Well, submerging himself completely.
--Silver Surfer III#72
Well of Life
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb)) <"Ages ago"> - The Well of Life was discovered with a cavern on the planet Bastian by the great warrior-king Eqnuus who had wounded in a great battled. Eqnuus attempted only to quench his thirst, but, when the waters touched his lips, Eqnuus' wounds were miraculously healed; saved from the abyss, Eqnuus became enlightened. He put aside the ways of war and spread the word of "The Well." He led his people from their barbaric past.
The Well healed the sick and gave the Bastianites the power to create a peaceful world. It redeemed them from their sins, and the Bastianites honored it as the holy bounty of the creator.
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb) - BTS) - Holy skins (presumably animal skins on which stories were written) told the tale of Eqnuus' discovery of the Well of Life. An order of priests were formed, and they vowed to guard the Well and keep its secrets.
(Silver Surfer III#72 (fb) - BTS) - The bloodthirsty Morg investigated the cavern containing the Well while searching for a planet for his newest master to consume, and becoming intrigued by those futilely guarding the cavern's entrance.
(Silver Surfer III#72) - After Morg announced that there would be no opposition from the population, Galactus was eager to implement the siphoning process and ordered Morg back to the planet. Morg agreed, but added that he first needed to find what was so precious to the natives. Easily subduing a group of five spear-wielding natives with an energy blast, Morg entered the cave, in which he found a priest kneeling and praying. Morg raised the priest in the air and asked why this place was so heavily fortified. The priest did not want to reveal the Well's secrets to an off-worlder, but when Morg assured him he would die if he did not speak, and also told the priest his people would be spared if did reveal what Morg wished to know. In order to save the lives of his people, the priest agreed to tell Morg of the most holy Well of Life.
After the priest revealed the Well's history, Morg asked clarification that it was a source of power. When the priest confirmed it was a source of most precious gifts -- to each, that which is desired -- Morg crushed the priest's neck, leaving him to die and telling him his people would soon join him. As Morg stepped into the Well, the dying priest warned that the waters of the Well were for anointment, not immersion, and that such power was not meant to be...Nonetheless, Morg continued into the Well, submerging himself completely
--Silver Surfer III#72
images: (without ads)
Silver Surfer III, pg. 72, pg. 13, panel 1 (Bastian, partly, from space; with
Taa II in view);
panel 4 (Morg
confronts Bastianites outside cave containing the Well);
pg. 14, panel 3 (priest,
genuflecting);
panel 4
(priest grabbed by Morg, showing pattern on shirt);
pg. 15, panel 1 (priest, face);
panel 3
(Well);
pg. 16, panel 3 (Eqnuus discovering
the Well);
panel 4 (Eqnuus
as priest spreading the word of the Well);
#73, pg. 15, panel 4 (Morg emerges from Well);
pg. 16, panel 4 (Morg departs
Bastian; view of nearby space);
#75, pg. 2-3 (Galactus begins siphoning Bastian)
Appearances:
Silver Surfer III#71-72 (early-late September, 1992) - Ron Marz (writer), M.C. Wyman (penciler),
Tom Christopher (inker), Craig Anderson (editor)
Silver Surfer III#73 (October, 1992) - Ron Marz (writer), Ron Lim (penciler),
Tom Christopher (inker), Craig Anderson (editor)
Silver Surfer III#75 (December, 1992) - Ron Marz (writer), Ron Lim (penciler),
Tom Christopher (inker), Craig Anderson (editor)
Annihilation: The Nova Corps Files: Morg (2006) - Mark O'English (writer), Tom
Grindberg (penciler), Michael Hoskin (head writer/coordinator), Michael Short
(assistant editor), Jennifer Grünwald & Mark
D. Beazley (associate editors), Jeff Youngquist (editor)
Last updated: 07/05/14
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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