Astro first appeared in January 1969 as a founding member of the Guardians of the Galaxy in the partial reprint title Marvel Super-Heroes with issue #18.
[2] The Guardians of the Galaxy debuted in the partial reprint title Marvel Super-Heroes with issue #18 (Jan. 1969), written by Drake and penciled by Gene Colan.
In each case, other heroes such as Captain America, the Thing, and the Defenders aid Astro and the Guardians against the alien Badoon.
This drew numerous queries from readers, and the letters page in Marvel Two-in-One #7 responded by stating that Vance feeds and defecates intravenously.
He remained a member through the series' cancellation with issue 25 (April 2010), but the team disbanded after The Thanos Imperative (Dec 2010).
Going into the U.S. Air Force at the age of 18, Astrovik (who changed his name to Astro when he was 21) became the youngest man to be accepted into the astronaut training program several years later.
His ship, Odysseus I, was not equipped for faster-than-light speed; hence the journey to Earth's nearest interstellar neighbor, a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, would take about 10 centuries.
There they escaped in the year 3007 A.D. and joined with two other survivors of Badoon's massacre, Charlie-27 and Martinex, to form the Guardians of the Galaxy, with himself as the leader.
[8] Years later, on a trip to the present-day Marvel Universe, Astro encountered his younger self and convinced him not to join the USAF.
The younger Vance Astrovik would later join the New Warriors, first as Marvel Boy, then as Justice, and eventually became a member of the Avengers for a short time.
After returning to his own time, Astro became involved with his teammate Aleta after she was freed from her physical merger with her ex-husband Starhawk.
Vance was healed by Krugarr, Doctor Strange's former apprentice and the current Sorcerer Supreme, and was freed from his containment suit.
[12] Vance is discovered encased in ice on the asteroid Hydronis by the new Guardians of the Galaxy team leader Star-Lord.
Astro confirms his identity to the band of aliens and later converses with Mantis at the Guardians' home base, Knowhere.
[17] He later breaks free with the other Guardians (excluding Phyla-Vell - apparently slain by the revived Thanos), reuniting with the other half of the team.
Vance's psionic powers can only be manifested as "psyche-blasts", focused psychokinetic blasts of explosive concussive force, which can disrupt the synapses in the minds of any living being they strike.
Over time, Vance has shown some marginal improvement of the control of his psychokinesis, such as generating small psionic pulses to slow the descent of falling people, or gentle psychic bursts to move objects forwards or backwards (all without inflicting any damage on the people or objects).