History
Karl Hansen is a Swedish superhero codenamed Sunburst. He is a member of StormWatch Prime and thus one of the veteran members of the StormWatch organization behind such teammates as Battalion, Nautika, Flashpoint and Backlash.
Although he is a senior member of Stormwatch, Sunburst was not introduced until Issue #6 of the first volume 1 of the series[1]. In a flashback narrated by Stormwatch member Diva. Sunburst's past history traced as far back as serving during the Desert Storm conflict. Back then, Sunburst served with his wife Nautika, Battalion, Flashpoint and Backlash. During their mission, Sunburst, Flashpoint and Nautika were all captured by Deathtrap. Held prisoners for years, Sunburst and his teammates were mistakenly left for dead, until Battalion received a lead about their whereabouts. After leading an unsanctioned rescue mission, Battalion retrieved the missing Stormwatch Prime members.
Sunburst and his teammates were designated as Stormwatch Prime, despite being the smallest unit (Stormwatch One had no less than 5 or 6 members. Stormwatch Two originally had 4 to 5 members). As their own team, they were still however left off active duty because of the uncertainty of their readiness to return to action after their imprisonment and torture. However, when a mass Daemonite assault across the globe occurred at many key landmark locations, Stormwatch resources were stretched to their limit, leaving Weatherman One with no choice but to send Stormwatch Prime into action to save the Vatican during an attack. Sunburst was in command of the 3-person team and they succeeded in saving the Vatican from a Daemonite bomb threat.[2] After the mission, the team was restored to active duty.
The team saw minor active duty assignment including repairing hull breaches on Skywatch after teammate Hellstrike in his comatose state aboard the space station, went nova. The team also retrieved new recruits Pagan and Undertow from the Stormwatch Training Center. However, Sunburst had suffered lingering effects from his imprisonment. Part of this was when he downloading top secret files via Skywatch systems and sent the data to Lord Defile[3]. The files contained the roster of members of the WildC.A.T.S. Eventually the two teams would meet during the course of the Wildstorm storyline. Nautika and Sunburst were secretly programmed by Lord Defile to act as his spies in Stormwatch. He broke the control over him and attacked Defile during their time in the Kherubium spaceship that Defile wanted so desperately. For his resistance, Sunburst was attacked by Nautika, on orders by Defile. This attack threw Sunburst through a glass casing, enclosing the ship's reactor, crippling Sunburst. Afterwards, WildC.A.T.s ex-teammate Grifter came and made a daring rescue of the two, fleeing the unstable ship before it was set to explode.
In the aftermath of the Wildstorm Crisis, Sunburst was placed in a coma until further notice. Nautika officially resigned from the team as she could not cope with the guilt of her actions unwittingly taken upon her husband.Attributes
Powers
- Energy Projection: Sunburst has solar powers. His body acts as a fusion reactor, enabling him to generate huge amounts of energy in the same manner as the sun. He can fire energy in the form of solar blasts.
- Flight
- Energy Absorption: Sunburst can absorb heat and flames and becomes stronger the more he is agitated.