LGBT Character Of The Week: Apollo

We've already covered his husband, and now it's Apollo's turn.

Apollo, who also first appeared in volume 2, issue #4 of Stormwatch, can absorb solar energy and convert it into immense physical strength and speed, nigh-invulnerability, flight, and release concentrated blasts of laser-like heat vision through his eyes. He becomes vulnerable when this energy runs out, but seems to recharge rapidly in direct sunlight. He is one of the strongest heroes in the Wildstorm Universe, classified as a Majestic-class superhuman.

In one of the more controversial moments of Mark Millar's run, Apollo was soundly beaten by a villain named The Commander (a sort of evil Captain America type), and it is then implied that The Commander raped him. Of course, later, in a revenge sequence, it is implied that Midnighter did the same to The Commander, using a jackhammer. Ouch. Said Millar about the scenes, when asked about the controversy:

I'm delighted and fascinated by the response. And you know what? I'm not telling. I want you to draw your own conclusions on this one. I'm leaving this open. I wrote the scene (and subsequent follow-ups) to be ambiguous and, like all the best drama and horror, I want the reader to use his or her imagination and make up their own mind. What intrigues me about this is that we saw The Commander (again off-camera) rape two nurses last issue and Tank Man burn a maternity ward full of sleeping babies.

An awful lot of people were very disturbed by this (and this was my intention), but I certainly didn't write these scenes just for shock value. The emphasis on solving real world problems highlighted at the beginning of #13 was given a superhero twist here. Weren't rape-camps and burning babies some of the most shocking things we heard about from, for example, Kosovo. And isn't Kosovo, you might have noticed, where Earth's Premiere Super-team honed their skills (according to Tank Man in #14)?

Currently Apollo is still starring in the Authority with his husband, and helping to raise Jenny Quantum, obscenely powered teenager and Spirit of the 21st Century.

Sgt. Sausagepants
Posted to Comics on 1 February 2008 · Comments (2)
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