M is for... Marshal of Solos

Governor of the Earth dependency Solos in the 30th Century. His rule coincided with the final collapse of Earth's empire, and he was horrified to learn that Solos was to gain its independence.

The planet had an unusual atmosphere, in that it was poisonous to humans during sunlight hours. The colonial forces ruled from a spacecraft called Skybase One.

Despite this, the Marshal was determined to turn the planet into a thriving settlement, and had employed the corrupt scientist Jaeger to experiment on ways to alter the atmosphere - making it safe for humans but no longer suitable for the indigenous peoples. These experiments triggered prematurely a natural stage in the evolution of the Solonian people, which normally occurred every 500 years as the planet moved into its summer. People began to mutate into savage insectoid bipeds, which the Marshal assumed to be a form of plague. He ruthlessly hunted victims down and killed them.

When an Adjudicator arrived from Earth, to commence the handover of power to the Solonians, the Marshal employed the son of Varan - a warlord collaborator - to assassinate him, before killing the assassin to cover his tracks. This made an enemy of his pet warlord.

When the Doctor arrived on Skybase One with a message for another Solonian leader - Ky - the Marshal coerced him into assisting Jaeger with his work.

The Marshal became so obsessed with Solos that he determined to break completely with Earth, capturing an Earth Examiner and his men and informing them they would be forcibly relocated to his new colony. Ky passed though the mutation and emerged as a powerful super-being. He vapourised the Marshal in revenge for his cruel actions against his people.

Played by: Paul Whitsun-Jones. Appearances: The Mutants (1972).

• Whitsun-Jones had previously appeared in The Smugglers as Squire Edwards.
• The Marshal is clearly based on Hermann Goering, the Nazi Reichsmarschall. Whitsun-Jones even bears a certain physical similarity. The Marshal carries a short rod which doubles as a communicator, and Goering used to carry a similar symbol of his authority.
• Whitsun-Jones had been Porthos to Roger Delgado's  Athos in the 1954 adaptation of The Three Musketeers.
• He was the original journalist James Fullalove in The Quatermass Experiment.
• Sadly, he died not that long after The Mutants - in January 1974, aged only 50.