Just Call Him Mr. Sunshine

Can YOU

Name This Marvel Villain??

In his first appearance, this guy was beaten in one issue--and I doubt he told any of his prison buddies how he was beaten, because they all would have doubled over in laughter:

 
Given that Solarr derived his deadly power from direct exposure to sunlight, you might say that he was "primed" for this kind of defeat.  Heh heh.

To be fair to Solarr, he was just a super-powered distraction for moving forward with another story that writer Steve Englehart wanted to give equal time to--the growing rift between Captain America and his partner, the Falcon, due to Cap gaining super-strength and thereby outclassing the Falcon in subsequent battles with their opponents.  And as Cap skillfully outmaneuvers Solarr in this fight, Falc finally confronts that realization:

After his appearance here, Solarr was pretty much one of the Marvel rent-a-villains, plugged in as the villain where needed. But though deadly, and as sadistic as they come, Solarr never really rose beyond a second-rate (and short-lived) criminal career.

Solarr's origin has been back-peddled a little over time. I've read where he was found to be a mutant, which I had to smile at. When he was created, it was in the days when mutants hadn't yet become any sort of issue--there was no "mutant population" at all. So his origin was done the old-fashioned, uncomplicated way--he got his powers through a chain of events. And voilà, the end result was the friendly guy you see above.