Owner: Karen Starr
Designation: Technology Conglomerate
First Appearance:
Power Girl #1 (June, 1988)
Brief:
Starrware Industries is a conglomerate established and owned by Karen Starr, aka Power Girl.
The corporation is divided into various subsidiaries; including but not limited to Starrware Inc. and Starrware Labs. The corporation devotes its efforts towards developing progressive technology and providing technological and biological solutions to the planet's environmental problems.
History:
Before creating Starrware, Karen Starr was a computer programmer for the Ultimate Computor Corporation in the Earth-2 universe before the Crisis of Multiple Earths occurred and Earth-2 was destroyed.
Settling on the newly formed Earth (dubbed "New Earth"), Karen first created Starrware, Inc. as a computer firm during the I.T. boom, financing the corporation through strong, optimistic investors such as Harlan Brooks.
Influenced by "Weaver" (an enemy of the Atlantean sorcerer Arion; whom Karen was thought to be that daughter of at the time), Brooks eventually challenged Karen's ability to run the company, calling a board meeting to vote upon whether she was still qualified enough to head Starrware due to her constant unexplained absences from the office.
While Karen was able to defeat Weaver and Brooks' power bid, shortly before the Information Technology-bubble burst, Karen sold the corporation, earning a vast fortune as a result, which she decided to use to found a charitable foundation to aid orphaned children; naming it the "Starr Foundation".
Shortly after the Final Crisis incident, Karen committed much of her resources to buying back shares of what remained of Starrware, Inc. and reformed it into Starrware Labs; a progressive technology research and development firm that specialised in providing solutions to the planet's environmental problems.
In it's opening weeks, the Labs employed three scientists who; two of which were Dexter Nichols (Nanotechnology) and Donna Anderson, Karen Starr herself resided within her office with her cat until she found an apartment in Brooklyn and Simon Peters worked as her assistant.
After stopping her from overrunning the city with magic, Karen gave sixteen year-old Diane Dorst an internship in the company's Progressive Green Works department after learning that she just wanted to save the world's environment.
Shortly after the company received a massive investment from a group of aliens whom Karen had helped settle on Earth, the company was sabotaged and bankrupted by Maxwell Lord, who used the company's financial officer, Donna Anderson, to spend the company's funds on equipment for his own use.
While Karen had the company's lawyer's fight to prove wrong doing, the banks sold the company's assets to Day Work Industries. These assets were quickly repossessed and Maxwell Lord's "identity theft" proven after Karen helped the members of the defunct Justice League International force the villain to reveal his existence to the world.
Starrware, Inc.
Starrware Labs
Trivia[]
- Felicity Smoak-Raymond, step-mother to Ronald Raymond (aka the original Firestorm), once worked as a CEO in Starrware, Inc.; usually filling in for Karen's day to day duties when she was away from the company.
- The building Starrware Labs is located within is known as the Wylie Science Center. The building was found by real estate Martie Lieb, who also gave Karen an apartment she owned in Brooklyn to rent.
- Karen had a secret door in her office that led to the building's elevator shaft; allowing her to fly in and out of the building unseen.