Yondu Udonta (Earth-616) (2024)

"You'll never make a good Centaurian." That's what they told me...

—Yondu^[src]

• 1 History
  • 1.1 Origins
  • 1.2 Meeting Star-Lord
  • 1.3 The Jojola Nebula
  • 1.4 Ego the Living Planet
• 2 Notes
• 3 See Also
• 4 Links and References
  • 4.1 References

Origins[]

Yondu Udonta is a Centaurian born in a tribe on the primitive planet of Centauri-IV. At a very young age, Yondu presenced the coming of an alien species to his tribe, the Syneca. The Syneca wished to share their technology in exchange for some Yaka ore. Yondu, amazed by the Syneca's crystal spaceships, took an opportunity to steal one so he and his friend Babatuku could go for a short flight. However, Yondu lost control of the ship, crashing into the elders' temple of his tribe, killing Chondu, an important elder of the tribe. Yondu tried to keep the incident a secret, but, as the Syneca demanded for justice, Babatuku revealed Yondu's role in Chondu's death.

Yondu was excommunicated from the tribe before he could learn how to whistle, a well-known ability of the Centaurians which allows them to control the Yaka arrows. As he was cast out from his tribe, he had his crest cut off of his head. For years to come, he kept his crest short through self-mutilation. The bargain between the Centaurians and the Syneca was compromised by the incident, leading the Syneca to leave Centauri-IV. Yondu sneaked into the Syneca main ship only to witness it to be invaded by space pirates. The Syneca were killed by the pirates, on the other hand Yondu's life was spared and he found support alongside the pirates. Considering the Centaurians to be a barbaric and lowly people, he decided to fully abandon his roots and survive by himself in space as a looter.^[2]

Meeting Star-Lord[]

After years in a life outlaw activities, Yondu became the leader of the Ravagers, a group of space pirates. Yondu found a young Peter Quill when a Kree Warbird he was interested in malfunctioned in Quill's hands, leaving him stranded in outer space. The Ravagers rescued him as Peter tried to steal their ship. Peter managed to outsmart every member of the crew and even knocked out Yondu before capturing him. After he woke up, Yondu managed to set himself free from his restraints, attacked Peter, and gave him a choice between letting himself be released to space without more trouble or getting killed right there. Peter instead asked him if he could join his crew, Yondu wasn't sold on the idea, but after he found out Peter was like him, a kid without a home, Yondu changed his mind and let him stay in the ship with his pirate crew as the cleaning boy. Peter decided to stay and try to learn everything he could from space while he was part of the pirate crew.^[3]

Yondu and Peter grew closer over time, and after having relegated him to janitor duties, he decided to promote Quill to being a Ravager as he saw some potential in Quill's abilities as a pirate.^[4] Yondu blackmailed Quill into helping the Ravagers to raid the Asterion One owned by Quill's previous crew from NASA in an attempt to claim the ship's warp cores. Yondu promised that, after hijacking the Asterion One, the Ravagers would help Quill to find the Badoon ship commanded by his mother's assassins. However, overwhelmed by guilt, Quill betrayed the Ravagers and took control of their ship, scattering Yondu's treasures in outer space in order to distract him. Yondu managed to pursue Quill in the space vacuum as he tried to escape in an improvised spaceship. They went into a fight and Quill ultimately escaped. After coming back to the Ravagers' ship, Yondu recognized Quill's competence as a pirate, although he put a bounty on Quill's head.^[5]

The Jojola Nebula[]

Years later, when Yondu stumbled into the labyrinthic Jojola Nebula, he discovered a planet brimming with pieces of technology that had once been used by a scientist group studying Galactus. While it took him roughly a year to find the exit, his natural abilities as a Centaurian allowed him to create a star chart of the area in his mind from memory. He planned to return and raid the planet with the Ravagers, but was captured while in Knowhere. He started spreading word that he could get through Jojola Nebula, in hopes somebody would break him out.

A year passed, and the Guardians of the Galaxy, the crew of the now-adult Peter Quill, reluctantly had Yondu paroled in order to traverse the Jojola Nebula in hopes of finding the Transluminal Tuning Fork, an object with the ability to disrupt planet-sized force fields they hoped could be used to free the Earth from the Planetary Defense Shield.

When the Guardians and Yondu arrived to the abandoned planet, the space pirate double crossed them and called in the Ravagers in order to carry out his original plan of ransacking, also intending to hold the Guardians hostage and demand a ransom for the Tuning Fork. When the Punishers swarmed the Ravagers' ship, they forced them and the Guardians to take refuge in a facility. Gamora saved them after having been abandoned by Yondu in the middle of nowhere, and used the Transluminal Tuning Fork to defeat the Punishers. The Guardians subsequently arrested the Ravagers and Yondu, and exited the Jojola Nebula.^[6]

Ego the Living Planet[]

Some time later, the Ravagers had become a small band of mercenaries, with Yondu serving as their leader in name only. The Ravagers became tangled with a group of refugees from a species that possessed the natural ability to materialize their prayers into diamonds, helping them move from planet to planet to evade Chargazel's Raiders. They eventually settled on Ego the Living Planet, with whom Yondu made a deal. The Asgardians of the Galaxy stumbled into the Ravagers shortly before the Raiders caught up with them.^[7] Both teams worked together to repel the Raiders, and parted ways; the Ravagers remained on Ego while the Asgardians continued their way.^[8]

• The Prime version of Yondu is based on his appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than his original version from Earth-691. He is modelled after his MCU counterpart's actor, Michael Rooker.