Solovar


Solovar is a fictional superhero character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Solovar is a sentient gorilla and the progressive leader of a race of gorillas that first appeared as supporting characters of Flash.
Solovar made his live appearance on the third season of The Flash voiced by Keith David and portrayed in CGI. The character returned in the sixth season.

Publication history

Solovar first appeared in Flash #106 and was created by John Broome and Carmine Infantino.

Fictional character biography

For many years, Solovar is the leader of Gorilla City, a hidden city of hyper-intelligent gorillas. Renowned for his wisdom and psychic powers, he is virtually unchallenged, except by the villainous Gorilla Grodd. This rivalry is so great that, after Solovar is captured by humans, Grodd follows him to Central City to learn the secrets of Solovar's force-of-mind powers. He succeeds in this, but the Flash captures him after Solovar escapes and tells the Flash of Grodd.
The Flash helped the gorilla leader escape and became the first human to learn of the city's existence, and its location. This leads to a rivalry between Grodd and the Flash, as well as an alliance between the Flash and Solovar. Flash has helped to defeat Grodd many times.
Under Solovar's guidance, Gorilla City is a technological utopia. Eventually, he decides his people can no longer use their science to hide from the human world. Believing that the world's ecological and political problems cannot be solved by ignoring them, he opens his city's borders to the world and asks for membership in the United Nations. He advocates peace — among the gorillas and with humans — and is behind two diplomatic overtures to the human world. The second tour of the U.S., sadly, is cut short by his assassination by a lethal car bomb. While a mysterious group calling itself the Human Supremacy Movement takes credit for the act, it is quickly made clear to the reader that Solovar's assassination at the hands of human racists is in fact a ruse concocted by the Simian Scarlet, a group of gorillas within Gorilla City seeking to overthrow the ruling council.
Solovar is briefly succeeded by his nephew, Ulgo. With tensions between humans and gorillas rising, the JLA is invited to Gorilla City to assist in a diplomatic mission, only to fall victim to an ambush. In the heat of battle, the gorilla army tests its new weapon on the heroes, a "gorillabomb" that transforms humans into gorillas. While the JLA retreat to their moonbase to find a cure, Prince Ulgo appears before the United Nations to formally declare war on the human race.
However, he promises, there will be no bloodshed in the battle, and he makes his point by detonating a gorillabomb in the auditorium. With the entire UN assembly transformed both mentally and physically into gorillas, the JLA act swiftly to minimize damage and loss of life. Alas, saving the delegates uses up their only chance to change back into humans, and so our transformed heroes must remain in their simian forms until they can find another way to return to normal.
Not that they are allowed much time to do this; as the Martian Manhunter telepathically learns, the gorillas are strategically targeting several places around the globe, including Themyscira, Atlantis, Central City, Blüdhaven, Metropolis, and low Earth orbit. The heroes split up and set out to neutralize the gorilla army, end the human-gorilla war, and find a way to return to normal.
Once the JLA have achieved their goals, Ulgo is later succeeded by Solovar's son, Nnamdi.
During the Blackest Night, Barry Allen raced to Gorilla City to seek aid from Solovar, not knowing of his death. Finding the city ravaged, Allen assumed Grodd had attacked, only to discover Solovar had been reanimated as a Black Lantern. Barry managed to temporarily stop him by dragging his corpse through the air at superspeed while leaving it outside the protective aura his body generated when he took passengers, reducing Solovar's Black Lantern self to dust when he could not cope with the friction that he was being subjected to.

''The New 52''

Solovar, in the new universe, is the founder and first ruler of Gorilla City, regarded as the Forefather of his species. He, his herd and his family had been around during the apex of the Mayan civilization just moments before its abrupt destruction by a metaphysical force. As the Speed Force destroyed the ancient culture in a blare of lightning, that same bolt of energy struck him and a few other apes within the vicinity, creating the first few in a new generation of superintelligent gorillas who would come to found the hidden nation of Gorilla City.

Powers and abilities

Solovar possesses similar physical and mental abilities akin to Gorilla Grodd stemming from the same meteorite that evolved them and the rest of their brethren. Though not as significantly developed as his evil counterpart, Solovar is a gifted mentalist in his own right. As well as an able bodied political activist being king of his own highly advanced civilization and an accomplished diplomat with savvy knowledge of world affairs. Other than that, Solovar like all apes of gorilla city, boasts an accomplished intellect knowing the workarounds of all his nations advanced science and technology. Being a contributing pioneer to its development himself. He also boasts the augmented physical abilities of all Super Apes of his homeland, he also has vastly augmented physical abilities.
During the events of the Blackest Night the deceased king Solovar is reanimated by a Black Power Ring and gifted with all the abilities that come with being a Black Lantern, such as accelerated regeneration, emotional reading and consumption by removing the hearts of the living, simulation of old powers from his previous life and the typical functions allotted by a Power Ring.
Within the DCnU reboot, Solovar was the first among his lineage of apes touched by The Light. Solovar naturally possesses a greater physical and mental constitution greater than humans and most of his fellow apes.

Other versions

Flashpoint

In the Flashpoint reality, Solovar was the original ruler of Gorilla City until he was overthrown by Gorilla Grodd.

Young Justice tie-in comics

Solovar appears in Young Justice #18 "Monkey Business" and #19 "Gorilla Warfare". Solovar lead a troop of gorillas in Bwunda. He and his mate Boka had a son, Nnamdi. In 2008, he, along with most of his troop, was captured by the Brain and Ultra-Humanite. The adult gorillas were surgically enhanced to increase their intelligence. They also received telepathic abilities as a side-effect, a fact they kept secret from their captors. The troop's children were held hostage, forcing the adults to serve their captors at Gorilla City. They were later given Kobra-Venom injections. At Ultra-Humanite's command, Solovar, Gorilla Grodd and several Kobra-Venom enhanced gorillas ambushed the Team and Wolf. They seized the Team and gave them inhibitor collars. They did not catch Miss Martian, or Wolf. Solovar and Grodd brought them to Brain. Via handsigns, he informed Ultra-Humanite and Brain that they could not find Miss Martian. Brain gave them infrared goggles to search for her. Solovar and Grodd found Miss Martian as she woke up, and Grodd demanded her help. Solovar, Grodd, Boka and Primat held a telepathic conference with Miss Martian, during which they explained the history of their troop and Gorilla City, and asked for her team's help to liberate them. Solovar decided to trust M'gann despite her not being the Team's leader as the gorillas had assumed. They returned Miss Martian to the physical world, reuniting her with Wolf. Later, Solovar telepathically sent Grodd confirmation that Miss Martian had rescued the gorilla children. When Robin escaped from captivity in the main hut, Grodd wanted to kill him to prevent him disrupting the gorillas' plan, but Solovar instructed him to adapt instead. Solovar arrived at the main hut after the Brain called for reinforcements against the now free Team, along with Malavar, Djuba, a number of Shadow guards and Miss Martian, who pretended to be his unconscious prisoner. The Team and the gorillas then attacked their captors; Solovar disarmed Monsieur Mallah, and chided Superboy for calling the gorillas monkeys. Facing defeat, the Brain activated the base's self-destruct system, and Gorilla City was swiftly evacuated. Solovar happily reunited with his mate and son at the gorilla's safe haven, reporting that everyone had escaped the city safely. He thought the troop might build its own Gorilla City.

Scooby-Doo Team-Up

Solovar appears in the Scooby-Doo Team-Up story titled "The Ghost of Gorilla City." He helps Mystery Inc. by helping them escape from the zombies and deal with Ghost-rilla.

Injustice 2 tie-in

Within the Injustice universe, King Solovar is the kind yet ruthless leader of his society of super apes who, much like Grodd, all share a bitter enmity towards humankind. He sought aid in the international eco-terrorist and master of the League of Assassins, Ra's al Ghul and his family. The two would worked on a means of pruning the population of the human race to a more manageable size via the works of Professor Anthony Ivo.

In other media

Television