Starc is the highest wicket collector in the current Ashes series with 26 dismissals at an impressive average of 17.42.
The English team's Mitchell problem goes back a long time.
This trend commenced with the sheer pace of Mitchell Johnson in 2013, and has continued through the skillful left-arm bowling of Starc.
In the seventh Ashes series of his career, Starc has claimed 26 crucial wickets - stepping up in the absence of pace colleagues sometimes more highly rated.
Another four wickets in the fifth Test in Sydney and his haul will be the best by anyone in an Ashes series since Johnson over a decade ago.
How 'Toughening Up' Led To Many Summers of Starc
The Summer of Starc - the 35-year-old has also outscored three of England's specialist batsmen with the bat - is the high point of a Test career founded on longevity, wicket-taking skill and a desire to adapt.
Over the past recent period he has moved ahead of Curtly Ambrose, Harbhajan Singh, Shaun Pollock and, most significantly, the great Wasim Akram on the all-time Test wicket-takers' list.
By surpassing Wasim, Starc became the most successful left-arm fast bowler in Test history.
And when he plays at his home venue for the fifth Test this week, it will be the 27th straight Australia Test in a row in which he has featured - a wider run of four Tests missed from the past 56.
The days of a young Starc being told to "toughen up" by then Australia coach Tim Nielsen are a distant memory.
"Back then it might have affected him a little bit and that is likely the role to test competitors and to try and get them to be more robust than they have been in the past," the former coach stated.
"It was probably one of the talks you have with a lot of rookie quicks, especially when they start to break into international cricket.
"It happened a couple of times where he said he was a bit uncomfortable and might need a spell.
"The message was simple than 'I think it's time we have got to test how much your body can take before it breaks rather than pulling up in case it breaks.'"
Why Is Starc So Hard to Face?
Such is the change, the national team's coach Andrew McDonald has discussed the idea of Starc, the oldest of the world-class pace trio, playing in England for the next Ashes series in England, by which time he will be 37.
Ray Lindwall, who played his final Test in 1960, was the last Australian quick to wear a baggy green beyond his 37th birthday.
Doing so would give Starc the chance to follow cricket's 500-wicket club and become only the fifth fast bowler to take 500 Test wickets.
Longevity can get you so far. To join that club, you must be a constant danger too.
"The strange thing, even though he is so brilliant, is that at the top of his mark you can discern what he is planning to bowl," says former England batter Dawid Malan.
"You still have to be able to counter it but you can see when he is preparing a seam delivery, see when he is trying to swing it."
Periodically in Starc's career when he has been faulted for being expensive, something with which he has said he has come to terms.
That weakness is massively outweighed by his proven capacity to take wickets.
Of the elite bowlers to have taken more than 350 wickets in Tests, only South Africa's Dale Steyn and Pakistan's Waqar Younis have done so with a better strike rate than that of Starc.
He may go for runs, but the mean number of balls he needs to take a wicket is remarkably low.
"What I found tricky is I always felt like I was settled against him," Malan says.
"I felt I was picking up the ball easily because he has such a fluid action, you can track the delivery and there are good pitches in Australia but every so often he'd bowl an perfect ball and you would just be walking back.
"At other times, I wouldn't say you relax but you think 'I'm in control.'
"He might deliver a poor ball because he has searched for something, bowl a cut ball and then abruptly bowls a ball that starts on middle and takes my off pole.
"He consistently possesses that match-winning delivery. If you don't treat every ball seriously each and every delivery he just finds a way of taking your wicket."
A New Peak Built On Innovation
While he may not reach the 99mph heights of his early career these days, Starc's average pace has remained solidly above 87 miles per hour throughout the later stages of his career.
An skill he held from the very start shows no indication of declining.
"His height was notable, very tall, and had exceptional pace through the air which stood out," Nielsen recalled.
"He could also move the ball back into the right-handed batsman."
Moving the ball in the air and crashing into the toes, pads or grille was, like Johnson, Wasim before him, Starc's main approach during the early years of his career.
But, after being dropped during the 2019 Ashes tour, Starc added the wobble seam ball to his skill set by the time he came back to England in 2023.
No bowler in the world has taken as many as Starc's 118 Test wickets since the start of that 2023 tour. Even India superstar Jasprit Bumrah is behind by twelve wickets.
The wobble seam delivery has been a major factor.
"Starc just shows you can teach an old job new tricks," says former Australia pace bowler Jason Gillespie.
"He studied a lot of England's veteran seamers and spoke to them about it.
"For an athlete aged his mid-thirties to stride and get better is remarkable."
The wobble seam ball has brought greater mystery to Starc's game.
When delivering the ball with a wobbling seam rather than looking to swing it, some deliveries jag unpredictably off the surface after pitching. Others will hold its line and find the edge of the bat.
Zak Crawley and Joe Root both fell to Starc wobble seam deliveries in the first session of the current Ashes.
Starc's number of dismissals caught in the slips has risen by almost 10% in the past three years.
"The crucial element to the wobble seam is to have your fingers and wrist right behind the ball and let go of the ball off your fingertips," Gillespie explains.
"For this delivery Mitchell Starc will hold the ball with the seam positioned towards gully.
"If you release it at the right time it will wobble its way down the pitch and that generates uncertainty for the batter.
"He has been working hard at perfecting this because he feels that the wobble ball going across brings the keeper and slips into play and makes his in-swinging delivery to the right hander more of a surprise."
England's torment by Mitchells may continue for some time yet.
