Classification: Extradimensional (Microverse) solar-powered weapon-platform

Creator: DeGrayde

User/Possessors: Baron Karza

First Appearance: Micronauts I#52 (May, 1983)

Powers/Abilities/Functions: The Sunscope was a massively powerful weapon of destruction that was essentially a highly focused lens. It required the sun's rays to launch a catastrophic searing heat ray that could boil very large bodies of water very quickly, and would burn land and people. When not in use, it was polarized to prevent any unnecessary and unauthorized damage. When first utilized, it was mounted on a hovering platform with three elongated arms. With an upgrade in destructive power, the weapon required greater stability and had to be mounted on a fixed platform. The lens was now larger, although its diameter remained difficult to gauge - probably around 40'+. However, the machinery housing the energy was very lightly protected and, once damaged, led to the weapon's destruction.

    It had several platforms that included interstellar communications devices and appeared to require very few people to operate it.

History:
(Micronauts I#52 - BTS) - In an effort to quell dissent, Baron Karza moved his latest weapon, the Sunscope, to Oceania to use against the merpeople.

(Micronauts I#52) - Oceania's ruler, Aquon, defied Baron Karza, but the tyrant was not interested in hearing him. Instead, Karza ordered his chief scientist, DeGrayde, to focus the solar lens of the Sunscope upon the waters where the merpeople had gathered with their leviathans. The weapon was activated and the seas rapidly churned and boiled. The merpeople could no longer breathe as steam scalded their gills. As they died in the face of the merciless and ruthless Baron Karza, who stood out of the way on the hovering platform watching the genocide take place, the water evaporated and the coral cities built by the merhumans also crumbled away. The animals they lived with, like the fish, their dolphin steeds and leviathans also perished.

    Once the water had been burnt away, leaving only a desert, Karza ordered DeGrayde to polarize the solar lens, and they then left on the hovering platform to the First Zone. Watching him leave was Lady Coral, Aquon's sister, who had decided not to be turned into a merhuman some time before. This allowed her stay away from the genocide machine's destructive ray. She then swore to have vengeance upon Baron Karza.

    As the Sunscope carried Baron Karza and DeGrayde to First Zone, DeGrayde warned the despot that he would still need troops to reconquer the Microverse, that the Body Banks would still need bodies to stock them. DeGrayde also wanted bodies to experiment upon. However, Baron Karza showed no remorse, stating that his past mistake was to let any of Homeworld's rebellious races live, and that he had done this to eliminate resistance.

(Micronauts I#57 - BTS) - Baron Karza decided to make an example of one the Microverse's worlds, a place larger than one of Homeworld's molecular zones, and targeted Never-Summer, a world of winter and snow. He ordered DeGrayde to upgrade the Sunscope for use against the planet, to immolate the world. With the upgrade in destructive capability, DeGrayde removed the Sunscope's hover platform and mounted it on specially devised structure on one of Never-Summer's highest peaks above the clouds where the sun still shone.

(Micronauts I#57) - Baron Karza inspected the modifications to the Sunscope with DeGrayde. On the platform of the Sunscope, he briefly spoke to Little D from Prisonworld, an Elder and Lyca (the Queen of Kaliklak), and demanded their voluntary surrender lest their worlds share a similar fate. Karza was then distracted by Captain D'ark, one of his dog soldier recruits, who informed him that the Micronauts now knew of the weapon and his plans. Karza dismissed the threat as he had his battle fleet in the skies, innumerable dog soldiers in the snow, plus assorted weaponry like sentry drones and serpent-tanks in the nearby snow to defend the Sunscope.

    Nevertheless, the Micronauts did indeed launch an attack from the snow-covered lands below. As they distracted Karza's forces, a native of Never-Summer from the Wolverine tribe called Ojeeg clambered aboard the Sunscope. Ojeeg initially thought Karza to be an ice god, until he realized far sinister motivations from the tyrant. The Micronauts, meanwhile, had been unable to reach the Sunscope, when Karza initiated Never-Summer's destruction. Drawing his primitive axe, Ojeeg was instead brutally cut down by Karza, who was armed and armored at a greatly superior level. Karza picked up Ojeeg and threw him onto the Sunscope's disk, cracking it, but not stopping its searing rays that burnt land and people. Unfortunately, Karza's indiscriminate slaughter included his own soldiers, who then fled the solar fury of the Sunscope. Karza was then attacked by the Micronaut team of Acroyear, Arctarus Rann, Bug and Huntarr.

    Meanwhile, Ojeeg recovered and decided that winter was better than death, that his quest for summer had been undermined by an evil ice-god (Karza). Yelling his battle-cry, Ojeeg then leapt from the disk onto the delicate machinery that powered the Sunscope, resulting in a powerful explosion that destroyed the solar weapon, but also killed the Wolverine tribesman. His plan undone, Karza phased away and the Micronauts then saw that the Sunscope had cleared the clouds from Never-Summer, returning sunshine to the lands.

Comments: Created by Bill Mantlo (writer), Butch Guice (pencils) & Danny Bulanadi (inks)

    The Sunscope was initially called a Solar Lens in Micronauts I#52.

    Oceania's destruction was not a lesson against any resistance; Baron Karza wanted to destroy the merhumans. However, Never-Summer was meant to be the lesson for the rest of the Microverse.

    Page 20 of Micronauts I#57 lists the weapon's prior appearance as #51, but it was actually #52.

Profile by Grendel Prime

Clarifications:
The Sunscope has no known connections to:

images:
Micronauts I#57, p20, panel 1 (main)