SARKAN race
(from Reality-691)

Classification: Alternate timeline (Reality-691) extraterrestrial humanoids

Location/Base of Operations: Sarka, third planet from the sun in the Tilnast star system in the Milky Way galaxy

Habitat: Semi-temperate, 74% covered by water
Gravity: 110% Earth
Atmosphere: 73% nitrogen, 22% oxygen

Known Members: battle cruiser captain, Carinthus, Grand Inquisitor's aide, Infonet newscasters, local newscaster, Wileaydus (aka Spirit of Vengeance)
Estimated population: Unrevealed (population in Reality-616 during early 21^st century was stated to have been 4.3 billion)

Affiliations: The Universal Church of Truth (including the now-deceased Judan Grand Inquisitor)

Enemies: The Spirit of Vengeance (Wileaydus); Guardians of the Galaxy (Major Vance Astro, Captain Charlie-27, Martinex T'Naga, Nicholette "Nikki" Gold, Yondu Udonta, Starhawk/Stakar Ogord, Aleta Ogord), all non-believers/heretics

First Appearance: Guardians of the Galaxy I#12 (May, 1991)
   (in mainstream reality) Strange Tales I#179 (April, 1975)

Powers/Abilities: None. Any individual Sarkans who possessed superhuman abilities gained them from external sources.

   However, since their species evolved on a planet whose surface gravity was 10% stronger than that of Earth, it's possible that an average Sarkan may have been at least slightly stronger than an average human from Earth. So far, such strength has not been documented.

Type: Humanoid
Eyes: Two (black)
Fingers: Four (plus opposable thumb)
Toes: Five
Skin color: Light blue (except for black markings around their eyes and along their noses)
Hair: Black
Average height: 6'1"

Other Distinguishing Features: Most Sarkans have pointed ears, but some do have ears that are rounded.

   All Sarkans have black markings around their eyes and along their noses, but whether these markings are natural (like the black fur that forms a raccoon's facial mask) or artificial (like tattoos that have cultural significance) in nature has never been revealed.

   Many (but not all) Sarkans have three (flesh-covered) ridges of bone on their skulls, ridges that run from front to back (longitudinally?) across the tops of their skulls. On some Sarkans, those bone ridges extend back far enough that they join together at a point on the backs of their heads. However, some Sarkans appear to have only a single central ridge while others seem to have no ridges at all.

Type of government: Theocratic monarchies. By the year 3018 A.D., Sarka was part of the interstellar religious empire known as the Universal Church of Truth, and was ruled by a Grand Inquisitor, an official who had been chosen to rule the planet on behalf of the UCT.

Cultural Traits: Militaristic, fanatically religious

Level of technology: Moderately advanced starships with warp-drive

History:
(Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#9: Alien Races: Sarks entry) - Sarka was the third planet from the sun in the Tilnast star system of the Milky Way galaxy.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#14 (fb) - BTS) - At some time before (or during) the early 31^st century, Sarkan architecture (at least in the capital city) began to resemble that of Earth (especially the United States of America) in the 20^th century.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#13 (fb) - BTS) <Sometime well before the year 3018 A.D.> - The people of the planet Sarka in the Tilnast star system were contacted by the Universal Church of Truth, an interplanetary theocratic monarchy. Although the Sarkans had their own religion(s) and were "fanatically religious" by nature, for some reason the majority agreed to convert to the Universal Church. Subsequently, any pre-existing religions were outlawed.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#14 (fb) - BTS) - With the Sarkan people accepting the Universal Church and following it willingly, the Church's standard operating procedure began to be applied. All non-believers were, when found, taken to the Indoctrination Chamber where they were tortured (to "purify their souls") until they either converted to the Church or died from their injuries. Those non-believers who refused to surrender to the Church's authority were considered "infidels" who were to be summarily executed by the Black Knights.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#12-14 (fb) - BTS) - As a symbol of their faith, the people of Sarka all began wearing "ankh" pendants to show that they were True-Believers in the Universal Church of Truth. Those (few?) Sarkans who did not believe in the UCT wore the pendants in order to hide from those who would persecute/torture/execute them.
   The UCT's "ankh" symbol was also widely displayed on buildings.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, the intergalactic news source known as Infonet began broadcasting from the planet Sarka.(see comments)

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#14 (fb) - BTS) - One of the Universal Church's Grand Inquisitors, a member of the Judan race, became the highest authority on Sarka.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#13 (fb) - BTS/Guardians of the Galaxy I#50/2 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Wileaydus, the last priest of an outlawed faith, discovered how to use the supernatural Fires of Kauri (Hades) to transform into a flaming skeletal being. Calling himself the Spirit of Vengeance, he began a savage and violent mission of retribution against the Universal Church of Truth.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#12 (fb) - BTS) - Over an unspecified time period, the Spirit of Vengeance killed 42 of the Universal Church's Black Knights of Truth who had been stationed on Sarka. The Universalites regarded these murders as the work of a serial killer whom they dubbed the "Flaming Demon."

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#15 (fb) - BTS) <3018 A.D.> - The demon lord Mephisto arranged for the Stark to attack Firelord in the Tilnast system. Unknown to those involved, the sole purpose for that attack was to lure the Guardians of the Galaxy to that location.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#12 (fb) - BTS) - One night, the Spirit of Vengeance killed two more Black Knights. Their bodies were discovered the following morning.
   Later that day, astronomers on Sarka discovered that at least one alien starship (a Stark mother-ship and/or the Captain America II) was in the vicinity of their system's asteroid belt.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#11) - In the star system where the planet Haven had just been consumed by the reborn Phoenix, the Guardians of the Galaxy received a priority one distress signal from Firelord.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#12) - In the Tilnast system's asteroid belt, the Stark cyborg warrior Overkill battled Firelord. The Protector of the Universe was surprised to find himself being overpowered by his attacker and wondered if he had doomed the Guardians of the Galaxy (by calling them for help).

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#15 (fb) - BTS) - After the Guardians had arrived, the demon lord Mephisto subtly alerted the Spirit of Vengeance to their presence. Mephisto also imperceptibly augmented the Spirit's minor demonic power with his own so that the Spirit's attack would rob Starhawk/Stakar (as the One-Who-Knows) of both his awesome powers and his vaunted memories.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#12 (fb) - BTS) - Astronomers on Sarka observed an unusually large solar flare (caused when Starhawk took Firelord into that star in order to re-energize him).

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#12) - As most residents of Sarka went about their normal daily routines, a female newscaster revealed that astronomers had reported that an unusually large solar flare had erupted "seconds ago." She also reported that the astronomers had confirmed earlier reports that at least one alien starship was in the vicinity of the asteroid belt. She ended her newscast by reporting that two more Black Knights had been found murdered that morning and that police suspected that they had been killed by the same serial killer who had previously killed 42 of the Sarkans' planetary protectors, the Flaming Demon. Among the Sarkans who watched that newscast on a large TV screen provided for public viewing were Carinthus and Wileaydus. When Carinthus wondered aloud who would condemn their soul with such blasphemy, Wileaydus replied that only a madman or a demon would do so, then excused himself to return to his work.
   Later, Wileaydus was able to use technology to observe what was happening in the asteroid belt (a battle between the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Stark cyborg warrior Overkill). Coming to the mistaken conclusion that the Church was sending super-powered Knights to Sarka, he thought to himself that even they would know what it meant to face the righteous fury of the Spirit of Vengeance!

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#13) - Some time later, still sure that the starship must be Black Knight reinforcements, Wileaydus transformed into the Spirit of Vengeance, used the Fires of Kauri to create his Death-Cycle, and flew off into space to confront those he believed were heretics. His departure from the roof of a building in the city was witnessed by some pedestrians who saw him flying up in the sky.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#13/Guardians of the Galaxy I#15 (fb) - BTS) - When the Spirit of Vengeance approached the Captain America II in the asteroid belt, Starhawk went out to meet the Spirit and try to convince him that those aboard the starship were not who he thought they were. However, sure that he was right and unwilling to even listen to any lies, the Spirit attacked first and used the flaming tusks of his Death-Cycle to impale and severely injure Starhawk, with the (Mephisto-augmented) hellfire robbing him of his memory and making him no longer the One-Who-Knows. However, Aleta was able to convince the Spirit that they were not members of the Church, and the Spirit agreed to go to their starship so they could show him.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#13 (fb) - BTS) - Meanwhile, Nikki made radio contact with someone on Sarka and asked if the Guardians could make repairs to their starship there. When the person on the planet asked if they were "Universalites" and Nikki asked what that meant, they briefly cut off communication, but then called her back and stated that the starship could land but only if they killed the Spirit of Vengeance who was then nearing the Captain America II.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#14) - As most residents of Sarka continued to go about their normal daily routines, the UCT Holy Fleet surrounded the alien starship and demanded that they surrender the flaming demon at once or be obliterated. Hearing this convinced the Spirit, who had been battling the Guardians since Replica had revealed herself to be a Universalite, that the Guardians had been telling the truth about not being his enemy. To atone for his transgression, the Spirit flew away from the starship and through the fleet in an attempt to buy the Guardians enough time to escape that sector of space. However, the Holy Fleet then informed them that the penalty for harboring a heretic was death and that they would be executed in thirty seconds. Since their starship would have been unable to escape before the fleet opened fire, Martinex had Replica speak with the fleet's commander, the Grand Inquisitor, and she was able to convince him that the Guardians had been attacked by the demon. The Grand Inquisitor noted Replica's reverence, rescinded the death sentence and escorted the Guardians to Sarka where their starship was put in dry dock in orbit around the planet to be repaired by a team of Universalites and Sarkans.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#14) - On Sarka, most Sarkans remained unaware of the presence of the "heathens" in the palace of the Grand Inquisitor, of the battle that began once he had ordered them to be taken to the Indoctrination Chamber and of how Vance Astro and Yondu had escaped to search for help, using the robes of fallen Universalites to disguise themselves. Once Martinex, Nikki and Charlie-27 had all been defeated and had been sent to be indoctrinated, a Sarkan aide approached the Grand Inquisitor and showed him the stars that had been found on the chests of the fallen heathens. To keep the Universalites from using them to find Vance and Yondu, Replica did not reveal that the stars were communicators and instead committed a mortal sin by lying and claiming that she believed they were purely ornamental.

   Meanwhile, still disguised as robed pilgrims, Astro and Yondu explored the city and decided to spend some time in a downtown neighborhood bar talking to the customers in order to learn if the people of Sarka were truly enslaved by the Church.

   In the asteroid belt, Aleta found and rescued the nearly-transparent Starhawk. In the process, he was able to let her see a memory about Malevolence and the Child.

   Replica secretly visited the Indoctrination Chamber where she found that Martinex was the only one of the three Guardians who was still conscious after the torture which had been inflicted upon them. Replica tried to convince him that the Church was only trying to purify their souls and suggested that they could convert. Martinex instead asked her to bring them their stars. Replica continued to try to get Martinex to join the UCT but, once he stated that he could never worship a deity capable of inflicting such pain in the name of love, Replica said that she couldn't help them and ran out of the room sobbing.

   Back at the bar, Astro and Yondu had determined from their conversations (about local politics and televised sports) with the patrons that the Church was everywhere, that their entire culture revolved around it, and that the Church was a positive force in their lives, one from which they drew their strength. Soon after exiting the bar, Astro and Yondu witnessed two fleeing (non-Sarkan) "infidels" being blasted and killed by two (non-Sarkan) Black Knights who were then killed by flame blasts from the Spirit of Vengeance. When the Spirit asked the pilgrims if they wished to die as well, Astro and Yondu revealed themselves and asked for his help. Once they were all flying through the city aboard the Death-Cycle, Yondu or Astro engaged in an unproductive discussion about religion with the Spirit, one that ended once they revealed that their friends had been captured and the Spirit immediately changed course to take them to the Indoctrination Chamber so they could see the "true evil" of the Church for themselves.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#14 (fb) - BTS) - In orbit, Aleta and Starhawk boarded the Captain America II and retook control of the starship by teleporting all the Universalites and Sarkans off ship before they even knew that the two Guardians were there.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#14) - Back in the Indoctrination Chamber on Sarka, Replica (disguised as the Grand Inquisitor) entered and told the Universalite on duty that the prisoners were to be released because their souls had been saved. However, seconds after they were freed from their bonds, the real Grand Inquisitor arrived and demanded to know who dared to impersonate their royal personage. Replica shifted back into her human form and tossed the three communications stars to the Guardians. When she mentioned that she wasn't going to leave with them, Martinex disagreed, grabbed her arm and teleported her away with him just as the Death-Cycle and its passengers burst in through one of the chamber's walls. Seeing that Nikki and Charlie-27 were even then beaming out, Astro and Yondu did the same, leaving the Spirit of Vengeance there to do his work and enact his vengeance on the Grand Inquisitor.

(Guardians of the Galaxy Annual I#2 (fb) - BTS) - The Spirit of Vengeance removed one of the Guardians of the Galaxy's stars from the corpse of the Grand Inquisitor.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 (fb)) <3019 A.D.> - Presumably aboard their new starcruiser, the Icarus, the Guardians watched an Infonet broadcast during which a female Sarkan newscaster reported that the Constabulary had arrested Charlie-27, the last known survivor of Jupiter, who had been accused of being Ripjak, the interplanetary serial killer. According to what informed sources had told Infonet, there was solid evidence against the Jovian who was currently incarcerated on the maximum security prison planet Stockade.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 - BTS) - After traveling to Earth, the Guardians teleported down into the village (in what had once been Latveria) where Molly Fitzgerald (Shamrock) and Cuchulain were now living. After a brief battle caused by a misunderstanding, Vance Astro explained how they had recently become separated from Charlie-27 and, although they had since become aware of his location, they had come to Earth to recruit Shamrock and Cuchulain because they were going to need "serious muscle" in order to liberate Charlie-27. Nikki then explained that they had found out Charlie-27's whereabouts like everyone else -- "by watching an Infonet broadcast from the planet Sarka!" Shamrock chose to stay on Earth to care for the children in the village but Cuchulain agreed to join the Guardians on their mission to free their teammate from Stockade.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#56) - Aboard the Icarus, Charlie-27, Nikki and Talon watched a special bulletin from Infonet in which a male Sarkan newscaster reported that Infonet's telecameras had confirmed the depopulation of the planet Aran IV. After stating that this reprehensible genocidal act was unquestionably the work of the infamous Ripjak, who had been reported to have been in custody on the prison planet Stockade, the newscaster began a brief interview with the Chief of the Constabulary who was also the head of operations on Stockade. When the newscaster asked him to confirm reports that the last surviving Jovian, Captain-27, was no longer their prime suspect and had been released, the Chief had no comment, except to say that if anyone wanted information on Ripjak, they should contact Captain-27's associates, the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Guardians were extremely upset that the corrupt warden was falsely implicating them in front of trillions of Infonet viewers.

   Thousands of parsecs away, Ripjak had also been watching that Infonet broadcast. However, after the Sarkan newscaster spoke of how galactic residents continued to live in fear of "the malignant mass murderer, Ripjak," the Martian ordered his starship's computer to switch off the audio portion of the broadcast. Ripjak then spoke aloud about the ignorant fools and how their perception of his true objective was absurdly skewed!

Comments: Autolycus created by Jim Starlin
   Sark race created/named by the staff of the original Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe (led by Head Writer Mark Gruenwald).
   Sarkans from Reality-691 created by Jim Valentino.

   Signs written in what was presumably meant to be the Sarkan language appear in Guardians of the Galaxy I#12-14, in the backgrounds of scenes set on Sarka. The symbols reminded me of the letters used in Interlac, the fictional language created for use in stories featuring the Legion of Super-Heroes. However, when I compared them, they turned out to not be that similar after all.

   This profile's main image is of a male member of the Sark race, taken from that race's entry in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#9. I used it in this profile because: A) there is no official image of the Sarkan race; and B) I also couldn't find a suitable full-body image of a Sarkan. So, since the people from the planet Sarka would have looked like Sarks if Jim Valentino hadn't chosen to tweak their appearance, I decided to go with the official Sark image instead. Also, since some Sarkans don't have cranial ridges, this image is a close enough match to their appearance.

Sarks vs. Sarkans
   According to the Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe, "Sarks" is the name of the blue-skinned humanoid race who evolved on Sarka, the third planet from the sun in the Tilnast star system of the Milky Way galaxy. However, this name has so far only appeared in Official Handbook profiles and never in any of the few stories set in the mainstream MU that feature members of this race.

   In comparison, their counterparts from the 31^st century future of Reality-691 don't fare much better. During the three issues of the first Guardians of Galaxy series that featured the race of blue-skinned humanoids native to the planet Sarka that existed in that timeline, the name of that race was mentioned only once, when one of the Guardians asked Aleta why there were no "Sarkans" on board the Captain America II. To make matters worse, issues of the later Galactic Guardians miniseries consistently (and mistakenly) refer to this race as "Sakrans" from the planet "Sakra" instead. Ooops.

   In the end, I decided to use the "Sarkan" name over the official "Sark" name simply because there is at least some evidence that that is the name by which this species is actually known, at least in Reality-691. Of course, future stories may prove my choice to have been incorrect.

   Additionally, the Sarks from Reality-616 and the Sarkans from Reality-691 also differ physiologically in several ways related to their heads. First, the images of the Sarks from the Official Handbooks show them as having very little hair on their heads. However, this is not fully accurate. While the upper halves of the heads of Autolycus and Levan were bald except for narrow strips of hair that ran along the center of their crowns, Levan was also bald elsewhere except for two strips above his ears while Autolycus had thick hair on the sides (enough to cover his ears) and the back of his head. In contrast, although they all had high hairlines, most Sarkans were depicted as having hair covering a lot more of their heads. Of course, since the only two "Sarks" who have ever been seen were male, it could just be that those two were experiencing the Sark version of male-pattern hair loss.

   The second difference is more significant. Unlike both Autolycus and Levan, most (but not all) Sarkans had three flesh-covered ridges of bone on their heads, all running from back to front, with one at the top of the skull and the other two to each side, about halfway between the top ridge and the ears. The fact that these ridges were innate is shown by their presence on the Spirit of Vengeance's flaming (but fleshless) skull. However, it should be noted that some Sarkans were depicted with only a single central ridge and there were also some Sarkans who had none.

   The presence (or absence) of these skeletal ridges could indicate that the evolutionary pathway followed by the Sarkans differed slightly from that taken by the Sarks. Alternatively, it could be that these ridges are a feature that developed only in a sub-group of the larger Sark/Sarkan populations, and that some (or many) Sarks actually do have these ridges while many (or some) Sarkans also do not have them. The fact that the UCT captain that Malevolence ordered to pursue and destroy the starship being piloted by Replica and the male Infonet newscaster who reported on the depopulation of Aran IV both appeared to be Sarkans but lacked these ridges would seem to support the latter possibility, but more data would be needed before a definitive conclusion could be reached.

   It should be noted that these ridges don't appear in any of the images of the Sarks that have (so far) been published in any of the Official Handbooks. This omission could be proof that no Sarks from Reality-616 have such ridges.

   Finally, while all but one (or maybe two) of the Sarkans seen in Guardians of the Galaxy had pointed ears and Autolycus had ears whose shape cannot be determined because they were always completely covered by his hair, Levan's ears were as rounded as those of (most) humans. It's also worth noting that Levan lacked the black facial markings seen on Autolycus and all of the Sarkans. Some thoughts as to what this might mean can be found in the Comments section of Levan's profile.

Sark race in Reality-616
   The Sarks have quarter-page entries in the first and second volumes of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. These profiles provide data about the Sark race that existed in Reality-616 during the early 21^st century so some of the information may not be applicable to the "Sarkan" race who existed in Reality-691 during the early 31^st century. The estimated population of 4.3 billion is especially suspect.

   So far, the only two members of the Sark race who have been encountered by beings from Reality-616 are Autolycus and Levan. Some (unidentified) Sarks may have appeared in alien crowd scenes, but I don't recall seeing any. Here's a chronological list of those issues which provide significant information about the Sarks:

1. Strange Tales I#169 (April, 1975): First appearance of Captain Autolycus, a Black Knight of the Universal Church of Truth who was also the captain of the UCT starship Great Divide
2. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#9 (September, 1983): First quarter-page entry on the "Sarks" is published, revealing the name of the race of which Autolycus was a member
3. Avengers I#255 (May, 1985): First appearance of Levan, a member of Nebula's crew of mercenaries. Some online sources mistakenly listed him as a Kree.
4. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe II#15 (March, 1987): Second quarter-page entry on the "Sarks" is published. Although Levan was not listed in the "Names of representatives" section, he was mentioned (as being a member of Nebula's Freebooters) in the "Notes" section.

   It should be noted that the Official Handbook's claims that General Egeus from Warlock I#9 (October, 1975) was also a Sark would seem to be incorrect. Although Egeus, like Autolycus, was a Black Knight, his facial features and red skin were not Sark-like (Sarkoid?) at all.

   It should also be noted that Autolycus was not exactly from Reality-616. Instead, he (and all of the other beings whose souls were contained within Warlock's Soul Gem) originated in the timeline that became Reality-616 after the timequake caused when Warlock prevented his future self from becoming the Magus. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure how that pre-timequake reality relates to what is now the "mainstream" Reality-616. Gamora is said to have originated in Reality-7528 but that was an alternate future of the pre-timequake mainstream reality and may not have been exactly the same as the pre-timequake reality. There's also the "Magus future" timeline, a timestream that was made detached and redundant by the timequake. It had effectively ceased to exist until Warlock was forced to (retroactively) graft it onto Reality-616 to prevent the Fault from spreading until it obliterated everything.

   According to the quarter-page entry on the Sarks that was presented in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe II#15, "Sarks were among the highest officials in the Universal Church of Truth." However, since that handbook was published before the GOTG series began, this information presumably pertains only to the Magus-led UCT that existed in Reality-616 before the timequake caused by Adam Warlock retroactively erased that UCT from history.

The name of the Spirit of Vengeance's mortal form
   In Guardians of the Galaxy I#12 (May, 1991), the male Sarkan soon to be revealed as being the Spirit of Vengeance is identified in-story as "Wileaydus" twice: first on page 16, when his friend Carinthus addressed him by that name, and again on page 19, when the Omniscient Narrative refers to him by that name. So far, so good.

   Unfortunately, in Guardians of the Galaxy I#13 (June, 1991), the Omniscient Narrative's description of the Spirit of Vengeance's mortal form on page 9 states, "His name is Autolycus. He is the last priest of an outlawed faith." So, now we had a single character being called by two different names. Oops.

   In his next six appearances, beginning with GOTG I#14, any questions about what the Spirit's mortal form's name was went unanswered because the character appeared only in his supernatural/demonic form. In fact, the only time that his mortal identity was even mentioned was in a letter printed in the "Readers' Space" page of GOTG I#16 in which a reader pointed out that Wileaydus had been incorrectly dubbed "Autolycus" in GOTG I#13.

   However, when it was decided that the Spirit of Vengeance would receive an Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Master Edition page, the handbook staff took the opportunity to correct this mistake and, by using the "Robert Bruce Banner" solution, they declared that the real name of the Spirit's mortal form was actually "Wileaydus Autolycus."

   I am, in a word, unimpressed by this choice.

   It is an unfortunate fact that writers, like all humans, are imperfect beings who can make mistakes when writing their stories. Similarly, editors can also make mistakes by not catching and correcting mistakes in the stories that they edit before sending them to the printers. And those mistakes can sometimes involve the names of characters in those stories. For example, one of the first profiles I ever wrote was about a character who, in the space of the single story in which he appeared, called his wife by two different names. In that case, short of revealing that the wife was suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder and the husband was somehow able to recognize which personality was in control of her body at any given time, applying the "Robert Bruce Banner" solution was probably the best way to correct this blatant error.

   Having said that, I don't believe that ALL such mistakes should ALWAYS be corrected. After all, despite the presence of mutants and magic and aliens and super-heroes, the Marvel Universe is supposed to be like the real world. Therefore, since real people do sometimes call other real people by the wrong names, it only makes sense that such mistakes would also happen in the Marvel Universe, and sometimes no further explanation is (or should be) required. For example, one of the characters who exists on Earth-616 is Doctor Jeffrey Steven Christiansen, a doctor of veterinary medicine. Suppose that some writer wanted to use this character but, for some reason, possibly a mistake made by the letterer, he was referred to as "Dr. Joffrey Christiansen" at one point in the story. Should the Official Handbook automatically declare that this character's real name was Dr. Jeffrey Joffrey Christiansen? Or should the context in which the wrong name was used be taken into consideration? On the one hand, if the person who used the wrong name was a casual acquaintance and was in a distracted state of mind, as well as being a Game of Thrones fan, then the mistake could (and should) be dismissed as a simple slip of the tongue. On the other hand, if the person who used the wrong name was someone who was really close to him, like the doctor's wife or one of his brothers, then that would perhaps merit a stronger explanation, like maybe the wife or the brother had actually been secretly replaced by a Skrull impersonator.

   The question of context is especially important when these mistakes occur in Omniscient Narratives, as this one did. Omniscient Narratives are odd in that they can be somewhat schizophrenic in nature. On the one hand, such narratives are a way by which writers can convey information to the readers without having to use images or dialogue. In theory, since the data is coming directly from the writer, it should be considered to be absolutely and irrefutably accurate...but this is not always true. Sometimes, as in this case, the writer misremembers something from a previous work. Other times, the writer is not totally obsessed with continuity and thus might overlook a fact that was only ever mentioned once in a single comic that not many people have ever read. And sometimes the facts that are presented in the Omniscient Narrative were accurate at the time of writing/publication but have since retroactively been made into mistakes by retcons.

   On the other hand, although Omniscient Narratives do supposedly know everything about the characters and events in the stories in which they are used, they also exist outside of the stories themselves. As a result, this means that mistakes made in these narratives are, in a way, less relevant to the stories and thus can be more easily ignored than mistakes that appear in images or dialogue, and without really causing any damage to the stories. Here are a few examples of mistakes made in Omniscient Narratives that have never been corrected and (probably) never should be:

• In Silver Surfer III#2, the Omniscient Narrative on the first page states that "the constellation Cygnus (is) five hundred million miles from Earth" and goes on to imply that this is where the Silver Surfer and his homeworld of Zenn-La are at that time (since Zenn-La is the fourth planet from the star Deneb and, in the real world, Deneb [Alpha Cygni] is part of the constellation Cygnus). On purely factual grounds, this statement is wrong for two reasons:
1. As this article at the TV Tropes website clearly explains, constellations don't actually exist as discrete groupings of stars, they are just casual patterns that observers situated at the same location can see in certain areas of the night sky. As such, the idea of using them as locations or reference points is completely useless, something that both the Colonizers of Rigel and the producers of the Stargate franchise really should have known.
2. Although being "500 million miles from Earth" sounds like a large distance, in astronomical terms it's quite short, and is actually significantly less than even the minimum distance from Earth to Saturn (746 million miles). It's also MUCH shorter than the distance from Earth to even the closest star system (Alpha Centauri) which is about 25.7 TRILLION miles away! So, if Zenn-La were that close to Earth, then it must have been located within (and been part of) Earth's solar system...which it wasn't/isn't.
• In the Valkyrie short story that appears in Marvel Comics Presents I#168, the Omniscient Narrative states that, "In her latest Earthly incarnation, she shares the body of a Black English woman -- Genevieve Cross." This information is wrong because, although both were a part of the short-lived group known as the Dragon Circle, Genevieve Cross was the host-body for Andromeda while Sian Bowen was the host-body for Brunhilde. This mistake is generally ignored because Valkyrie appeared only in her godly form throughout the story and the fact that she was inhabiting the body of a mortal had absolutely no significance to the plot and wasn't even mentioned again.
• However, that being said, the Official Handbook staff could correct that mistake by revealing that the souls of Andromeda and Brunhilde had temporarily exchanged hosts for a while and that this short story had taken place during that period. Of course, such a correction would require the ASSumption that an "untold story" must have taken place BTS, one that explained how and why such body-switch had happened.
• Waaay back in 1962, the Stan Lee-written second story in Amazing Spider-Man I#1 refers to Spider-Man's civilian identity as "Peter Palmer" not once, not twice, but three times! The fact that all three references occurred in Omniscient Narratives made them irrelevant to the story and so they were ignored -- until, just over sixty years later, Dan Slott used the mistake as the inspiration for the new character of Peter Palmer, the "Spiderman" of Earth-616 Beta.

   In conclusion, I hope that this explains why I strongly dislike the Official Handbook's idea that the name of the Spirit of Vengeance's mortal form is "Wileaydus Autolycus." The mistake was a minor one that had zero effect on the story and the correction requires the assumption that members of the Sarkan race identify themselves using personal names that consist of (at least) two names, presumably a given name and a family name, even though all other Sarks/Sarkans have only ever been shown using a single name. Although the sample size of named Sarkans is, admittedly, quite small, being made up of only four characters, I don't feel that that is enough to justify changing things without any in-story evidence that is should be changed.

   Thinking about this situation reminded me of a saying about when a difference wasn't a difference. I looked up the exact quote online and it turned out to be, "A difference which makes no difference is no difference at all." However, during that search, I came across another quote that might be even more applicable, "Be indifferent to what makes no difference." In my opinion, a logical paraphrasing of this statement would be, "A mistake which has no effect should not require a retcon to correct it." That quite concisely explains how I feel about the retconned name.

   On a related topic, the following table summarizes how four Sark-related names are used and (mis)spelled in the eight comics in which they have appeared to date.

Issue	Star system	Planet	Race	the Spirit's mortal identity
GOTG I#12	Tilnast (dialogue)	Sarka (ON x 2)	n/a	Wileaydus (dialogue + ON)
GOTG I#13	Tilnast (ON)	Sarka (ON)	n/a	Autolycus (ON)
GOTG I#14	Tilnost (ON)	Sarka (ON x 3 + dialogue)	Sarkans (dialogue)	n/a
GOTG I#15	Tilnast (dialogue)	Sarkas (Nikki x 2)	n/a	n/a
GOTG I#50/2	n/a	Sakra (Uilig)	n/a	Wileyadus (Uilig)
GOTG I#51	n/a	Sakra (Nikki)	n/a	n/a
Galactic Guardians#3	n/a	Sakra (dialogue x 2)	Sakran; Sakrans (dialogue x 2)	Wileyadus (dialogue)
Galactic Guardians#4	n/a	Sakra (Mainframe)	n/a	Wileyadus (dialogue + footnote)
Accuracy	3/4	7/14	1/3	2/7

   To summarize, over the course of the only eight issues in which any of them appear, these four names are used a total of 28 times. And out of those 28 usages, the completely wrong name (Autolycus) is used once while correct names are misspelled fourteen times.

   To break it down further, Jim Valentino made four of those mistakes (out of seventeen usages) while Michael Gallagher misspelled all ten of his usages and Craig Anderson made the final mistake in a footnote. Of course, since Mr. Anderson was the editor for all eight of those issues and he didn't catch/correct any of those mistakes, he would technically be responsible for all of them.

   Having said that, I feel that I should mention that Mr. Valentino, in a Guardians of the Galaxy Retrospective posting that he made on ImageComics.com back in 2005, stated that the "Sarkan" who was the Spirit of Vengeance's mortal form "was inspired by the character, Autoclycus, from Jim Starlin's Warlock saga (he is even mistakenly referred to as Autoclycus in one panel this issue)." However, Mr. Valentino did misspell that character's name by twice referring to him as "Wilyeadus." As you can see, he also twice mispelled "Autolycus" as "Autoclycus."

   For what it's worth, I can only presume that "Wileaydus" and "Wileyadus" and "Wilyeadus" all at least sound alike, right? In that retrospective that he posted on the Image board, Jim Valentino did claim that that name was a play on the phonetic pronunciation of "Will-He-Aid-Us."

Sarkan religion(s)
   When Jim Starlin created Captain Autolycus, he didn't provide the character with much of a background beyond being a trained warrior who loyally followed the orders he was given by his superiors in his faith even when he was fully aware that they were not just. The staff of the original Official Handbook took those basic facts and used them to create the Sarks, a race whose cultural traits made them militaristic and fanatically religious, and who were governed by theocratic monarchies. And since the only other Sark to be seen in Reality-616, Levan, was a mercenary who appeared to have no real connection to his homeworld, exactly what the civilization on the planet Sarka was really like remained something of a mystery.

   And then Jim Valentino decided to use that race in his Guardians of the Galaxy series and thus the Sarkans were born. Sadly, aside from the fact that Wileaydus was the last priest of an outlawed faith, we never got to learn much about their religious beliefs. After some BTS conversations with patrons of a local bar, Astro and Yondu came to the conclusion that the Spirit of Vengeance's claims that his world had been conquered and enslaved by the Universal Church of Truth were false because the people had willingly chosen to follow the church and that it was a positive force in their lives, something from which they drew their strength and around which their entire culture revolved. Furthermore, while Astro accepted the fact that the UCT was undeniably evil, the only Sarkan who was described (by Yondu) as a fanatic was the Spirit who engaged in several rants about how the unholy doctrine of the UCT had corrupted the minds of the innocent and turned them away from the One True Faith, and how they had cloaked their atrocities behind a false divinity.

   Since no detailed information about the religious history of the Sarkans was revealed in those few GOTG issues that were set on Sarka, we are forced to rely on the OHotMU's claim that the planet was governed by theocratic monarchies. Unfortunately, that statement is less than definitive since it can be interpreted in one of two ways. On the one hand, if those monarchies existed sequentially, then that would mean that Sarka had been governed by a series of worldwide monarchies, each of which had ruled the entire planet for a time before being replaced by a subsequent monarchy that may have been based on a different religion. On the other hand, if those monarchies existed concurrently and were based on different religions or even different sects of the same religion, then that could mean that the various territories ruled by those monarchies were often (if not always) mutually antagonistic to each other, given that each monarchy would have considered themselves to be the One True Faith and all others to be heretics and blasphemers. This could have meant that Sarka had a history of religious tension or even holy wars between its various countries. However, we weren't given enough information to determine which scenario is correct. Even the statements made by the Spirit about how the UCT had turned the people of Sarka away from the One True Faith are not conclusive proof because the (unidentified) outlawed faith of which Wileaydus was the last priest was never stipulated as having been the only religion on Sarka before it was replaced by the Universal Church of Truth.

   Given that the UCT is clearly shown to be an objectively and monstrously evil theocratic empire that routinely commits genocide against entire planetary populations if they refuse to convert to their faith and whose followers seem to have no problem with the idea of non-believers being tortured or killed solely because they weren't believers, I felt that Astro and Yondu were presented as being almost tolerant of them. While I agree with Astro's position that the Guardians had no right to force their views on people who were willing followers of the UCT, I did find it odd when he attempted to convince the Spirit that he, by killing Black Knights who killed people for the crime of not believing in the UCT, was somehow just as wrong as the knights were. As for Yondu, his denunciation of the Spirit as a fanatic in GOTG I#14 is perhaps foreshadowing of the revelation in issue #16 that he, as a Centaurian warrior holy man, had been taught that any Centaurians who did not follow their people's holy path and worship the god Anthos were considered to be without faith and must die (i.e., be killed). It was oddly unsettling to read that issue and discover that Yondu, who had always been presented being a good character, was also a devoted follower of a religion that was lethally intolerant of non-believers within Centaurian society.

The Universal Church of Truth that exists in Reality-691
   This timeline's version of the UCT was clearly inspired by and based on the Universal Church of Truth that had existed in Reality-616 until Adam Warlock retroactively altered history in order to make it so that neither it nor its founder, the Magus, had ever existed in that timeline. While it at first appeared that this UCT might have been just a divergent version of that original UCT, it was soon revealed that, despite their very strong similarities, there were significant differences between the two theocratic galactic empires. Perhaps the biggest difference was that the 691 Church had somehow come into being as a sect that worshipped a deity known as the Magus even though, unlike what happened in the pre-timequake Reality-616, no such entity actually existed in their timeline. Sadly, no explanation for how the Magus had come to be worshipped was ever provided.

   Another major way in which the two versions of the UCT differed was in their later histories. For one one thing, the Church in Reality-616 had Sarks (like Autolycus) as members and had conquered and enslaved a race of green-skinned armless bipeds by the early 21^st century. In contrast, although the Church in Reality-691 had converted the people of Sarka and committed genocide against that armless race before the year 3018 A.D., those events had occurred so recently that a last priest of an outlawed faith was still alive on Sarka and the rotting corpses of that genocided race were not old enough to have decomposed into skeletons. This indicates that the 691 Church hadn't taken control of Sarka's sector of space until about a millennium after the 616 Church had done so in its timeline, and implies that the 691 Church, lacking the direct leadership of their god, had not expanded across their universe as quickly as the 616 Church had.

   Another possible difference in their chronologies concerns exactly when the Church was founded. In (pre-timequake) Reality-616, the Magus founded the UCT after he conquered the planet Sirus X sometime before the year 3000 B.C. In contrast, Interface told Martinex that the 691 UCT had searched space for their god for an unspecified number of centuries without success, and that it was only then, "over a thousand generations ago," that they had begun trying to create their god in their own image. Even if one assumes that a generation was only 20 years long, that would still place the founding of the 691 UCT sometime before 17,000 B.C. However, in that Guardians of the Galaxy Retrospective that he posted on his Image board back in 2005, Jim Valentino revealed that, if he had continued on the title after issue #51, he had been planning to introduce the Her of that timeline and reveal that she was the actual biological mother of the Protege. This would have established that the origin of the Protege that was revealed by Interface in issue #16 was just a false story that the Church had made up about the child-god's origin. Of course, Mr. Valentino was removed from the title before he could write that story but, if that idea were still somehow valid, that could indicate that the 691 UCT may have been founded much more recently than that story had implied.

   All in all, I would have preferred it if we readers had been told more about when Sarka was converted by the UCT Specifically, I would really have liked to have been told how Wileaydus became the "last priest of an outlawed faith." Was it because he had already been a priest when the Church converted his people and he was the only priest who had (somehow) managed to keep his religious beliefs a secret from the new alien overlords? Or was it because he was the last surviving member of a religion whose members had been forced to practice their true faith in secret after it had been outlawed by the UCT years or even generations before Wileaydus was even born? As it stands, either possibility could be correct and I find that ambiguity to be frustrating.

DIVERGENCE POINT!?!
   The future in which the Guardians of the Galaxy existed initially had no apparent connection to the "mainstream" Marvel Universe. Then, after that connection had been established (by Steve Gerber) in the pages of Marvel Two-In-One I#4-5 and Defenders I#26-29, that timeline (later called Earth-691) was considered to be a possible alternate future of the "mainstream" MU (now called Earth-616). This meant that Earth-691 was something that the present-day Earth-616 could potentially become.

   That situation changed in Marvel Two-In-One I#69 when Major Vance Astro caused the latent mutant psycho-kinetic powers of his younger self, the teenaged Vance Astrovik, to be activated centuries before his own powers had manifested during his thousand-year spaceflight. This story seemingly established what the divergence point between the two timelines was, and meant that Earth-616 could no longer become Earth-691. As a result, many issues of the first GOTG series contained editorial footnotes reminding readers that the GOTG timeline had diverged from the mainstream Marvel Universe in that MTIO issue. However, some GOTG fans believed that the two timelines must have actually diverged at some earlier point and cited the fact that a first Martian invasion in 1901 A.D. had been established as having taken place on Earth-691 while no such invasion had occurred on Earth-616. Other fans argued that the fact that the Hawk God had been sent back in time to Arcturus IV where he had stood, trapped as a statue, for "centuries" before Stakar and Aleta had released him in the early 21st century, meant that, according to the rules of time travel established by Mark Gruenwald, his having traveled back in time had caused the divergence point to be pushed back to the early 19th century, if not earlier.

   However, it's only now, as I am completing this profile, that I realize the truth: After Adam Warlock caused the timequake that retroactively altered the 616 timeline and erased both the Magus and his Universal Church of Truth from history, the Universal Church of Truth that existed within Reality-691 has been a divergent element. This means that the divergence point between the two timelines has been pushed back to whenever the Church was founded in Reality-691 but wasn't in Reality-616. Based on the dates mentioned above, that could place the divergence point sometime between 5000 B.C. and 17,000 B.C. Wow!!!

   Actually, now that I've thought about it some more, the fact that the 691 UCT was founded without an actual Magus being present was enough to have caused that timeline to diverge even from the pre-timequake 616 timeline where the Magus from the future was responsible for founding the 616 UCT. So, even if the 691 UCT was founded at the same point in time as the 616 UCT, the circumstances of their foundings were different enough that it HAD ALWAYS BEEN a divergence point. Double wow!

   The craziest thing about this situation is that this truth should have been self-evident for over thirty years, ever since the UCT first appeared in the first GOTG series in 1991, but I only just realized it today. I've checked online and can't find any references to this divergence having occurred prior to 1901, but I can't be the first person to have come to this realization, can I?

Update: Before finishing this profile, I recalled another difference that could push the divergence point much, MUCH further back in time. In GOTG I#7, Starhawk spoke of the "twin suns" of the planet Arcturus and of how being kept in perpetual daylight may have driven its people mad. If this reference cannot be explained away, then the fact that the planet Arcturus IV in Reality-616 is known to orbit a single star would mean that the two timelines must have actually diverged BILLIONS of years ago, back when the giant molecular cloud that formed the single star in Reality-616 instead formed a binary pair of stars in Reality-691.

The other Sarkans
   This race profile contains subprofiles for six of the only eight Sarkans who have ever had any in-story dialogue. Of the last two, one of them is Wileaydus, the mortal who transforms into the demonic Spirit of Vengeance, making him a major character who thus deserves to get a profile of his own...someday. The eighth and last Sarkan was the onlooker in a crowd who cried out, "Look, up in the sky..." when they saw the Spirit of Vengeance flying off into space in Guardians of the Galaxy I#13. I was tempted to give him his own sub-profile but restrained myself because he is only seen from the back. I mention him now because: A) I like to think of myself as being obsessively thorough, and B) I was able to (I think) determine his gender based on the fact that, although the hair at the back of his head was gathered together and bound into a ponytail, he also had a definite bald spot that covered all of the top of his head, including the frontal region, the mid-scalp region and the crown. So, probably a guy, right?

Profile by Donald Campbell.

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Sarkan race from the planet Sarka in Reality-691 are other-dimensional counterparts of:

• the Sark race from the planet Sarka that exists in Reality-616--Strange Tales I#179

The Sarkan race and the planet Sarka have no known connections to:

• Sark - the title used by the male rulers of various lands in the "Lost Lemuria" era that (allegedly) existed on Earth-616 almost half a million years ago. One such ruler was:
• Sark Drugunda Thal of Trasgol (or Thargol?) who had apparently usurped the throne--Creatures On the Loose#26
• Sarkaja - the title used by the female rulers of various lands in the "Lost Lemuria" era that (allegedly) existed on Earth-616 almost half a million years ago. The single such ruler to be named was:
• Sarkaja Sumia - the rightful heir to the throne of Patanga after her father's murder--Creatures on the Loose#28
• Andrew and Janice Sarkan - a married human couple who found an orphaned Dire Wraith infant in the wreckage of a crashed starship and, after he had assumed human form, unofficially adopted the child and raised him as their human son, "Mark Sarkan"--Incredible Hulk II#262/2
• Mark Sarkan (Kattan-Tu) - a male Dire Wraith who, after having been found as an orphaned infant in the wreckage of a crashed starship by a human couple, the Sarkans, assumed human form and was raised by the Sarkans as their human son--Incredible Hulk II#262/2
• Sarkozan - the "sword of his forefathers" that was wielded by the Lemurian warrior Thongor during his adventures--Creatures on the Loose#22
• The Viper (Ophelia Sarkissian) - a nihilist who once controlled part of the terrorist organization HYDRA (as Madame Hydra) but has more recently undertaken multiple schemes to destroy human civilization--Captain America I#110
• or any other people, groups, races, items or locations whose names begin with the "Sark-" sound

battle cruiser captain

   An adult male Sarkan who was the commander of a Universal Church of Truth battle cruiser. Aside from the fact that he had a scar across his left eye and was one of the Sarkans who lacked the three bone ridges on his skull, no personal details about him have ever been revealed, including his name and the name of the UCT starship he commanded. However, the fact that he had been given command of such a starship suggests that he was considered to be a loyal member of the UCT.

   In 3018 A.D., Malevolence, the recently-chosen Matriarch of the UCT, discovered that Replica, a Skrull girl who had become the playmate of the Protege, was trying to covertly leave the planet Homeworld in a small, one-person spacecraft. Seeing an opportunity to kill someone she viewed as a rival for control over the Protege, Malevolence contacted the captain and ordered him to pursue and destroy that starship. When the captain apparently had some reservations about those orders, Malevolence told him that she had not asked him for his opinion, she was ordering him to pursue and destroy that ship. As a loyal Universalite, the captain replied,"Yes, Matriarch. We have the vessel in sight." Malevolence then ordered him to shoot it down before ending the audio-visual communications link.

   Seconds later, on Homeworld, Malevolence was confronted by the Protege who somehow knew what she had done. Malevolence tried to justify her actions by claiming that Replica had run away from him, an idea that angered the Protege so much that he struck her. However, upon discovering that Replica really was running away from him, the Protege, although hurt and saddened by Replica's leaving, ordered Malevolence to call the battle cruiser back and let Replica go.

   Malevolence either disobeyed the Protege's order or delayed carrying it out. However it happened, the UCT battle cruiser continued its pursuit of Replica's tiny shuttle and eventually began firing on it. Unfortunately for them, Replica's course caused her shuttle to nearly collide with Firelord, the current Protector of the Universe. Seeing that the shuttle was being pursued and fired upon by a UCT battle cruiser and knowing how evil the UCT was, Firelord chose to intervene by growing to enormous size and ordering the Church ship to cease its pursuit. When one of his crew asked what they were supposed to do now, the captain replied, "Blast him!" As the UCT battle cruiser then began firing on him instead, Firelord described their choice as being very stupid and struck the starship with his also-enlarged staff which was ablaze with cosmic flames.

    Since it has never been revealed if that UCT battle cruiser was destroyed or merely disabled by the blow, the status of the captain and his crew is uncertain.

--Guardians of the Galaxy Annual I#2/2 (GOTG Annual I#2/2, GOTG Annual I#2/1 - BTS)

Carinthus

   An adult male Sarkan who lived on Sarka and, like most of the population, was a loyal follower of the Universal Church of Truth that ruled his world. The fact that Carinthus wore a suit instead of robes suggests that he was a layperson and not a member of the UCT organization itself. His suit made him look like a businessman, but what his business may have been was not revealed.

   Carinthus was part of that segment of the Sarkan population who had three flesh-covered bone ridges on his skull. Like many Sarkans, Carinthus had no hair in the frontal region of his scalp, but the fact that he also seemed to have less hair in his mid-scalp region could be indicative of a receding hairline that may have been due to age. That lack of hair made his cranial ridges seem to be more prominent than those on the head of his friend Wileaydus, but they were actually just more visible because they were less hidden by hair.

   Carinthus and Wileaydus lived in the same city on Sarka. That city's name was never revealed but it may have been (and probably was) the city in which the Grand Inquisitor had his headquarters, making it the capital city of Sarka. Although Carinthus and Wileaydus were apparently friends, and possibly even close friends, Carinthus was clearly unaware of the other's true, heretical beliefs.

   One morning, as the two friends were walking together through their city, they paused to watch a local newscast on a television screen set up for public viewing. After watching a report about how two more of the Knights of Truth, their world's beloved planetary protectors, had been found murdered that morning, presumably by the serial killer known as the Flaming Demon, Carinthus remarked, "Can you imagine anyone doing such a thing, Wileaydus? To murder even one of our beloved Black Knights is inconceivable, but this...Who would condemn their soul with such blasphemy?" Wileaydus replied that only a madman or a demon would do so, then excused himself, saying that he had to return to his work. As Wileaydus walked away, Carinthus called after him, saying, "Sure, see you later, okay?"

   As he watched Wileaydus walk away without answering, Carinthus thought to himself that his friend "sure (had) been acting strange lately" and began to wonder why.

Note: Carinthus has the distinction of being one of the only two Sarkans who have ever been named. He's also one of the only eight Sarkans who have ever had any dialogue.

--Guardians of the Galaxy I#12

Grand Inquisitor's aide

   An adult Sarkan who was apparently an aide to the Grand Inquisitor who ruled Sarka on behalf of the Universal Church of Truth. Like most of the Sarkan population, this individual was a loyal follower of the Universal Church of Truth that ruled their world. The fact that he or she wore robes indicated that they were a member of the UCT organization itself, but whether or not they were part of the clergy has not been revealed. However, he or she weas definitely not one of the UCT's Black Knights.

   This aide's name was never revealed and neither was the actual name of the position he or she held within the UCT. Additionally, his or her gender wasn't revealed in the only two panels in which he or she appeared. The fact that he or she had long hair that extended well below the shoulders in the back suggests that they were female, but the obscuring nature of the robes he or she wore makes it impossible to determine if he or she had any secondary sex characteristics on the upper anterior region of the torso (i.e., breasts) that would conclusively establish he or she gender. Aside from that, this aide had the pale blue skin, black facial markings and pointed ears possessed by most Sarkans, and the three flesh-covered cranial ridges possessed by many (but not all) Sarkans.

   This aide may have been one of the several dozen people who were present in the large chamber in which the alien Guardians of the Galaxy had an audience with the Grand Inquisitor, but, if he or she were there, it isn't possible to locate him or her within the crowd and he or she definitely was not among those who engaged the Guardians in battle.

   This aide did not make his or her presence known until after three of the five Guardians had been rendered unconscious and the other two had fled. After gathering the star-shaped badges that the three fallen Guardians had worn on their chests, this aide approached the Grand Inquisitor, addressing him as, "Your grace." The aide then showed the items that they had collected to the Grand Inquisitor, stating, "We found these on the heathens' chests." The Grand Inquisitor found them to be curious and asked Replica, a Universalite who had been associating with the heathens, if she knew what purpose these "baubles" served. Knowing that the Grand Inquisitor could use the stars to find the two Guardians who had escaped if he knew that they were communicators, Replica lied and said that she believed that they were purely ornamental.

   What happened to this aide afterwards has not been revealed. The fact that Replica was later shown to have all three stars in her possession when she returned them to the captive Guardians could indicate that Replica had obtained them from the aide and may have used shape-shifting trickery or force in doing so, but this is only speculation.

--Guardians of the Galaxy I#14

Infonet newscasters

   Two adult Sarkans who were employed by Infonet, an intergalactic news service, to report the news. Neither of the newscasters were named but one was female and the other one was male. Both newscasters had the pale blue skin and black facial markings possessed by all other Sarkans, but there were some interesting differences between them. The female, whose gender was established by her long hair and the dark blue lipstick she wore, had the three flesh-covered cranial ridges possessed by many (but not all) Sarkans but her ears could not be seen. In contrast, the male newscaster not only lacked any flesh-covered cranial ridges, he also had ears that were rounded instead of pointed, making him the only Sarkan known to have such ears.

   Interestingly, neither newscaster was shown wearing the "ankh" pendant that members of the Universal Church of Truth wore as a symbol that they were true believers. This could indicate that the studio from which they made their intergalactic broadcasts was not located on Sarka.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 (fb)) - At some point in the year 3019 A.D. (Earth date), the female Infonet reporter broadcast the following news item:
   "The Constabulary has apprehended Charlie-27, last known survivor of Jupiter. He is accused of being Ripjak, the interplanetary serial killer! Informed sources tell Infonet that there is solid evidence against the Jovian currently incarcerated on the maximum security prison planet, Stockade!"

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 (fb) - BTS) - The Guardians of the Galaxy learned of the whereabouts of their missing comrade by watching that Infonet broadcast while aboard their starship, the Icarus, and then headed to Earth to recruit some allies powerful enough to be able to help them break Charlie-27 out of Stockade.

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 - BTS) - While the Guardians were on Earth talking to Molly Fitzgerald (Shamrock) about their missing comrade, Nikki revealed that they had found out the Jovian's current whereabouts like everyone else had -- "by watching an Infonet broadcast from the planet Sarka!"

(Guardians of the Galaxy I#56) - Sometime later that year, the male Infonet reporter broadcast the following news item:
   "This is a special bulletin from Infonet, your intergalactic news source. Our tele-cameras have confirmed the depopulation of the planet Aran IV! This reprehensible genocidal act is unquestionably the work of the infamous Ripjak, who was reported to be in custody on Stockade, the prison planet!"

   The Infonet reporter then began speaking to an interviewee who appeared on a television screen behind him, saying:
   "With us now is the Chief of the Constabulary and head of operations at Stockade...Chief, the public has a right to know the truth -- Will you confirm the reports that the last surviving Jovian, Captain-27, is no longer your prime suspect and has been released?" The Chief replied to that question by saying that he had no comment, except to say that if someone wanted information on Ripjak, they should contact Captain-27's associates, the Guardians of the Galaxy!

   Aboard the Icarus, Talon, Charlie-27 and Nikki were watching that broadcast and realized that the Chief, who held a grudge against them for the way they had humiliated him when they freed the innocent Charlie-27 from Stockade, was falsely implicating them in Ripjak's crimes in front of trillions of Infonet viewers.

   Soon afterwards, aboard his own starship thousands of parsecs away, Ripjak watched the end of that broadcast, which concluded with the male newscaster saying:
   "...and so, galactic residents continue to live in fear of the malignant mass murderer, Ripjak!"

   At that point, Ripjak ordered his ship's computer to turn the audio portion of the broadcast off, and he mused aloud to himself about the "ignorant fools" and how "their perception of (his) true objective (was) absurdly skewed!"

--Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 (fb), Guardians of the Galaxy I#56

local newscaster

   An adult female Sarkan who lived on Sarka and, like most of the population, seemed to be a loyal follower of the Universal Church of Truth that ruled her world. At least, she did wear the "ankh" pendant that Universalites wore as a symbol that they were true believers. However, the fact that she didn't wear a purple robe indicates that she was a layperson and not a member of the UCT organization itself. Her name has never been revealed.

   This newscaster had the pale blue skin, black facial markings and pointed ears possessed by most Sarkans, and the three flesh-covered cranial ridges possessed by many (but not all) Sarkans. While her long hair and the dark blue lipstick that she wore strongly indicated that she was a woman, she was also the only Sarkan yet seen to be depicted as having a widening of the upper anterior region of her torso that indicated the presence of secondary sex characteristics (i.e., female breasts).

   Although her news reports were shown on television screens in the city where Carinthus and Wileaydus lived, presumed to be the capital city of their planet, the location from which she broadcast those reports was not revealed and may not even have been in the same city.

   The only news report that this newscaster was shown reading went as follows:

"This just in--Astronomers have reported that an unusually large solar flare erupted seconds ago! They have also confirmed earlier reports that at least one starship is in the vicinity of the asteroid belt."

"Whether these incidents are connected -- or whether this starship is bringing more Knights of Truth as reinforcements remains to be seen."

"And speaking of the Holy Knights...two more of our beloved planetary protectors were found murdered this morning.
Police believe that these murders were committed by the same serial killer responsible for 42 similar homicides -- the Flaming Demon!"

   After watching this broadcast, Wileaydus was inspired to get back to his work and used some scanning technology he possessed to confirm the presence of a starship and super-powered beings in the asteroid belt. This led him to conclude, wrongly, that the newscaster's speculation that the starship was bringing super-powered Knights to Sarka was accurate.

Note: Although not established in-story, I have chosen to refer to her as a "local" newscaster because the only news items on which she reported were relevant only to Sarka, and not to the wider universe. This is an assumption on my part and may be incorrect, but I'm comfortable with it.

--Guardians of the Galaxy I#12

Sarka

   The third planet from the sun in the Tilnast star system, Sarka was a "Class M" world that was much like Earth, with 74% of its surface being covered by water. Although its gravity was 10% greater than that of Earth, its environment and its atmosphere were close enough to those of Earth that all of the Guardians of the Galaxy could exist there without any problems.

   Sarka was the homeworld of a race of blue-skinned humanoids who called themselves Sarkans. At one time, the Sarkans were governed by theocratic monarchies, implying the existence of a number of separate nation-states, but nothing has been revealed about how many such nations existed or what their names were. Additionally, nothing has been revealed about the religions upon which these theocracies were based, except for the fact that they were all outlawed once the Universal Church of Truth became the accepted planetary religion/government, with a Grand Inquisitor from the UCT serving as their royal ruler.

   Very little data about Sarka has been revealed. The information that has not been made available includes the number of continents and oceans that existed on the planet and their names, the number of countries that existed and their names, and the number of cities that existed and their names. During their brief time on Sarka, five members of the Guardians of the Galaxy stayed within what was presumably now the capital city of the planet for their entire visit and noticed little except that the architectural styles of the city's building were oddly reminiscent of New York City in Earth's late 20^th century (see note).

   Although the Sarkans (or maybe just the UCT) had access to spacecraft, no aircraft were seen flying in the skies. Those few road vehicles that were seen had no visible wheels, suggesting that they were all hover cars instead of automobiles.

   Sarka is known to have had at least two moons, both of which were depicted as orbiting the planet VERY closely. While the larger moon orbited further out from Sarka and its grey surface was covered with craters, the smaller moon orbited more closely and its surface was mostly green but with orange horizontal bands of varying widths across it, possibly indicating that it had an atmosphere. There may have been two other moons that orbited at far greater distances, but those those spheres could actually have been nearby planets instead.

   Although the U.S.S. Captain America II was stated to have been in dry dock undergoing repairs while in orbit around Sarka, there didn't seem to be any actual orbital facilities involved, only small repair craft flying around the starship.

--Guardians of the Galaxy I#12-14

Notes: Aside from the basic information about Sarka that was invented for the quarter-page entry on the Sarks that appeared in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#9, the two images included in this sub-profile contain most of the new data provided in Guardians of the Galaxy I#12-14, and that data is weird and inconsistent in several ways:

• Out of five long-distance views of Sarka, the two images included in this sub-profile are the only ones in which the planet's surface is not completely obscured by pale yellow and pale orange clouds. Oddly, both of these images are a bit strange, albeit in different ways.
   • In the image to the left, the planet's surface, although slightly obscured by purple clouds, can be seen to be made up of two types of shapes, both of which have clearly-defined boundaries. Some of the shapes are pale blue in color and featureless while the other type are pale green in color and have parallel straight lines running across them. Given that most of Sarka's surface is covered by water, I think that the light blue areas, which seem to cover less of the visible surface, are meant to be continents. However, that would mean that the oceans were the areas with the lines running across them, and that's weird because I've never seen oceans depicted in that bizarre way and I can't think of any in-universe explanation for the presence of those parallel lines.
   • In the image to the right, most of Sarka's surface is obscured by pale yellow clouds but what can be seen through the breaks in the cloud cover is uniformly purple in color and, once again, has those unexplained parallel straight lines running across all the purple areas.
   
• When first seen in GOTG I#12, one of the characteristics that was said to make Sarka like Earth was that it had "one disproportionately large satellite" and the image to the left shows the planet with one large cratered moon. However, the image to the right, taken from GOTG I#14, seemingly contradicts the earlier description by showing Sarka with that same large moon and another, slightly smaller moon very close to both of the other two bodies. This is odd because Jim Valentino, who wrote that description, was also the artist who drew both images, so one would expect that he knew that Sarka was supposed to have only one moon. Of course, if someone wanted to explain away this problem, it could be argued that the extra moon was just small enough that it didn't count as being a second "disproportionately large" satellite, but that would seem to be a bit of a stretch to me. It would have been easier to just make sure to NOT draw in that other moon.
   
• Although I'm not a scientist, Sarka's moons seem to have been drawn so that they look like they're orbiting the planet FAR more closely than they should be. In fact, they appear to be orbiting SO closely that one would expect that it would have been virtually impossible that their gravitational attraction did not cause incredibly high tides and almost continuous earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on Sarka, phenomena that would have constantly threatened Sarkan civilization. Of course, my opinion may have been influenced by the fact that I know that the average distance between Earth and the Moon is roughly equal to 30 Earth-diameters and I am therefore conditioned to think that that is the normal distance that should exist between a large moon and its planet. I know that the Earth-Moon Roche Limit is about 1.5 Earth-diameters, meaning that the Moon could get that close to Earth before it would start to break up, but I don't know how close the Moon could get before its gravity would seriously disrupt life on Earth.
   • Having said that, it could be that the apparent closeness of those moons to Sarka is due to the point of view from which they were depicted. Seeing them face on like that, with the moons in front of the planet, may be hiding the fact that they are actually a great distance apart. While doing some online research, I came across a YouTube video, recorded by a satellite orbiting one million miles from Earth, that showed the Moon as it crossed between the satellite and Earth. From that perspective, it was impossible to judge how far the Moon was from Earth, so I suppose that something similar could be happening with the images of Sarka and its moons...but I doubt it.
   
• The last odd thing about these images are the shadows in the second image. At first glance, everything appears normal, with the cratered moon casting a shadow on the banded moon and that moon casting a shadow on the planet. However, if one thinks about it, that doesn't make much sense because the light that is causing the shadows doesn't seem to be coming from a single location, like the local sun, as it should be. Instead, while the shadow from the cratered moon is pointing behind it and slightly to the left, the shadow from the banded moon is pointing mostly to its right and barely behind it. This would seem to indicate that the two shadows were somehow projected at about a 90 degree angle to each other. Weird.
   • Worse yet, if one looks at a magnified view of that image, the shadow "on" Sarka is drawn as a black disk that seems to be hanging in space between the two moons. There are also what look like black whorls on the left side of the disk that make that part of the shadow look patchy, as if one side of the cratered moon was somehow only partially blocking the light.

Tilnast star system

   The planetary system which included the planet Sarka. Aside from the fact that it was located somewhere within the Milky Way galaxy, very little information has been revealed about this star system.

• This planetary system consisted of the volume of space around a star that was presumably known as Tilnast. It has not been revealed if the star was given that name by the Sarkans or by aliens who charted the system. Tilnast has been depicted as being orange in color, suggesting that it may be cooler than Earth's Sun.
• The fact that Sarka has been described as being the third planet from its sun indicates that the system contained at least three planets. However, MULTIPLE spherical objects that were clearly planets were visible in the backgrounds of several scenes set in space within this star system, including at least two ringed planets.
• A reference to "the asteroid belt" indicates that there was only one such belt in the Tilnast system. However, this did not preclude the existence of other circumstellar discs of debris in that star system, discs which might simply have been known by different names.
• Sarka was stated to have had "one disproportionately large satellite" but was shown to actually have had two. Whether there were any more moons orbiting it, or any moons orbiting the system's other planets, has not been revealed.
• The Tilnast system must have been located relatively close to the star system in which the planet Haven once existed because, after receiving a priority one distress call from Firelord, the Guardians were able to travel between the two star systems quickly enough to arrive before Overkill could finish killing him.

--Guardians of the Galaxy I#12-14 (mentioned in GOTG I#15)

Notes: According to several online sources (which can be found here, and here), in the real world, the term "star system" (or "stellar system") is (or should be) used exclusively in reference to a small number of stars that orbit each other because they are bound by gravitational attraction, and they are not to be (or should not be) confused with planetary systems, which include planets and similar non-stellar bodies. However, in science fiction stories, the term "star system" is almost always used to refer to planetary systems that are in orbit around a star or group of stars. The Star Trek Universe, the Star Wars Universe, and the Marvel Comics Universe are among those continuities which use the later definition.

   In GOTG I#12, the first three panels on page 15 show Starhawk flying right into the heart of the local sun, and nine (or ten) spherical objects can be clearly seen in the backgrounds of those panels. While two of them might be Sarka and its (single?) moon, that leaves the seven (or eight) other objects without any explanation for their presence. Sadly, the practice of drawing lots of spherical objects in the backgrounds of scenes set in space seems to a long-standing one, even though it doesn't often (or, you know, EVER) really make any sense.

images: (without ads)
The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe I#9, page 31, panel 3 (main image - Sark)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#12, page 16, panel 1 (crowd watching newscast)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#13, page 9, panel 6 (crowd looking up in the sky)
Guardians of the Galaxy Annual I#2, page 40, panel 4 (UCT captain)
      page 40, panel 3 (UCT captain close-up)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#12, page 16, panel 2 (Carinthus talking with Wileaydus)
      page 16, panel 3 (Carinthus watching Wileaydus walk away)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#14, page 12, panel 4 (aide with Replica)
      page 12, panel 5 (aide with Grand Inquisitor)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#51, page 8, panel 4 (female Infonet newscaster)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#56, page 5, panel 1 (male Infonet newscaster)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#12, page 15, panel 6 (local newscaster)
      page 16, panel 1 (local newscaster close-up)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#12, page 15, panel 5 (Sarka and its single moon)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#13, page 1, panel 4 (Sarka and its two moons)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#12, page 15, panel 3 (Sarka's sun)

Appearances: (excluding those issues in which only the Spirit of Vengeance appears)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#12 (May, 1991) - Jim Valentino! (procrastinator), Steve Montano! (delineator), Craig Anderson! (naysayer)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#13 (June, 1991) - Steve Montano (inked it on a dare!), Craig Anderson (edited it with care!), Jim Valentino (hasn't got a prayer!)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#14 (July, 1991) - Jim Valentino (manual labor), Steve Montano (repromaster), Craig Anderson (slave driver)
Guardians of the Galaxy Annual I#2/2 (1992) - Jim Valentino (story), Kirkowood Studios (pencils), Bob Almond (inks), Craig Anderson (editor)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#51 (August, 1994) - Michael Gallagher (ploh tandscript), Kevin West (burr achedowns), Steve Montano (finnish dart), Craig Anderson (edih torr)
Guardians of the Galaxy I#56 (January, 1995) - Michael "Write Tackle" Gallagher (script), Kevin "Point Guard" West (pencils), Steve "Brush Back" Montano (inks), Craig "Coach" Anderson (editor)

First Posted: 07/05/2024
Last updated: 07/05/2024

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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