Apollo (bio)This is a featured page

Apollo sketch by Casey Jones
Real Name: unknown
First Appearance: StormWatch Vol 2 #4
Affiliation: The Authority

Former Affiliation: StormWatch


Vital Stats
Species: Human/SPB
Height: unknown
Weight: unknown
Date of Birth: unknown
Birthplace: United States
Known Family:
Powers/Abilities:
Apollo is the most powerful superhuman ever created. Henry Bendix created all of the artificial enhancements that give Apollo his powers. His body can store solar energy. His eyes have the ability to laze.


He can fly and possesses superhuman strength and invulnerability. He can exists in space, so long as he doesn't breathe. However, if he doesn't have regular exposure to the sun, his energy reserves deplete and he becomes severely weakened and vulnerable to harm.


Apollo is listed as a "Majestic-class" superhuman.



SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT
Bio:
StormWatch
Apollo was a former U.S. soldier and the leader of a black ops Stormwatch team so secret that no-one but the first Weatherman, Henry Bendix, knew of its existence. Apollo was a normal human, bio-engineered by Bendix to have fantastic abilities including super-strength, heat vision, and a high degree of invulnerability. Apollo derives his power from solar energy, and becomes vulnerable to attack when that energy is depleted. Of the seven-member team, only Apollo and The Midnighter, Apollo's future husband, survived. Due to circumstances surrounding the mission, they went rogue and spent the next five years undercover fighting for a finer world in the alleyways of America.


After Bendix's fall in 1998, Christine Trelane discovered files hinting at the existence of Apollo and The Midnighter. Jackson King, formerly Battalion, now the new Weatherman, ordered them found, not being sure if they were heroes or villains. Apollo and Midnighter were after weapons made in the "Nevada Garden", a leftover of the first Engineer. He ordered Fahrenheit and Hellstrike to tag them with fetishes so they could be transported into SkyWatch. Apollo and Midnighter first attacked the Stormwatch team, believing them under Bendix's orders. However, they ceased the attack once they were told Bendix was dead. With King's help, they destroyed the Nevada Garden, and Trelane gave them new lives away from Stormwatch.


The Authority

In 1999, Jenny Sparks convinced both Apollo and The Midnighter to come out of retirement to join a new team, dubbed The Authority. The Authority distinguished itself from other super-human teams in that it answered to no governing body or external authority, such as the UN. Rather, for the first time, these were super-humans fighting for a finer world on their own initiative.


On December 31, 1999, Jennifer Sparks died. Her spirit was reincarnated in an infant girl born the next day in Singapore. As soon as the child is identified a bloody battle breaks out between competing forces--including The Authority--for control of the child, code-named Jennifer Quantum. Apollo was severely beaten in the course of the battle. In one of the more controversial scenes in the Millar run it is implied the beating is followed by a rape at the hands of The Commander, a villain who is himself a Captain America pastiche (The Authority #14). The rape is followed by a scene of revenge in which it is implied that The Midnighter gores The Commander with a jackhammer.

Apollo and Midnighter were married and adopted Jenny at the end of Millar's run. From this point on, Apollo is referred to as The Midnighter's husband, and vice versa.

The Authority Vol 2
Apollo received comparatively little attention during this volume, although his friendship with the Engineer was developed and the two became confidants.

Human on the Inside
In this standalone graphic novel, the U.S. President ordered an assault on The Authority which saw them nearly defeated by doubts, depression, and human foibles. Each team member's weakness was exploited; in Apollo's case this appeared to be jealousy in his relationship with Midnighter, who confessed to Apollo that he had kissed another man. Apollo, enraged, hit Midnighter hard enough to knock him through several walls. This scene remains the only canonical indication of violence between the two.

Coup D'Etat & Revolution

In Coup D'Etat, Apollo and Midnighter are sent to raid the base of Stormwatch: Team Achilles, but they find it booby-trapped. After narrowly escaping with their lives, their next mission is to eliminate the US military's super-human training camp. Midnighter returns with the declaration that the program was "Not so special."


In Authority: Revolution, The Midnighter receives a revelation about the future which compels him to leave The Authority, permanently. He leaves Apollo and Jenny Quantum without an explanation and returns to the underground. Following a humiliating nuclear incident in Washington, DC, Jack Hawksmoor
resigns as President of the US and announces elections. The Authority disbands. From 2005 to 2008, Apollo raises Jenny alone in San Francisco, under the watchful eye of the US Government.

When Jenny is eight years old, a series of events propels her to take matters into her own hands and rebuild the team. She causes herself to jump in age to fourteen years, precipitating a verbal confrontation with her father, Apollo. With Apollo's support, she sets about to round up the surviving members of The Authority, including The Midnighter. In a painful moment between Jenny, Apollo, and Midnighter, Jenny tells Midnighter that she is "the product of a broken home."


In the battle that follows, Henry Bendix reveals that he has gained control over The Midnighter through a Trojan Horse strategy which delivered nanites into Midnighter's body. The Midnighter then fights Apollo and Jenny. Midnighter tells Apollo that he must kill him if he gets the chance, but Apollo refuses. Midnighter, with the aid of a device stolen from Dr. Krigstein's laboratory, defeats Apollo in battle, but Jenny is able to engage Midnighter long enough so that the Engineer can remove the mind-control implants and restore Midnighter.


Utopian
Along with the rest of the team he was trapped in an alternate dimension were there were no superheroes or any major power sources. While attempting to recharge flying overAfghanistanhe was shot down. Midnighter showed up attempted to defeat the soldiers responsible.

World's End
The 2008 Number of the Beast Wildstorm miniseries described the devastation of Earth, and set the scene for a new Authority ongoing series, World's End, by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. In this series Apollo is separated from Midnighter and the rest of the Authority when a thick layer of smog covers the Earth, preventing sunlight from reaching the surface. Apollo is forced to remain in the photosphere to absorb the radiation he needs to survive, visiting the surface only briefly to help the team. While on the surface environmental conditions sap his powers, giving him a gaunt appearance and limiting his ability to fight.

He's later infected by the Warhol Fever, a super power-inducing virus, that evolves and becomes sentient by incubating in his body. Claiming to be The Burn, the virus overrides his mind and attempts to escape into The Bleed. The Authority is forced to put Apollo in suspended animation, frozen and in an anaerobic room to keep the infection from speading.



Alternate Versions:
  • Alternative 838: In this gender-reversed universe, a female hero known as Aphrodite is a member of The Meritocracy
  • The Authoriteens: In Gen¹³ Volume 4 #11 (written by Gail Simone), a teenage version of Apollo is a part of a team called "The Authori-teens" named Kid Apollo. In the town of Tranquility, a fictional town in California. He and the teenage Midnighter, Daybreaker, would not appear to be out of the closet, although their romantic feelings for one another are still apparent.
  • DC Comics: In 2006-2007, DC Comics's year-long weekly limited series, 52, identified the Wildstorm Universe as part of the DC Multiverse. Apollo, along with other Authority characters, appeared in several DC Universe titles as part of the cross-over comics that followed, including in the 2007 series Countdown: Arena, where he is shown as the closest "Earth-50" (Wildstorm Universe) approximation of DC Comics (and formerly Quality Comics) character the Ray, who is a member of the Freedom Fighters, and as such is also a counterpart of several other alternate versions of the Ray. However, Apollo is also traditionally viewed as a Superman analogue.
  • Flowers for the Sun: A wandering swordsman who weeps for the men he is forced to kill in battle, set in a world very similar to Feudal Japan. He fell in love with this universe's version of Midnighter, but was killed when the couple were ambushed by assassins.
  • Pluto (WildStorm Winter Special): In Wildstorm Winter Special 2005, a story called Apollo & Midnighter: Two Dangerous Ideas features their alternate reality analogues, Pluto and Daylighter, with inverted color schemes to match. At first the real Apollo and Midnighter believed that they were their homophobic counterparts, but later learned that they were a former couple and had broken up.

Trivia
  • Apollo is named after the Greek god of the Sun.
  • Apollo is based off of the DC Comics character Superman, who also gets his powers from Earth's yellow sun.
  • Apollo is one of the few openly-gay characters in North American mainstream comics.

Appearances:
Sources:

Categories:

List of Authority CharactersList of StormWatch Vol 2 Characters


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