Broken Frontier

Creating a good supervillain is hard, perhaps harder than creating a good superhero. Not only must the individual be compelling in his or her own right, but also work within the hero's established mythology, complementing the protagonist and drawing out new aspects of him or her.

Grant Morrison is one of the few modern writers who has a great talent for adding new villains to the rogues gallery of old comic superheroes. His intense imagination combined with great insight into the genre has resulted in great new villains to bedevil classic figures. Cassandra Nova and the U-Men from New X-Men and Dr. Hurt and Professor Pyg from Batman and Robin are all terrific additions to their respective mythologies, but by far the grandest of Morrison's supervillain creations is his archenemy for Superman: Solaris, the Tyrant Sun.

Solaris first appeared in DC One Million and then again in All-Star Superman, both by Morrison. Solaris' shtick is so simple and so perfectly suited to Superman that is is almost startling no one had ever thought of it before: an artificial sun that develops sentience and egomania and seeks to corrupt our sun and replace it with himself. Like Lucifer, Solaris seeks to storm the gates of Heaven, cast down its champions, and rule from upon high as the new lord of all.

Superman is effectively a god, the guardian of Earth with almost incalculable power, and a god needs divine monsters to contend with. For the most part, Superman's rogue's gallery has lacked such demons, with the exception of the occasional imp played for laughs and the armies of Darkseid, who despite being a worthy foe in all other ways, is too tied to the Fourth World pantheon to ever be totally comfortable as part of Superman's own. However, in Solaris there is an awe-inspiring monster who is worthy of Superman to contend to, and whose purpose strikes at Superman's core of being.

Superman soaks up solar energy to perform all his super-feats. This links him to his foster home for he, like the Earth, gets his power from the sun, and Superman is the champion of all the beings that are the sun's children. Solaris seeks to overthrow that giver of life. There is no grander crime imaginable than to attempt to destroy the sun; Solaris seeks to consume everything that gives Superman power and purpose. Thus Solaris needs to be defeated, thus he is Superman's foe.

Thor has his Jormungandr, Ra his Apep, Indra his Vritra. A dark monster that seeks to devour everything they believe in and which they must exert every inch of their divine power to defeat. Now Superman has his Solaris. Solaris the Tyrant Sun.