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    Solem Origin – This Natural Killer, Manly & Womanizer Villain Makes Wolverine Look Like Boy Scout

    In the X of Swords crossover Marvel event, which began in the year 2020, audiences were first exposed to a mutant named Solem. When Solem was first introduced, he was immediately compared to Wolverine, yet he was not a hero. He is introduced as a sword-bearer from a cruel universe named Arakko in the crossover, and he was quite a match for the much-loved Wolverine, demonstrating his amazing fighting abilities throughout his appearances.

    Despite the fact that this villain is a relatively new addition to the Marvel Universe, he has made an impact thanks to his varied powers, abilities, and skills. Today, we will look at Solem’s rise to power, as well as his personality, powers, and most notable comic book appearances. Marvel clearly refuses to be left behind when it comes to high-quality, complicated adversaries!

    The Rise Of Solem

    The Rise Of Solem

    He was created by Benjamin Percy and Viktor Bogdanovic, who first appeared in Wolverine v7 #6, which was released in October 2020.

    Solem’s story is filled with hardships ever since he was born in Arakko. He was a mutant with adamantium skin so he stuck out like a sore thumb. However, sadly when he was quite young, his village got raided by pirates. The raid was conducted by Sevyr Blackmore, a mutant who was notorious for being a ruthless pirate and crime lord from Arakko, otherwise referred to as the dark dimension. After the raid was complete, Sevyr took an interest in the young mutant seeing his shiny skin, and took him in despite the fact that he had killed most of Solem’s family and friends.

    He kept Solem imprisoned but the cages and chains were not enough to contain him and seeing this, Sevyr decided to train young Solem in the art of war and weaponry. However, being a victim of his circumstances, all Solem knew was violence and betrayal and thus, he too betrayed Sevyr, sliced his nose off, stole his ship and absconded. This was payback for killing his family all those years ago.

    However, his streak of violence was not about to stop there. After gaining his freedom, he kept getting into fights and altercations. About a hundred years ago, he was challenged to a fight by a mutant man who lived in Arakko, named Bracken and inevitably due to his superior skills, Solem won the fight, leaving his wife, War, widowed.

    Solem was then locked up in the Tower of Broken Will’s pit as punishment for the murder of Bracken. It was at this time that Bracken’s Hellblade was given to Solem by Bracken’s wife, War who had hoped that the solitude would drive him insane and that he would kill himself with it. Solem, on the other hand, was unfazed, as he relished the solitude, and other Arakki (the people of Arakko) who still loved and admired him paid him visits and brought him gifts as he stayed there for many years, leaving him wanting for nothing.

    However, all was not to be well and Arraki forces besieged Otherworld which is a pocket dimension whose people are responsible for guarding the intersection between all realities and happens to be adjacent to Earth. The Arakki forces attempted to claim it during this time, only to be interrupted by Saturnyne, an Omniversal Majestrix charged with the safekeeping of the entire Omniverse which refers to an infinity of parallel universes. She is notoriously known for being manipulative and deceitful and sticking to her fickle nature, she suggested a battle between Arakko and the Mutants of Krakoa, a mutant nation which was a seat of major mutant power, to settle things.

    Ten champions were chosen from each realm, brandishing swords, and one of the chosen Swordbreakers of Arakko was Solem. He had thus been chosen to fight for his home planet. War and her sister, Pestilence were forced to break Solem out in order to win Saturnyne’s Ten of Swords challenge because he was one of the chosen individuals. After his release, he was told that he would need a sword, so he showed the hellblade he’d been given, but he was told that the game required a proper and specific sword, and he had only three days to find one named Muramasa, made by the immortal madman named Muramasa who’s swordsmanship was stuff of legends along with the fact that he was an excellent swordsmith.

    He easily escaped the pit and made his way out to find the prophesied sword, saying that he would catch up with the others of his team in the tournament itself. This set him on the journey that he is today best known for – the quest for Muramasa during which he encounters Wolverine and his subsequent battles in the contest.

    The Dreaded Villain Has A Charming Personality

    The Dreaded Villain Has A Charming Personality

    Solem was said to favor the more nuanced approach in war, despite being physically capable of defeating the best of men. Solem’s charm was said to be so strong that he could apparently make a mountain fall in love with him. Both men and women lusted after him, but they also wanted to tear him to pieces, this was his dichotomy. He indulged in this yearning to the point of overindulgence, but keep in mind, that those who attempted to harm him were retaliated against in heavy measure.

    Despite being labeled as evil, his self-proclaimed agenda was pleasure and gamesmanship. He had no commitment except to himself, and he could always be found in places where there was music, flesh, wine, and occasionally blood. It was said that because he developed such dangerous appetites, he ended up drawing the wrath of many others.

    Despite the fact that he deemed himself to be a kind-hearted poet, he was still a murderer. As a result, rather than allowing his inferiors to defeat him, he brutally slaughtered them in challenges. No tight prison or insane amounts of chains could hold him and according to legend, he always managed to get away from tight situations and spaces, even as a child. Blackmore had previously stated that Solem would rather float right through a person’s fingers than take a punch.

    As a result, he was perfectly prepared to lose a firearm rather than risk being captured by a foe. War had thought that while incarcerated, he would either die of despair or be humbled by the experience. He, on the other hand, never felt such emotions and was perfectly content in his cell. Thus, all of this goes to show that Solem had a wickedly charming personality that made it even more unbearable for the people that lost duels to him or held grudges against him because he was so charming and smug and, in many ways, extremely cunning and intelligent.

    A poet and an assassin – quite the combination it seems! No wonder the ladies and all the menfolk were all swooning over him!

    Solem’s most important story arc

    Solem's most important story arc

    His most crucial story arc is his pivotal role in X of Swords. He went out to find the prophesied sword because he was chosen as one of the 10 swordbearers and thus let free by War. He thus set out on his quest, beginning on the Blind Island in search of the Oracle of Arakko who was a seer that supposedly would be able to show him the path. He sought information from the seer on where to locate the Muramasa blade and in true Solem fashion, he paid for the information with the decapitated head of the seer’s sister, who had exiled her to the island.

    She told him that the goal of his quest was to find a Mutant made of metal who would function as his guide in Hell, which he could gain entry to with his hell blade. He then discovered the prison cells where his Krakoan equivalent, the Mutant named Wolverine, was being held thus marking their fateful encounter.

    They worked together to obtain Muramasa the swordsmith’s blades, which had been sent to Hell, tasked with the duty of serving the Hand after they had fully integrated with their malevolent Beastmaster. Muramasa introduced his newly crafted swords from the Hell Forge at an infernal marriage officiated by a demon to the two Mutants. In order to collect the blades, both Solem and Wolverine fought the Hand.

    It was during this battle that Solem’s skin was grazed by the sword, drawing blood and a terrible realization dawned upon him – the Muramasa weapons could cut through his Adamantium skin. Hence, the sword became one of his biggest weaknesses.

    Wolverine came under attack during this time by the demon and the demon snatched him up for meddling with the unholy wedding but Solem saved him and even gave him the other Muramasa sword as they prepared to fight. This is an important moment since saving Wolverine’s life earned him a favor from the X-Man. He said “When I call for you, you will fight for me” and Logan sealed this vow.

    Then came the all-important tournament itself. He was a member of the Arakki envoy at the grand tournament that was held in the Otherworld. During this time, a number of battles took place between the Krakoan swordbearers and the Arakki Swordbreakers. War’s intense animosity with Solem at the time, due to the loss of her husband, led her to challenge her own team member in order to exact revenge.

    Solem was thus pitted against her on the battlefield. However, he was not one to falter in tough circumstances. Remember how we had talked about how cunning and intelligent he was? Well, he asked Saturnyne who was overseeing the contest, to teleport Wolverine to the battlefield to take his place. Once Logan arrived, he asked Logan to fight in his place, making use of the favor Logan owed him, back when he had saved Logan.

    As a result, Wolverine was made to fight War while inebriated from celebrating his victory over the Summoner, whom he had killed and who incidentally was also the war’s son. Solem used this knowledge to divert War’s focus away from Wolverine, who was furious at her son’s death at the hands of Wolverine. Thus, Wolverine fights War and ultimately wins the battle, winning a point for Solem and the Arakko fighters.

    What Makes Him So Dangerous?

    What Makes Him So Dangerous

    His skin was Adamantium-enforced, with micro-fibrous versions of chainmail encircling his entire body. This made him invulnerable to the effects of edged weapons and blades. This meant one very important thing – Wolverine’s claws have no effect on him, as is seen in their first hostile encounter. As he tried to attack, Wolverine’s claws merely slashed against him, doing no damage at all. Solem revealed that his skin was adamantium-enforced, making him nearly impenetrable, with a playful smirk across his face.

    He refers to it as a “micro-fibrous version of chainmail” while describing it to Logan, implying that it wasn’t a natural part of his body. Wolverine’s strike did not even cut through Solem’s shirt, implying that it was more of armor than a mutation — albeit a mutation that carried great power. The magically created Muramasa blades, on the other hand, were a weapon capable of piercing through his skin and injuring him.

    He was also coached in the functioning of a ship as part of Sevyr Blackmore’s crew before having to learn to be an assassin, where he was a crook, a smuggler, and a raider. He was given the Hellblade of War’s husband, who had been killed by Solem, over a century ago. War had hoped that he would use it to commit suicide while incarcerated. But, he kept it hidden because he didn’t want to damn himself, and he never felt desperate enough to use it. The blade was said to send anyone who was struck by it straight to Hell, and it could also be used as a key to access an entrance to Hell – an immense power.

    Solem has proved that he could be as destructive as any of the original First Horsemen, thanks to his proven combat skills. In fact, his armor and weaponry may be able to put Wolverine in a vulnerable position in battle, as his claws are useless against him, leaving the two to fight with their Muramasa Blades.

    But, with the Hellblade at his disposal, Solem might even be able to get out of the fight unscathed if things get out of hand. Solem has quickly established himself as a very real and very dangerous threat among all the Swordbearers of Arrako that were already introduced by the time he came around.

    As we come to the end of the video, it is important to note that Solem was only a small child when he was kidnapped by Sevyr Blackmore, who had come to recruit him into his crew after realising that Solem was special. During that time, he watched him mature into an accomplished warrior and assumed the role of Solem’s tutor for the same. He later discovered, however, that he had been duped by the boy he had taken under his wing for quite some time.

    In the end, Sevyr couldn’t tell if he had created the evil in Solem or if he had simply released what was already present in him as a child. However, he did grow up to be an excellent warrior who is strong enough to pose a threat to some of the strongest mutants in the Marvel Universe. What do you think about Solem? Was he a victim of his circumstances? Let us know in the comments section below!

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