Starfire's daughter Mandy is getting her own YA series, but she's not the first! Earth-22 presented Mar'i Grayson, or Nightstar, the first daughter of Starfire and Nightwing. But who exactly is Nightstar, and how is she different from Mandy?
Mar'i Grayson, daughter of Koriand'r and Richard Grayson is a human/Tamaranean hybrid created by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, making her first appearance in the alternate DC reality of Kingdom Come #1 in 1996. The reality of Kingdom Come takes place in a future where the traditional DC heroes have mostly retired, replaced by a new generation of heroes with a grittier, more lethal approach to supervillains.
Nightstar joined Batman's Outsiders team despite her father's membership with Superman's Justice League, causing some discord within the family due to the teams' different approaches to a changing world. Through the Outsiders, she met Ibn al Xu'ffasch - the unpowered son of Batman and Talia al Ghul, who many fans have retrospectively read as a version of Damian Wayne - and the two fell in love despite al Xu'ffasch's complicated history with the Bat-family, who helped raise Nightstar but didn't know of his existence until later life.
Nightstar's Tamaranean physiology gives her powers including energy absorption & projection, flight, and superhuman strength, and her appearance is a cool combination of her parents' legacies. With the orange skin and striking physiology of her mother and the dark hair and darker costuming of her acrobat father, even Nightstar's name is a combination of her parents' hero personas.
Nightstar was raised primarily by Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne. In this reality, Starfire died in Nightstar's youth due to a circulatory illness, leaving her in the care of her father and his mentor, who acted as a grandfatherly figure, making her decision to join the Outsiders in opposition to her father more understandable. Happily, Nightstar was ultimately able to save Dick from a nuclear strike ordered by the UN, mending their rift and leaving her in a position to help fellow metahumans settle their own nation and thrive on the New Oa satellite.
Nightstar is a fascinating conception of what a new generation of heroes might look like, carrying a surprising legacy of DC's comic history. While her appearance, allegiances, and powers signal a complex life of shifting loyalties and relationships, she's not a simple blending of two characters. Nightwing actually took his name from a Kryptonian legend told to him by Superman, making Nightstar a human/Tamaranean hybrid who takes part of her name from Kryptonian culture while considering the Dark Knight her "Gramps." She's also a very particular legacy for Nightwing, whose romance with Starfire was always one of the most unusual sides to the character, and it's fascinating to think how a character with such bizarre sci-fi roots would fit into the Bat-family and relate to non-powered heroes. Kingdom Come is a classic story that has returned several time, so it's likely readers will see Nightstar again at some point. Until then, her sort-of-sister Mandy looks set to also be a great character, this time offering the reverse view - Starfire's experience dealing with a kid who has more in common with the grim and gritty Gothamites than her alien mother.