"I knew when I blew my own dick off, that today was gonna be a bad day."
SOLARR (Silas King)
Created By: Steve Englehart & Sal Buscema
First Appearance: Captain America #160 (April 1973)
Role: Jobber Villain, Journeyman Villain
Group Affiliations: The Emissaries of Evil
PL 8 (73)
STRENGTH 2
STAMINA 3
AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 5
DEXTERITY 2
INTELLIGENCE 0
AWARENESS 0
PRESENCE 0
Skills:
Expertise (Criminal) 5 (+5)
Insight 3 (+3)
Perception 3 (+3)
Ranged Combat (Solar Stuff) 3 (+8)
Advantages:
Ranged Attack 3
Powers:
"Mutant Powers: Solar Absorption" (All Have Flaws: Limited to At Daytime)
"Set Aflame" Blast 4 (Extras: Secondary Effect, Perception-Ranged) (12) -- [17]
- AE: "Fiery Images" Create 1 (Feats: Precise) Linked to Heat Aura 2 (Extras: Ranged, Affects Others) (12)
- AE: Solar Blast 8 (8)
- AE: Dazzle Visuals 8 (Extras: Area- Visual Perception) (Flaws: Touch Range) (8)
- AE: "Melt Things" Weaken Toughness 8 (Extras: Ranged, Affects Objects Only +0) (8)
- AE: "Ride Heatwaves" Flight 4 (30 mph) (4)
"Solar Power Machine" (Flaws: Removable) [4]
Buys Off Flaws On Powers (4 points)
Offense:
Unarmed +5 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Solar Blast +8 (+8 Ranged Damage, DC 23)
Melt Things +8 (+8 Ranged Weaken, DC 18)
Set Flame -- (+4 Perception-Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +3
Defenses:
Dodge +8 (DC 18), Parry +7 (DC 17), Toughness +3, Fortitude +4, Will +4
Complications:
Motivation (Greed)- Silas was a drug-runner even BEFORE he gained powers.
Total: Abilities: 30 / Skills: 14--7 / Advantages: 3 / Powers: 21 / Defenses: 12 (73)
-Solarr is one of those guys who lives the perfect life of a "Journeyman Villain"- he appears in about ten comic books, and at almost no point does he ever encounter the same hero twice. I think Captain America is the only hero to do so. He's just one of those guys trotted out every couple of years for a one-off story until he's callously killed off.
-Silas King was a drug-runner who turned out to be a latent mutant when he was stranded in the Mojave Desert for several days- he ended up with the power to convert sunlight into Energy Blasts and stuff. It's stuff like THIS that lends credence to the old theory that Mutants didn't just gain "any" power- their mutations were often a manifestation of exactly what they needed or wanted at a certain moment (Sam Guthrie needed to escape a cave-in in Kentucky, and manifested a super-fast Blast Field that rocketed him free; Rahne Sinclair was taught she was a sinful child with a demon inside her, and manifested into a Wolfgirl who both reflected the evil she saw inside AND had the freedom she never enjoyed as a girl). In any case, an asshole with powers is still an asshole, and so Silas took the name "Solarr" and moved to New York and became a super-thief... which is a REALLY stupid idea, because THAT'S WHERE ALL THE HEROES LIVE. I mean, I know the reasons WHY all the stuff happens in NYC (so heroes can interact, and the villains will always have heroes around, duh), but having villains deliberately MOVE THERE seems extra-dumb.
-In Solarr's debut, he's just a one-off doofus who fights Captain America, and is beaten when Cap douses him with a fire hydrant. Solarr subsequently appears about once every couple years thereafter- he and Klaw hold hostages so that Wakanda will be signed over to Klaw's control in an Englehart
Avengers issue, but the Black Panther and other Avengers deduce the "executed" hostage was just Klaw in disguise and beat the villains. He joins Egghead's Emissaries of Evil in
The Defenders for an arc, harassing the heroes before ultimately being arrested.
-Solarr escapes prison at Project: Pegasus in a
Marvel Two-In-One issue, along with Klaw, but he's beaten by Quasar while Klaw loses to the Thing & Black Goliath. A couple years later, he breaks out and is beaten by Spider-Man & Daredevil in
Marvel Team-Up, and he's finally killed in a
Power Man & Iron Fist issue written by Christopher Priest- at Project: Pegasus, he breaks out during a power-outage caused by Bres of the Fomorians, and he is killed trying to torch the corpse of a guard he hated, which the god controls into lashing out at Solarr. So he dies in 1985, and his only other appearances are posthumous- a raised goon in
JLA/Avengers's massive group-battle, and as one of the Emissaries beaten by an early form of Alpha Flight led by Wolverine in a "Prequel" issue. So the guy is pretty much either "a dude on a team", teams up with Klaw twice, and is a one-off everywhere else- like I said, a CLASSIC Journeyman Villain.
-A classic Jobber Villain, Solarr challenged Captain America in his first appearance (doing clever things like melting the sidewalk beneath Cap, affecting his ability to move around), but was undone by a fire hydrant. In all of his other stories, he does okay at first, but is quickly defeated once things turn against him, often via his Daytime Flaw.