Solovar

Solovar
Solovar from Crisis on Infinite Earths #1 by George Pérez
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	The Flash (vol. 1) #106 (April–May 1959)
Created by	John Broome (writer) Carmine Infantino (artist)
In-story information
Full name	Solovar
Species	Gorilla
Team affiliations	Gorilla City Black Lantern Corps
Supporting character of	Flash

Solovar is a fictional 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 the Flash.

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

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 (playing dumb to keep his identity and origin secret), 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 helped 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 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. (The manipulators are themselves manipulated by Gorilla Grodd).