Early Life[]

Ripley Ryan grew up in what appeared to be an abusive home, often hiding to avoid physical punishment at the hands of her mother. In her education, employment, and social life, she was victimized and seemingly bullied into the façade she had developed of being a polite, average girl, while hiding severe trauma that would come to a boil later in her life.^[2]

Re-Entry[]

Ripley Ryan became a reporter for the magazine, Ms., and was hired by Tony Stark to interview Captain Marvel, who wanted to rejoin the Avengers after she had come back from a sabbatical and needed to rebuild trust with the public.

When she met Carol for the first time to interview her, they were attacked by Nuclear Man, who managed to defeat both Captain Marvel and the Avengers long enough to kidnap Ryan and take her through a portal to nearby Roosevelt Island. Captain Marvel was the only hero able to follow, though Spider-Woman, Hazmat, and Echo were already there.^[3] Eventually, Carol was able to defeat Nuclear Man by forming an army of the female civilians and heroes he had captured. Ripley was a part of that fight, and the prisoners were able to return home.^[4]

Falling Star[]

At some point, Ripley found out about Minn-Erva's efforts to genetically engineer Humans into Human-Kree Hybrids. Ripley volunteered for the experiment to receive superpowers and was the only survivor of Minn-Erva's experiments.^[5]

Ripley had become a hybrid, but had no superpowers to speak of. Since Minn-Erva had promised superpowers, she decided to utilize those she had stolen from Carol back when she had unleashed a "Kraken" on New York City with a virus engineered from Kree Power Siphons in its blood.^[3] Carol defeated it, but was infected and the powers siphoned off were given to Ripley.

Minn-Erva wanted Carol to join the Kree Empire's fight against extinction, since Carol was half-Kree herself, so she staged a public relations stunt to turn the public against Carol, hoping when the time came that Carol would join her cause. At the the same time, Ripley appeared as Star, helping battle against an armada of "Kraken" attacking Manhattan. After the downed "Kraken" crashed into the East River, Star stood by as Danvers pulled one of the pilots, who happened to be a Kree, free from the wreckage.

Star asked Captain Marvel if Carol wanted her to take the pilot off her hands, but Danvers told her that wouldn't be necessary. When Carol tried to get some answers from the newly fashioned hero, Star told her she had to leave due to some occurrence taking place downtown. This led to Ripley becoming an up-and-coming superhero, quickly rising in popularity as Carol's popularity plummeted.^[6]

When Star found out Minn-Erva planned on recruiting Carol, she nearly killed Minn-Erva, and left the message "You're not as smart as you think you are." written in Minn-Erva's own blood.^[7]

Carol brought Minn-Erva to Stark Unlimited HQ for medical treatment, where she revealed her plan to Carol, causing Carol to confront Star in Times Square. The two fought, but Carol was quickly growing weaker from the Power Siphons. Running out of options, Carol ripped the device from her own chest, severing the connection to Star, causing both women to fall to Earth.

Carol was seriously injured, while Star seemed fine. Star revealed that she had infected all of New York City with the virus, declaring if she can't draw power from one large battery in Carol, she would draw from millions of tiny batteries in all the New Yorkers.^[5]

Carol defeated Star by ripping the device out of Ripley's chest as well, causing her to lose her powers. Star was sent to the Raft; however, it was revealed Ripley had merged with the Reality Stone and subsequently escaped from the prison.^[8]

Birth of a Dragon[]

Weeks after her escape, Ripley entered the Bar with No Name. Inside, she got into a fight with Titania, but lost due to her inexperience with the Reality Stone and was thrown out back. Outside, Ripley was knocked out by Loki.

Inside a warehouse, Loki attempted to remove the Reality Stone, but failed. He told Ripley he wasn't envious of her position, because of those who will come for Stones, but when Ripley questioned who that was, Loki simply told her it was a long list. Star thanked him for the information and attempted to destroy him with the Stone, though unbeknownst to her, she had only destroyed an illusion of the trickster.

Ripley proceeded to Alias Investigations and asked Jessica Jones for help. Jessica refused, stating she knew who Ripley was and what she tried to do to her friend Captain Marvel. The two women fought, but their fight was interrupted by the Scarlet Witch, who told Ripley she needed to stop, because she was destroying reality.^[9]

Wanda didn't want Ripley to go down the same road as her and sought to help her manage her powers. However, Ripley got soon sick of the Scarlet Witch and planned to get away from her. Meanwhile, the Black Order, on their hunt for the Infinity Stones, began targeting Ripley.

The Black Swan, tired of having her life dictated by the Infinity Stones, got to Ripley before the rest of the Order, and made a deal with her. When the Order caught up to Ripley and began fighting, Ripley used her deal with the Black Swan to get them to leave her alone. Now freed of the Scarlet Witch and the Black Order, Star tapped into the Reality Stone's full potential and began doing whatever she wished with her powers.^[10]

Thunderbolts[]

During Knull's invasion of Earth Mayor Fisk recruited Ripley to his new version of the Thunderbolts to retrieve the body of Sentry. They arrived at the Ravencroft Institute where they met the reformed Norman Osborn who gave them the plans to claim Sentry's corpse and have Star turn it into a bomb in order to kill Knull.

Knowing that this would mean their deaths, Taskmaster decided prevent his team from unknowingly sacrifice themselves and convinced Star to not turn Sentry's corpse into a bomb. Star knew that the other heroes would be able to thwart the invasion on their own, and wished to stand by her team's side for the foreseeable future.^[11]

Infinite Destinies and Score[]

Bored of using her powers to steal things with no one noticing, Star decided to go back to her old highschool and kill all of the her former bullies. Spider-Man took notice of this, and began garnering information about her. Star eventually went to her mother's grave where she proceeded to use her powers to recreate her early life but with a less abusive mother. She was soon confronted by Spider-Man who attempted to lecture her about how "with great powers there must also come great responsibilities", but this just gave Star enough time to regain her energy and teleport somewhere else.^[1]

Unfortunately for Star, she was soon tracked down and captured by Nick Fury with the help of Nighthawk, who had been after the new hosts of each of the Infinity Stones.^[12][13]

She was later broken out by Black Cat who needed her to cure her mother's illness. She lied to Star that she was working for Doctor Doom and needed her help to cure an A.I.M. scientist to which she agreed to help. In order to further empower Star, Black Cat brought other fellow hosts of the Infinity Stones, Overtime and Quantum. With their presences, Star was able to cure the person she thought was an A.I.M. scientist, but turned out to be Black Cat's mother. This infuriated Star, and then Nick Fury appeared and revealed that the hospital they were in had been set by him in order to capture them, which forced her to barely escape.^[14][15]

Ripley herself seemed a polite, average, young woman;^[3] however, she was abused as a child by a female guardian for disobedience. She stated that all she cares about is her freedom, as a result of a long history of abuse in her personal history in her home life, school, and employment.^[2] This most likely contributed to her PTSD and her trauma that was further exacerbated by her experiences on Roosevelt Island.^[16]

As Star, she first appeared to be a hero, fighting crime and saving lives;^[6] however, this was a ruse and her true personality was revealed to be apathetic and power-hungry, caring little for others and viewing them as tools to further her own agenda. Ripley believed saving people only made them weaker, and got in the way of them helping themselves.^[8]

It was later revealed that during the course of Captain Marvel's destructive battle with Nuclear Man's army, Ripley had gone through severe emotional trauma due to being dragged in to Captain Marvel's "violent life" due to her being "famous". Having completely shifted the blame on to Carol due to her being dragged into her "mess" and being subjected to being repeatedly caught into the destructive crossfire of the battles she and her "Super Powered Invulnerable" friends fought and her being kidnapped by misogynists and robots on the daily, leading to Ripley feeling incredibly vulnerable both physically and psychologically and leading her to suffer panic attacks akin to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to her horrible experiences in Nuclear World.^[16]

It was also revealed the PTSD was further influenced by her death. When Ripley awoke on the Raft, she was disorientated inside a body bag. The coroner informed her that she had passed away en route to the operating table after Captain Marvel had dropped her off with the hole in her chest; however, Carol was not aware Ripley had died as a result of the removal of the Power Siphon.^[17]

As part of the Thunderbolts team, Star displays a more caring personality (and has notably reverted to her original costume), showing concern for her teammates, willing to go back and fight an entire horde of symbiotes to save Batroc, and even suggested helping the Defenders fight off a horde that attacked them while her teammates refused. While at the Ravencroft Institute she showed genuine concern for the inmates' wellbeing and insisted in saving them, going against Taskmaster's wishes. She later even came back to save his life after he ordered her to leave him. It appears from this she may be more stable than previously shown, or rather, her malice to heroes is directed solely at Carol Danvers and not her allies.^[11]

• Reality Manipulation: After merging with the Reality Stone, Ripley now has the ability to alter reality to however she sees fit.^[8] She can alter reality by either thinking or stating the effect she wants to generate.^[9] Like the Wuxian Seed before her, Ripley can power-up into a red, lifelike aether with black tendrils around her lower body, smoke emerging from her head, and the star around the neck of her costume extending to her lower body.^[2]
  • Self-Power Bestowal: Thanks to the Reality Stone Ripley can grant herself a vast array of powers at will.^[9]
    • Flight: Star can fly at high speeds unassisted.^[18]
    • Energy Projection: Star can project concentrated beams of energy from her hands. These blasts are powerful enough to make a symbiote-enhanced human to explode with a single hit or decapitate a Symbiote Dragon.^[19] By pushing herself to her limits she was able to destroy several Knull-controlled individuals, although it did almost cause her to pass out from exhaustion.^[20]
    • Superhuman Strength: Star can grant herself superhuman strength that allowed her to rip a large metal door off its hinges and lift a bus full of people while flying.^[19]
    • Energy Senses: Through concentration Star could locate Sentry's remains by focusing on the energy left inside of them.^[19]
    • Superhuman Durability Ripley can make herself resistant enough to endure multiple blows from Titania.^[9]
    • Optic Blasts: Ripley can shoot beams of thermal energy from her eyes.^[21] These beams are strong enough to hurt Captain Marvel.^[17]
    • Energy Construct Creation: Ripley can make solid constructs made of energy like weapons and shields^[21] or armors.^[17]
    • Teleportation: Ripley can teleport herself to other locations.^[22] She was able to teleport Ebony Maw all the way from Earth to the Moon.^[17]

• Power Overtaxing: Using too much power and too quickly can cause Ripley to weaken or faint.^[23]
• Literalness: She can only get as powerful as much as she wills herself to be. For example, if she wishes to become strong she will get stronger, but not necessarily stronger than her opponent, for this reason she must be extremely literal and elaborate which ability she desires and the level of such ability.^[9]
• Concentration: Ripley will lose her powers if she stops thinking about them.^[9]

• In Captain Marvel (Vol. 10) #11, Captain Marvel punched a hole into Star's chest to remove the Power Siphon, which unbeknownst to Carol, wound up being fatal;^[17] however, during Ripley's recapitulatory nightmare in Star #1, the trauma in her dream was seemingly exaggerated, and the wound went all the way through her chest.
• Ripley is a fan of Katrina and the Waves. After stealing numerous dogs, she proceeds to take them on a walk with multiple speakers blasting their hit song 'Walking on Sunshine'.^[1]