Shazana Pel by Visionary

The homeworld of the Thonnagarians (no relation to any other bird-based comic book race, obviously) was destroyed in a cosmic Crisis. Survivors of the holocaust, led by brutal spiritual leader Ancient Shadara (last survivor of the Great Eyrie), sought to regain their people’s prestige by winning the interstellar Transworlds Challenge, which offered a prize that might have renewed their homeland.

The brightest and best of the Pigeon Warriors were dispatched to win the contest at all costs, led by Eyrie Master Bensun Jak and his lover, the warrioress Shazana Pel. They failed in their mission when they attacked the Earth team, the Lair Legion, and were then treacherously scuttled by the Heralds of Galactivac the Living Death that Sucks. Bensun Jak and the entire crew were slain, with the exception of Pel who was teleported aboard yet another of the contestants’ vessels and became a captive along with Goldeneyed and CrazySugarFreakBoy! of the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad of Frammistat Eight.

Enduring her shameful captivity (for Pigeonwarriors are required to die before dishonour), Pel teamed with the Earth heroes to escape and free others that had been victim to the Slimy Slaver Lovetoad. When it was necessary to destroy the vessel she was on to stop the villain from slaying the other Earth contestants she assented, though it left her and her temporarily allies and all the Lovetoad’s victims drifting in dangerous space, prey to pirates and a loathsome elder being.

Here Pel made her fatal choice. To save them all she allowed Goldeneyed to use her sacred Z-Alloy bands, in direct contravention to the codes of her people, a final sign of her weakness and moral decay. Although this saved many lives she was not welcomed back by her people. Instead she was abused, reviled, and cast out for her blasphemy (and her tainted Z-Alloy bands with her), becoming a zhonga kha, an outcast heretic despised by all right-thinking Thonnagarians.

So Shazana Pel returned to Earth with the humans. She had nowhere else to go…