Gordanians are a fearsome race of intergalactic slavers created by Psions who originated from DC comics (as well as its adaptations such as Teen Titans and the DC Animated Universe) and are one of major antagonistic forces in DC universe. They are also enemies of the Thanagarians, another alien race hailing from Planet Thanagar.
Description
All iterations of Gordanians are depicted as green-skinned, humanoid alien brutes clad in armor (some of which has built-in jetpack for flight). Being cold-blooded creatures akin to Earth's reptiles, they thrive in environments with high humidity levels. As a race of fierce and strong fighters in addition of participating in slave trade, their entire society has been dedicated to the study of warfare. They also technologically advanced to the point of able to challenge other races in terms of interstellar warfare.
History
The fearsome Gordanians hailed from the Gordane continent on the planet Karna, Vega Star System, and known allies with the Citadel and the Warlords of Okaara. The people of Gordane were in charge of helping Citadelians collecting the tithe from the pacifists of Changralyn in form of a percentage of their newborns once per their mating season in exchange of protection from other would-be invaders. Such treaty was not always gone smoothly as one Changralynian, Charis-Nar, rebelled against it and slaughtered several Gordanians in a bid to protect his son. Gordanians' other allies include the rogue Tamaranean named Blackfire who had one of their fleet commanders, Trogaar, and his best warriors to capture her sister Starfire and kept her enslaved for over six years, an act which ironically led to the foundation of Teen Titans.
The Gordanians' infamy made them enemies of both Omega Men and later, Teen Titans. They, alongside the army of Branx, inhabitants of the planet Emana Branx that conscripted by Citadelians as part of their fighting forces, fought against the former's revolution movement against Citadel Empire and later, the anti-Citadel riots, and finally the forces of the anti-Citadel revolution. For a time, they managed to crush the rebellions until Omega Men managed to overthrow the Citadel Empire. During the New Citadel Wars a decade later, the Gordanians sided with Psions who equipped them with advanced weaponry, including 12 Class-9 Bloodstars that they used against a Tamaranean and even ravaged their homeworld. That was when Gordanians and Psions eventually made contact with Teen Titans who sided with Tamaranean survivors against their common adversaries. In the ensuing battle, the Psions and Gordanians were defeated.
A few years later, the surviving Tamaraneans invaded the Gordanians' homeworld while their army was elsewhere (and were soon assisted by the Teen Titans who had been manipulated by Starfire). Upon the arrival of the Gordanian army, the situation changed for them. Fortunately, the bloodshed between both warring factions ended with Tempest convincing the Gordanians to let the Tamaranean refugees settle on one of their continents and in exchange of assistance in improving their reputation across the cosmos.
Other Media
Teen Titans
The Gordanians appears as antagonistic force in 2003 show Teen Titans as well as its spin-off comics Teen Titans Go!.
Their only TV appearance was in "Go!", where they managed to capture an alien named Starfire. When Starfire escaped from their ship, their leader Trogaar sent them down to look for her. However, Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven had befriended her earlier and defended her, fighting off the Gordanians together. Trogaar was enraged at the interference and started to charge his particle weapon strong enough to demolish Jump City. The five heroes got on board and defeated all the Gordanians and Trogaar, and thus formed the Teen Titans and built Titans Tower out of the Gordanian ship.
Teen Titans' later conflicts were shown in the spin-off comic. In Issue #2 The Beast Boy Who Cried Wolf, a group of Gordanians were shown looking for dodo to no avail at the zoo until they spot their former captive Starfire bringing some pizza for Beast Boy. Unable to convince the rest of their teammates over Starfire's situations upon figuring out what's going on, Beast Boy morphs into a dodo to distract the Gordanians. A battle ensues which culminated to Starfire brought their enemies straight to the rest of the Titans' face by shooting one down and causing him to fell into the tower. With the rest of the Teen Titans members joined the fray, the Gordanians were forced to retreat.
After a small cameo in Issue #18 When Chibis Attack, the Gordanians returned in Issue #36 Troy, this time invading Earth and capturing female Titans for their master. This prompted Robin to call upon Wonder Girl for aid and along with Kid Flash, Aqualad, Beast Boy, and Speedy, they started to devise a plan to rescue the girls and Cyborg (who was likewise captured). Their plan ended up being: pretending to be captured and unleash a surprise attack (using the story of Troy). The Gordanian leader, who turned out to be Blackfire herself, wanted the female Titans for an experiment. Beast Boy snuck into the room holding the captive Titans and rescued them. With all the Titans reunited, the Gordanians surrendered and Blackfire, disgusted at their unreliability, was captured and thrown in jail. The Gordanians' final appearance is in Starfire's nightmare induced by Phobia in Issue #55 "When There's Trouble..."
DC Animated Universe
The Gordanians made appearance in three-partner season finale of Justice League, "Starcrossed", as false antagonists, and mentioned in "Hunter's Moon", episode 8 of the show's sequel, Justice League: Unlimited.
As shown in the former, the Gordanians had been painted by their mortal enemies, Thanagarians, as "the greatest evil in the universe", and both races waged war against one another for quite some time. Led by Hro Talak, the Thanagarians appeared on Earth to warn its populations, including Justice Leage, about the imminent Gordanian threat after one of their ships appeared during the conference at Washington DC and convinced them to build what supposed to be a force-field generator to protect the planet.
As Batman figured out later on, the Gordanians were attacking somewhere else and instead, the main threat came from Thanagarian forces, turns out the Thanagarians intended to build a wormhole bypass generators to teleport their fleet to the Gordanian homeworld at the cost of Earth's destruction. As a result, Justice League turned against Thanagarians shortly after they unveiled their true colors in a bid to save their home planet, forcing them to retreat. Even so, Justice League's actions also gave Gordanians a leverage during a strike on Thanagar, conquering the planet.
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