Originally from an upper-middle class background, Elizabeth Bradshaw was married to Humphrey Bradshaw, a banker, and was completely unaware of her powers, until one day early in 1882 when she and her husband were involved in a fatal traffic accident in the centre of London. In the crash Humphrey was killed instantly, but Elizabeth survived completely unscathed, and somehow endowed with superhuman strength, toughness and the ability to fly. However, although she was persuaded to join the Royal Elite Guard she did not want to fight or to have her powers - she only wanted her husband back. Although she gradually got over her husbands death, she still absolutely refused to fight and performed the duties of a battlefield nurse to the Royal Elite Guard, being dutiful and subservient to other members of the Guard.
Although she didn't fight, Elizabeth performed valuable service during WWI, aiding soldiers from all sides equally. It was during this time that she and Excalibur first became romantically involved. When this involvement became public knowledge in the scandal of 1903 Elizabeth was mortified and hid from the public eye for several months before emerging again to re-take her place in the Guard.
When WWII broke out in 1915 Elizabeth, like most other members of the Guard, was fairly old, although still powerful. At first the fighting went against the British and the Communist revolutionaries pushed forwards on all fronts, but as time went by the forces of Britain and the other great powers slowly began to push the revolutionaries back. Then came the fateful day in 1917 when the revolutionaries revealed their secret weapon - the nuclear bomb. As the bombs fell she and Excalibur flew up in an attempt to deflect them, to no avail. The bombs went off with her and Excalibur at the epicentre. She saw Excalibur vaporised by the blast, but felt herself becoming energised by the blast rather than killed by it. Rejuvenated but intoxicated by her new power she shot up into space, only coming down hours later when she regained control of herself. She found all the rest of the Guard, apart from Greymalkin and English Rose (who weren't there) dead, hundreds of others dead and thousands injured. All the survivors were awed at her and only recognised her as Angel of Mercy when she identified herself. Shortly afterwards the British commanding General arrived and ordered her to use her new powers against the revolutionaries. Point-blank she refused, having seen enough bloodshed for one day. The General began to issue dire threats and she realised that there was nothing keeping her on Earth now. She took off, ignoring the General and headed out away from Earth.
Years passed. As time went by Elizabeth explored her new abilities and explored the Solar System, becoming the first person the visit any other world. She occasionally passed near the Earth and observed what was going on, but mostly kept herself away from Earthly affairs, especially earthly wars.
With the end of WWIII and the restarting of various nations space programmes, she began to again take an interest in the Earth, keeping a covert eye on what was going on. In 1952 she heard the reports of the trouble on the fledgling Starholme 1 and flying in, saved it from CIA sabotage. For this she was honoured and given honorary Minervan citizenship by The Amazon herself. At the ceremony where she received this she announced that she should now be known as Solar Angel rather than Angel of Mercy.
Over the following decades Solar Angel kept mostly to herself, occasionally aiding the space efforts of various nations and helping out when astronauts were in trouble. In 1971 the SAU attempted to take over the Chilean asteroid in high orbit over the Earth, and after the SAU forces were repulsed the Chileans attempted to blackmail the world into submission. Arriving at the scene Solar Angel saw that the world was rapidly moving towards a war situation. She rapidly disarmed the Chilean forces on the asteroid and, firing down from orbit, forced the SAU and Chilean armies to disengage, all the while appealing for calm. When it became obvious that the world was no longer in danger she returned to deep space, refusing any of the honours offered her.
Since then she has been seen around the Solar System on various occasions, although there was a ten year period from 1979 to 1989 when she was not seen anywhere. No-one knows what happened to her in that time.
Solar Angel tends to remain aloof from humanity as a whole, although she will help people in trouble if she should come across them. From her public statements it would seem that she privately considers herself to be above humanity, even superhumanity, and although she seems to bear no malicious intent towards mankind this attitude does worry a great many governments. However, some people have speculated that she keeps away from humanity so that she is not tempted to solve humanities problems by ruling it. She does seem fairly protective of the space programmes of various nations, although she has no great faith in either the Chilean or SAU governments after they nearly brought the world to ruin in 1971.
By the 1990's, Solar Angel has come to the conclusion that she has almost nothing in common with humanity any more. However, she still feels obliged to protect them from any fatal errors, at least in part because she hopes that humanity may eventually evolve into something which can be her equal (she has not been able to turn people into this by using her powers). For these reasons she keeps an eye on, and will act to protect, human activities in space and the status of superhumans in general (e.g. she will act to stop anti-superhuman laws coming into effect). However, she is fairly disdainful of people (even superhumans) as individuals, and tends to think of people dying in wars etc. as an evolutionary thing (this may be something of a psychological defence mechanism)... She will admit that she could stop most unpleasantnesses on Earth, but that this would involve her taking over the world and ruling it, not something she wants to do.
She has a large self-created facility in close Solar orbit, her 'Crystal Palace', which as yet no-one is aware exists. In addition to her it currently has two permanent inhabitants : Dr. Albert Zerstoiten (Dr. Destroyer) and Alan Trahurn (Peacemaker). They are currently both being treated by Charity Ravenwood (Greymalkin) in order to render them sane. Once this has been done Solar Angel intends to put them both 'in storage' in case they ever needed in the future. She also has a number of facilities and places where she stays (in a number of guises) on Earth, usually when the international situation is such that she feels she may be needed...
Before her transformation into Solar Angel, Elizabeth was a shy and unimpressive, although fairly attractive, woman with pale skin, blonde hair (which slowly greyed as time went by) and grey eyes. After her transformation she was still recognisably the same person, but much taller, hugely impressive, and almost unbelievably beautiful with golden eyes that almost glow, pale skin and a huge mass of bright gold hair which seems to be made out of solid light and shimmer in an unfelt breeze. It also seems that Solar Angels body temperature varies directly with her temper (although this assumption has not, for obvious reasons, been fully tested).
Angel Of Mercy in 1883, and Solar Angel in 1920 and 1993 in Champions terms.