TARAKAR

Official Name: Tarakar

Nature: An extraterrestrial planet located in a planetary system within the Andromeda Galaxy (Skrull galaxy)

Environment: Possessed a life-sustaining biosphere.

Gravity: Unrevealed. Tarakar is known to have possessed a gravitational field that was much weaker than that of the Kree homeworld Hala

Atmosphere: An unspecified combination of gases (mostly nitrogen and oxygen). Any Kree visitors (or spies) would need to use a special chemical or apparatus to breathe in its atmosphere.

Natural Satellites: Unrevealed. Judging by the main image, there may have been several spherical bodies that orbited relatively close to Tarakar but it has not been confirmed that any of them were moons.

Natives: Unknown. It has not been revealed if there were any native sentients before (or after) the Skrulls colonized the planet

Population: Unrevealed

Capital City: Name unrevealed

Government: Skrull Empire, formerly ruled by a governor (presumably Kylor)

Major Languages: Skrull

Planetary Defense: Unrevealed (but Kylor's armada spent some time either on or in orbit around Tarakar)

Places of Interest: The capitol, at least one good nagatyl house

Prominent Residents: Emperor Kylor (presumed deceased), Ripan (Kylor's second-in-command, deceased);

Visitors: Jemiah the Analyzer (Celestial); Captain Tar-Rell (Kree spy, captured)

First Appearance: Silver Surfer III#4 (October, 1987);
   (Name revealed) Silver Surfer III#5 (November, 1987)

History:
(Silver Surfer III#5 (fb) - BTS/Silver Surfer III#6 (fb) - BTS) - At some unspecified time in the past, the Skrulls colonized a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy known as "Tarakar." It has not been revealed if it was the Skrulls who gave the planet that name but, if there had been a pre-existing population of sentient natives, then the Skrulls may have chosen to use their name for the planet.

(The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#10: Skrulls entry) - Each of the 978 member-worlds of the Skrull Empire were ruled by a governor, with one supreme emperor or empress ruling over all in a totalitarian monarchy.

(Fantastic Four I#257/Fantastic Four I#262 (fb) - BTS) - Galactus consumed the Skrull Throneworld, killing all seven billion Skrulls who were there at the time, including Empress R'Klll and her daughter Princess Anelle.

(Avengers I#259 (fb)) - After Throneworld's destruction and the deaths of Empress R'Klll and Princess Anelle, chaos and rebellion spread throughout the Skrull Empire. Seeking to fill the power vacuum left by these deaths, all of the planetary governors declared themselves emperors or empresses, and civil war broke out. In only a few days, more Skrulls had been killed by other Skrulls than had perished with the Throneworld.

(Skrulls!: Kylor entry) - Kylor was one of the many planetary governors who sought to claim power as the new emperor.

(Silver Surfer III#6 (fb) - BTS) - The planet Tarakar was one of the fiefdoms in the shattered empire of the Skrulls.

(Avengers I#259 (fb) - BTS/Avengers Annual I#14) - Several Earth-months later, the Skrull race suffered another blow when the hyperwave bombardment from the Hyperwave Bomb activated by the would-be emperor Zabyk stabilized the Deviant genetic code of (almost) all Skrulls, removing their shape-changing abilities and trapping them in whatever forms they were in when the bomb went off.

(Silver Surfer III#6 (fb) - BTS) - The Skrull civil war continued until there were only five Skrull warlords left who sought to rebuild the Skrull Empire as its emperor. Kylor and Yorak were two of those five.

(Silver Surfer III#6 (fb) - BTS) - Kree Intelligence considered Kylor to be "the most powerful emperor in the fragmented Skrull Empire."

(Silver Surfer III#10 (fb)) - Eternity, the abstract being who personified Life and Existence, sensed that a group of Elders of the Universe were planning to destroy Galactus and then Eternity himself. Instead of taking direct action, Eternity chose to meditate on the pure idea of continuity, and his meditation caused some Celestials (including Jemiah the Analyzer) to appear from the nebulous spheres.

(Silver Surfer III#4) - Emperor Kylor was on Tarakar, operating out of his palace, when his aide Ripan arrived to inform him that it had been verified that Ambassador Ptakr and his party had committed suicide in order to prevent the Kree who were about to capture them from learning that the Skrulls had lost their shape-changing ability. Their conversation came to an abrupt end when Ripan saw through a window that a Celestial was now standing at the edge of the city and he exclaimed, "By the Deviant Gene--! The Celestials have returned--!"

(Silver Surfer III#5 (fb) - BTS) - On Tarakar, Jemiah the Analyzer remained standing, completely motionless. As news of his presence spread, some Skrull sightseers made trips to the capitol in order to witness the Celestial for themselves.

(Silver Surfer III#5) - After an unspecified period, Emperor Kylor became impatient with the fact that Jemiah the Analyzer continued to stand motionless at the edge of the city, overwhelming them, and decided to try to talk with him. However, despite Kylor's best efforts, the Celestial remained silent and Kylor ended up convincing himself that the Celestials had returned to judge the Skrulls because they had lost their primary ability of shape-changing. Frustrated by his inability to get the Celestial to talk to him, Kylor ordered a pre-arranged attack on Jemiah to begin but the Celestial was completely unaffected by all of the weapons, including a nuclear bomb, that were directed against him.

(Silver Surfer III#5) - Sent by the Kree Supreme Intelligence to confirm its deduction that the Skrulls had lost their power to shape-shift, a Kree starship hidden by an Aura of Negativism came close enough to the surface of Tarakar for Captain Tar-Rell of the Supremor's Primary Espionage Unit to leap out and use his air-jet belt to land safely. Once on the ground, Tar-Rell disguised himself as a male Skrull and then approached a roadway where he caught the attention of a passing motorist, lied about how he had been on a hunting trip when his speeder broke down and asked for a ride to the capitol. When the friendly motorist agreed and asked if he was going to see the Celestial there, Tar-Rell covered his surprise and said that it might be amusing but declined.
   After arriving at the capitol, Tar-Rell was just about to get out of the vehicle when the fact that he was a non-Skrullian lifeform was detected by a biobeam. His attempt to escape was quickly thwarted when the biobeam stunned him and he was then captured by the two security agents who had been operating the biobeam. When one of the agents stated that the emperor needed to know what the spy's "accursed commander" knew about the Skrulls, a defiant Tar-Rell said that he would tell them nothing but the agent replied that, since the emperor was nervous and his subordinates all felt squeezed, he was sure that the spy would talk and quickly.

(Silver Surfer III#6 (fb) - BTS) - The interrogation of Tar-Rell revealed enough to confirm that the Kree had learned that the Skrulls had lost their ability to change shape.

(Silver Surfer III#5) - Rallying his warriors with claims that the captured Kree spy had provided firm intelligence that the Kree were planning to attack the Skrulls, Emperor Kylor (aboard his command ship) led his armada away from Tarakar to begin the Second Kree-Skrull War!

(Silver Surfer III#13) - Emperor Kylor was reported to have been killed when he led his armada in an attempted ambush of a Kree fleet. The ambush was a disastrous failure because Kylor's spy on Hala, Nenora, had betrayed him by falsely reporting that she had obeyed his orders to arrange to have the Kree warfleet's shields rendered inoperative, something that would have made them helpless targets.

(Skrulls! (fb) - BTS) - Several years later, in preparation for the then-upcoming Secret Invasion of Earth, Queen Veranke's faithful Chancellor Kal'Du included a dossier on Kylor as part of the "Warbook Files" he compiled for her. This dossier confirmed that Kylor had been a planetary governor before the Skrull civil war, praised his successes and warned against repeating his mistake of allowing one of his agents to become so powerful that she betrayed him. However, the dossier contained no information about what happened to Tarakar in the wake of Emperor Kylor's death.

Comments: Created by Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers and Joe Rubinstein.

   According to the Xandar Worldmind Nova Corps database entry on the Skrull Empire that appeared in Annihilation: Super-Skrull#1, the Annihilation Wave from the Negative Zone had destroyed "several hundred Skrull worlds" before it was defeated. If this report was accurate, then that would mean that about one-third of all of the planets that were part of the Skrull Empire had been wiped out. However, the names of only a few of those destroyed worlds have ever been revealed so there's no way to know if Tarakar survived so we readers will just have to wait for some continuity-conscious writer to provide the answer in some future story.

Profile by Donald Campbell.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The planet Tarakar has no known connections to:


images: (without ads)
Silver Surfer III#5, page 22, panel 5 (main image)
Silver Surfer III#4, page 14, panel 1 (Jemiah at the capitol)
Silver Surfer III#5, page 16, panel 6 (countryside with Jemiah in the background)


Appearances:
Silver Surfer III#4 (October, 1987) - Steve Englehart (story), Marshall Rogers (pencils and colors), Joe Rubinstein (inks), Michael Higgins (editor)
Silver Surfer III#5 (November, 1987) - Steve Englehart (story), Marshall Rogers (pencils/colors), Joe Rubinstein (inks), Michael Higgins (editor)


First Posted: 10/12/2019
Last updated: 10/12/2019

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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