An incident against a monster dubbed the "Super Moby Dick of space" resulted in the loss of Lightning Lad's right arm, which was replaced with a bionic appendage. He eventually had his arm regrown, but in the interim a criminal scientist used the situation to hypnotize Lightning Lad into acting as the super-criminal Starfinger, who used the bionic arm as a weapon. After the Great Darkness Saga, his son was abducted by Darkseid and he was subsequently transformed into the monster Validus.