Planet Terry

Intergalactic Planet Terry, Planet Terry intergalactic.

This page is about the boy. For the comic, see Planet Terry (comic).

There is a dreaded pest that plagues and irritates the peoples of the universe – and his name is Terry. Separated from his parents moments after his birth, Terry now wanders the universe searching for them, his only mementos being a bracelet that bears his name and a blank frame where his mom and dad should be pictured. His intergalactic search is so prolific that species everywhere have come to call him Planet Terry.

Despite his independent lifestyle, Terry is still an ordinary boy raised in extraordinary circumstances. Being raised by a life ship computer means he's programmed with a wealth of trivia, but he's also very credulous... and distractible... and a catastrophiser... but it has left him with a strong sense of right and wrong: Terry would sooner put up a pretence than hurt someone's feelings, and he will always stand up to bullying and injustice.

If and when he finds his parents, he can introduce them to the new family he has found with Robota and Omnus.

Fiction

Terry's parents were in the Confederation Astro Patrol. Both served on the Confederation Cosmos Cruiser Space Warp; Terry's father was the captain, and his mother was the supply officer. They were married, and Terry was their first child. As the Space Warp had no nursery, her chief engineer/mess boy Enoch Diggs suggested that the newborn be placed in the life ship, which was sealed in glass only to be broken in an emergency. When Terry was born, the captain, with a mix of elation and over-caffeination, accidentally broke the glass of the life ship with his coffee mug, causing it to automatically evacuate the Space Warp and take Terry with it. Terry was presumed lost forever. Some Answers

He was raised the life ship's nutrition and educational modules, which kept him safe as he travelled through space. Some Answers As they were separated so soon after his birth, Terry had no memory of ever meeting his parents; he considered the life ship to his birthplace. He took his name from the wrist bracelet name tag he'd been given by the Space Warp's infirmary. As a memento of his parents, he kept an empty picture frame that he'd signed himself: "To Terry – love Mom & Dad." A Clue

A few years before meeting Robota, Terry did a favour for the Wazir of Uranus, who gave him his ship. This began his galaxy-spanning quest for his parents in earnest. At some point he became known as "Planet Terry". A Clue

Terry frequently visited Bznko to ask if anyone had seen his parents, The Search perhaps even once per month. A Clue On one occasion, he landed his ship and was once again shunned by the locals, who told him they had bigger problems to contend with – like the arrival of the most feared creature in the galaxy, the Yungmun. Picturing a hulking brute, Terry was surprised that the Yungmun was merely a hack comedian. When the locals explained that the Yungmun's groaners literally bored planets to death, Terry asked why no-one had ever thought to boo him.

The Yungmun recoiled on hearing a boo, and his reaction encouraged the rest of the assembled crowd to join in, driving the comedian away. The grateful locals decided to give Terry their highest honour. Dashing his hopes of help in the quest for his parents, they told him to take the pick of the litter – literally, encouraging him to take anything he wanted from a scrap heap. Unsure of finding anything helpful, Terry went along with it so as to not hurt their feelings. Reaching into the pile, his hand activated some kind of switch, and Robota, a disused robot, clawed her way out of the heap and thanked him for turning her grid on. The Search

Terry introduced himself and his mission to Robota, showing her the wrist bracelet from which he took his name. Robota, a Servant Robot outmoded by the newer model, volunteered to join him on his quest, and he happily took her aboard. When she complimented his piloting, he told her he'd been born on a space ship, and proved it wasn't just a figure of speech by showing her his life ship.

A klaxon sounded, telling Terry he had engine trouble, and he was forced to make an emergency landing on a nearby planetoid. On hearing applause, Terry and Robota exited the ship to find prospector Enoch Diggs (and his Burrobot, Hee Haw), who congratulated him on his landing. Before being a prospector, Diggs was an old space hound, and volunteered to take a look at Terry's engine. Diggs was stunned by the sight of Terry's life ship, and asked if Terry was also wearing a wrist bracelet. When Diggs confirmed his suspicions that he knew who Terry's parents were, the boy was elated. A Clue

At Terry's insistence, Diggs tried to remember what he knew of his parents. Diggs related how he'd served on the Space Warp under Terry's dad, the ship's captain, as well as the day of Terry's birth, on which he'd become separated by the life ship's activation. Diggs was pleased to find that the life ship's educational module had made the boy as bright as the 7th Sun of Nimrax. Unfortunately, Diggs' own recall was nowhere near as sharp, and as Terry asked for more answers, he encouraged the boy to travel to the Milk Toast Malt Shop on Asteroid 43KX, where he could find Squink, the Space Warp's retired radioman. After Diggs fixed up the engine, Terry thanked him for everything he'd done, and he and Robota set off for the deceptively-named drinks establishment. Some Answers

Notes

Fake Terry, real Terry, and himbo Terry.

• Terry was included as part of a competition in issue 21 which required readers to pair characters with their opposites.
• Terry never actually found his parents! His next appearance after the series concluded was in the 2009-2010 miniseries X-Babies,  which breathed new life into the Star Comics original characters. The all-signing, all-dancing, all-rapping version of Terry appeared alongside other Star Comics characters as part of the new cutesified and vapid programming broadcast across Mojoworld.  Over the course of the story it was revealed that this Terry was a construct based on the real Terry, who was imprisoned in a VR simulation. Once freed by the X-Babies, the real Terry returned to his time and space of origin, resuming the quest for his parents. This epilogue was the first on-panel acknowledgement that Terry's silver hair and distinctive space suit were reminiscent of the (pink) Kree. 
  • After this, a definitively Earth-616 Planet Terry  appeared in 2016's Drax  ongoing series, now an adult and a bounty hunter, interacting with the wider space-faring denizens of the Marvel universe. The series implied that the events of Planet Terry happened in this Terry's backstory, though by necessity they would have to have occurred roughly when they were published and to an alien child, rather than the far future human the original Terry was implied to be.