SHREEN
Real Name: Shreen
Identity/Class: Alternate Reality (Reality-791) extraterrestrial winged humanoid
Occupation: Huntress (tracker and executioner)
Group Membership: The Cloudlanders
Affiliations: Cloudlanders
Enemies: Thorn, Star-Lord (Peter Quill), "Ship"
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: The Huntress
Base of Operations: The World called Heaven (both the Cloudlands and the Giri-world)
First Appearance: Marvel Spotlight II#7 (July, 1980)
Powers/Abilities: As one of the people of the world called Heaven, Shreen's appearance was almost identical to that of a light-skinned human from the planet Earth. The primary difference was that she possessed translucent wings from her shoulders that enabled her to fly through the air.
Like the rest of her people, Shreen could carry within her body an energy (or something) that they called "giri." Accumulating enough "giri" had enabled Shreen to grow functional wings.
After mounting the final "step of giri" to reach the Cloudlands, Shreen received the blessing of immortality that then prevented her from aging or dying from natural causes. This immortality was not a natural result of living in the Cloudlands but something (perhaps a medical procedure) that the people of the Cloudlands had long ago developed to conquer aging.
Limitations: As a side effect of the blessing of immortality, Shreen, like all Cloudlanders, was unable to procreate.
Weapons: As the Huntress, Shreen was armed with a weapon that fired destructive bolts of energy.
Height: 6' (estimated)
Weight: Unrevealed (perhaps 150 lbs. at that height if human body density)
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Black
History:
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - The world called Heaven by its inhabitants possessed characteristics
that were somewhat different from other planets in its reality. The most obvious of these differences was that some
of the clouds in its atmosphere were tangible, permanent and capable of supporting considerable weight. These
masses of clouds were like islands and continents that floated in the sky.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - An unspecified time ago, a female humanoid named Shreen was born on the world called Heaven. Like all members of her race, Shreen initially lived on the planet's surface, known as the giri-world, and she lived her life in accordance with the system of giri in which each good deed was a "step of giri" that brought her closer to the rewards of the Cloudlands above.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - As the number of giri-steps she had taken grew, wings began to grow from Shreen's shoulder blades. Eventually, after an unspecified time, Shreen's wings had attained their full growth and she was able to "mount the final step to the Cloudlands" by actually flying there.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - Once in the Cloudlands, Shreen was able to undergo a treatment developed there that stopped the aging process, giving her immortality.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - One of Shreen's fellow Cloudlanders was a male named Thorn who believed that the only meaningful act of giri left for those who had already taken the final step into the Cloudlands was to share Heaven with those in the giri-world below. To this end, Thorn proposed the building of a bridge that would connect the Cloudlands to the giri-world and enable giri-worlders to reach the Cloudlands even if their wings had not grown enough to carry them there. However, Shreen and the other Cloudlanders felt that Thorn's plan threatened the very basis of their world and that immortality was meaningless without the proper reality in which to live it.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Shreen was chosen to be the Huntress and was given the responsibility of hunting down fugitives who escaped their punishments and carrying out those punishments herself.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - After "eons" of indulging Thorn's rebellion, the Cloudlanders reluctantly decided that Thorn should be executed. His wings were removed and two Cloudlanders flew him to the edge of the Cloudlands where he was to be thrown over the side to fall to his death on the ground below.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7) - As the Cloudlanders were preparing to execute Thorn, an alien known as Star-Lord and his sentient Ship had begun to investigate the planet and its unusually-tangible clouds. Happening upon the execution site just as Thorn was thrown over the side, Star-Lord quickly exited Ship and flew down after Thorn, managing to catch him just before he would have been impaled on some stone spikes.
Having been watching from above, Shreen, who was holding her weapon in her left hand, spoke up, stating that, "The stranger has spared Thorn from the punishment of righteous death!" A white-haired Cloudlander standing nearby responding by reminding her that it was up to her, as the Huntress, to go down and carry out Thorn's punishment. With her weapon now attached to her right forearm, Shreen replied, "So be it. The will of the many shall be carried out by one. By me." Shreen then left the Cloudlands.
As she descended towards the surface of the planet, Shreen prepared to use her weapon to kill Thorn. However, before she was in range, Thorn pointed out to his rescuer that the Cloudlands had already begun to darken from the loss of life from him...and one other. As Star-Lord began to ask what he meant, Ship called out a warning, and Star-Lord was barely able to move himself and Thorn out of the way of the energy bolt that Shreen had fired at them.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7) - Reacting before Shreen could fire a second shot, Star-Lord drew his Element Gun and fired a flood of water at her that caught Shreen in mid-flight and caused her to flutter towards the ground. Before she could recover, Star-Lord then used a blast of air to force her into a nearby cave and then erected a wall of fire in front of the cave entrance, temporarily sealing her inside.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7 (fb) - BTS) - By the time the flames had died down and released Shreen from the cave, Thorn and the alien had already fled the area. However, despite knowing where Thorn would have to go in order to regain the Cloudlands, Shreen did not immediately pursue him. Instead, she waited for almost three days before heading to the World Palace.
(Marvel Spotlight II#7) - On the third day, Shreen finally set off for the World Palace and it was a little more than an hour before sunset when she approached her destination. Ship spotted Shreen and sent her Widgets to warn Star-Lord while she tried to divert her. However, Ship failed and Shreen arrived at the World Palace only minutes after the Widgets had delivered their warning. Knowing that he would be unable to fly until giri had granted him full wings, something that would not happen until sunset, Thorn realized that there was no way out and stated that he had to face the Huntress.
At that moment, Shreen arrived and landed just outside the entrance to the World Palace in which Thorn was standing. Speaking loudly for all to hear, Shreen proclaimed, "Thorn! I call you out to meet your punishment!" As Thorn exited the palace, Ship apologized to Peter, saying that she had tried to lure Shreen away but somehow the Huntress had known where Thorn would be. Shreen responded by saying, "Of course. Congregation in the World Palace is the only way to regain the Cloudlands once one has fallen. Our meeting was inevitable..." She was then interrupted by Star-Lord who stepped forward and declared that he would face the Huntress in Thorn's place. Shreen replied, "So be it, out-lander! A fight to the death!" even as she raised her weapon and opened fire.
Unfortunately for Shreen, Star-Lord proved to be capable of flying fast enough to avoid her shot, get behind her and quickly fire three shots from his Element Gun. Star-Lord's first shot was a blast of flame that forced Shreen to drop down onto a causeway to avoid it. This left her vulnerable to the second shot, a blast of hurricane-force wind that blew her off that causeway and into the next one, causing her body to strike it with enough force to snap the bands holding her weapon to her right arm. With Shreen's weapon now dislodged, Star-Lord used another blast of flame to destroy it, leaving her weaponless and defeated.
As the victorious Star-Lord descended in front of Shreen, who was kneeling on the causeway in front of her destroyed weapon, he told her to go home and leave that place in peace. Shreen replied, "I cannot. You have won...You must now slay me." When Star-Lord refused, stating that he had never learned to kill if there was another way, Shreen leapt to her feet and replied, "Then since I must fight to the death, and since you have taken a step of giri by sparing my life, I will repay you --" and then, as she threw herself at a nearby stone spike, she spoke her final words, "-- sparing you the necessity of committing murder -- by slaying myself!" Taken by surprise, Star-Lord could not stop her, and Shreen landed on the stone spike that impaled her, killing her instantly.
As everyone looked on in shocked silence, Thorn told Star-Lord that he must repay Shreen by laying her to rest and he did so by using his Element Gun to form a burial mound around Shreen's body. However, when Thorn then told Star-Lord that to complete the step he had to weep on Shreen's grave, the alien protested that he couldn't weep for her because she had tried to kill Thorn. The Cloudlander replied that he must, that there was no way for Shreen to mount the steps of giri, that she had sacrificed herself for Star-Lord, and that until her giri was repaid the defense systems would remain in force, blocking the way to the Cloudlands. This meant that no one would be able to mount, including Thorn with his fully-restored wings or anyone else who might attain full wings in the future. Thorn then demanded that Star-Lord must sacrifice a small portion of grief, saying that Shreen and all above would have wept for him, from the edge of the Cloudlands down onto his lifeless form. Despite Thorn's words, Star-Lord said that he was sorry but that he just couldn't do that.
Upon hearing Star-Lord's words, Thorn realized that there was only one clear passage left to him. Thorn stated that Shreen's sacrifice had opened his eyes and he cursed his former blindness and that he now saw that he had been wrong and that the world called Heaven had to be earned. As he took flight towards the darkened clouds, Thorn declared that the steps of giri were good to climb and so he would do so one last time on behalf of the entire world. Thorn's upward flight triggered the defense system, and he was struck by bolts of raw lighting. The dying Thorn then used the flesh of his arm to conduct the lightning back towards the underside of the Cloudlands, causing the clouds to burst and release a downpour, as if the gods themselves were weeping from the heavens onto Thorn's falling body.
As the rain fell on the planet below, Star-Lord finally wept as he knelt atop Shreen's grave and his tears mingled with the rain, the tears of the gods. As the rains stopped and a rainbow extended down to the grave at Star-Lord's feet, the giri-worlders celebrated that the way to the Cloudlands was open again.
As Star-Lord boarded Ship, he told her that they had learned much from this world called Heaven and that it was now time to leave to use their new knowledge in mounting their own steps to the farthest stars. And Ship replied, "Amen, Peter. Amen."
Comments: Created by Doug Moench and Tom Sutton.
I was going to use "Shreen the Huntress" as the title for this profile but chose not to because Star-Lord is the only person in the story who calls her by that name. Everybody else only calls her either "Shreen" or "The Huntress."
When I wrote my profile on Thorn, I suggested that the immortality of the Cloudlanders was possibly the result of a medical procedure that they had long ago developed to conquer aging. However, by the time I was finishing this profile and was contemplating my profile on her race, I had begun to worry that that might have been an assumption on my part. Fortunately, a quick review of what Thorn actually said to Star-Lord confirmed that, although he may not have stated it explicitly, he did strongly imply that there had been a time when the people of the Cloudlands had been capable of both aging and producing "little ones."
Shreen is not presented as being all that capable in her performance of her duty as the Huntress since her two encounters with Star-Lord ended badly for her. In both instances, she fired the first shot but missed, and then, before she could fire a second shot, she was either trapped in a cave or disarmed and had her weapon melted. Is this because Star-Lord's reflexes and flying ability were so much faster than hers that she was completely out-matched? Or maybe she could have been a match for Star-Lord if she had chosen to undergo training that would have allowed her to reach her full potential? Or maybe Shreen did have the same physical capabilities but just lacked the experience needed to know how to use them effectively?
Speaking of her position, how much need did the Cloudlanders have for a Huntress anyway? After all, all the members of that society were beings who had performed enough good deeds to enable them to grow functional wings, so it seems unlikely that there would be a lot of criminals (or even rule-breakers) amongst them. What crimes were committed in the Cloudlands, how often were they committed and how many of them were punishable by death? The only example that was mentioned was that, after indulging Thorn's rebellion for eons, a group of Cloudlanders ("the will of the many") decided, reluctantly, that he should be executed because he was threatening the very basis of their world by refusing to stop trying to persuade them to allow the giri-worlders to have immediate access to the Cloudlands without having the climb the steps of giri.
Considering his violent (and sometimes psychotically murderous) past, Star-Lord's claim that he had "never learned to kill, if there is another way" really doesn't make sense. Perhaps the writer meant for him to say that he "had learned to never kill, if there is another way?" Putting one's words in the proper order is a key to good communication.
After Shreen killed herself to spare Star-Lord the necessity of committing murder, Thorn told him that he had to repay her by laying her to rest, and Star-Lord did. And then Thorn told him that, to complete the step of giri, he had to weep on her grave, and Star-Lord refused to do so. This forced Thorn to realize how wrong he had been and that he would have to sacrifice himself by climbing the steps of giri on behalf of the entire world. It was only after Thorn was struck by lightning and died that Star-Lord began weeping over Shreen's grave. The problem is, I didn't get any sense whatsoever that Peter Quill was actually weeping FOR Shreen, he just happened to be standing on her burial mound when he began weeping for Thorn. Sure, the Omniscient Narrative does say that Thorn's sacrifice had opened Peter's eyes and allowed grief to flood from them, but it seems like a rather false way to get him to repay Shreen's giri. All in all, it seems likely that it was Thorn's sacrifice that really deactivated the defense systems.
I have mixed feelings about "Tears for the World Called Heaven" but I've already explained why in my profile on Thorn so I won't repeat them here. However, I do feel that it's worth noting that Star-Lord's interference in the internal affairs of this planet did not actually help any of the natives. If Star-Lord had never visited the World called Heaven, then Shreen would have carried out her duty and not been put in a situation in which "giri" required her to take her own life. Also, there would have been no need for any of the giri-worlders to sacrifice any "giri" in order to help Thorn regain his wings and thus none of them would have delayed their chances of becoming immortal Cloudlanders. And finally, Thorn would have died believing that he had been right instead of being forced to face the fact that he had been wrong about the cause that he had championed for eons and then having to sacrifice his life in order to undo the damage that Star-Lord had caused to the way of life on the world called Heaven.
Doug Moench wrote the last five of the first eight "classic" Star-Lord stories and his version of the character is not as...heroic...as one might hope. "Tears for the World Called Heaven" and "Planet Story" are two of his stories in which the "hero" definitely left the inhabitants of the planets he visited worse off than they had been before he arrived.
Profile by Donald Campbell.
Clarifications:
Shreen, the Huntress from the World called Heaven, has no known connections to
Used by Shreen in the performance of her duties as the Huntress, this weapon seemingly fired destructive yellow bolts of energy (instead of beams) that could shatter any solid objects they struck.
The weapon was about the size of a shotgun and was usually carried in one hand. However, when the Huntress was called into action, the weapon was essentially worn on her forearm. It was held in place by bands that seemed solid but which were fragile enough to break when the wearer was subjected to sufficient force. Exactly how the Huntress was expected to aim the weapon when it was bound in that position has not been revealed.
When it became clear that Shreen would have to descend from the Cloudlands to carry out Thorn's punishment, she did so without declaring herself to her target or offering any warning. Her first shot was therefore a surprise attack against a stationary target and would probably have killed Thorn if Star-Lord had not received just enough of a warning from Ship to enable him to shove Thorn out of the way so that her shot only hit the ground with a loud "ZHRAKT" sound and knocked over two of the thick stone spikes that projected upwards from the ground. Star-Lord's use of his Element Gun to douse Shreen with a flood of water was enough to destabilize her flight and prevent her from getting off another shot long enough for him to briefly imprison her in a nearby cave.
Three days later, when Shreen confronted Thorn at the World Palace, Star-Lord declared that he would oppose her in Thorn's place. Shreen accepted this and began their fight to the death by charging up her weapon (with a loud "ZHEOR" sound) and firing a shot at Star-Lord. However, Star-Lord was fast enough to fly out of the way of that shot and he quickly used his Element Gun to fire a blast of hurricane-force wind that propelled her against a causeway. The resulting impact exerted enough force on the bands holding the weapon to her forearm to break them, dislodging the weapon which Star-Lord then melted into harmless slag with a flame blast.
--Marvel Spotlight II#7
images:
Marvel Spotlight II#7, page 3, panel 4 (main image)
page 14, panel 1 (head shot)
page 3, panel 6 (Shreen's first shot misses)
page 4, panel 1 (getting hit by a flood of water)
page 4, panels 3-4 (getting forced into a cave and trapped there)
page 12, panels 4-5 (challenging Thorn at the World Palace)
page 12, panel 7 (being opposed by Star-Lord instead)
page 13, panel 1 (discovering how fast Star-Lord can fly)
page 13, panel 3 (getting slammed into a causeway)
page 13, panel 5 (disarmed and kneeling)
page 14, panels 2-3 (slaying herself to repay Star-Lord)
page 14, panel 4 (impaled on a stone spike and dead)
page 14, panel 5 (Star-Lord creates her burial mound)
page 16, panel 6 (Star-Lord weeping over Shreen's grave)
page 17, panel 1 (rainbow touching her grave)
page 12, panel 7 (close-up of Shreen's weapon)
page 13, panel 3 (close-up of weapon being dislodged)
page 13, panel 4 (weapon being destroyed by flame)
Only Appearance:
Marvel Spotlight II#7 (July, 1980) - Doug Moench (writer), Tom Sutton (artist), Jim Salicrup (editor)
First Posted: 12/16/2022
Last updated: 03/14/2024
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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