Comic Book Review–Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #2

Script by Jim Shooter, Art by Roger Robinson, Colorist Wes Dzioba, Lettering by Blambot!, Cover Art by Michael Komarck.  Published by Dark Horse Comics.  Cover Price $3.50.

Doctor Solar finds out that not-so famous writer Whitmore Pickerel has inadvertently brought two of his creations to life.  So Solar has to make it clear to Whitmore to keep his creations under control.  At the same time, it’s clear this is an anomaly that it potentially created by the same incident that created Solar.

The good Doctor also talks to Doctor Malcolm Clarkson as he finally wants to return to his job and his normal life.  He also talks about the issue’s he’s having.  So Clarkson has to think of an idea to explain Solar’s disappearance.

In the meantime, Whitmore has issues with his two creations (Glowtorch and Leviathan) basically running him out of house and home.  Pickerel finds that he can undo that which he has created, but doesn’t want to just erase them out of existence.  Instead, our erstwhile writer sends them off to never bother him again.

Whitmore also has another great idea.  Create the perfect woman who can cater to his every need, so now he has a love slave.  She talks him into creating a perfect guardian to protect against Glowtorch and Leviathan, just in case they come back to kill him so they can’t be undone.  So Whitmore creates something, but this time it is from his unfettered dreams, and boy does Pickerel get scared of what has just been created.

Leviathan and Glowtorch pop back into the radar of Solar and he confronts them, but he ends up giving them money to leave town and never come back.  While he ends up paying for the damage he’s created, Pickerel’s latest creation seeks out the Doctor and pulls him towards the epicenter.  At the end of the issue, Doctor Solar now has to confront Moloch, an ancient Phoenician god who has the appearance of a minotaur.

Wrap-up:  Shooter’s writing is much stronger in this issue and he covers a lot of story in the pages he is given.  However, he isn’t quite up to par with his normal works quite yet and I’m not sure why.  With Solar I’m not sensing a whole lot of personality yet.  He just seems kind of bland. 

Doctor Clarkson almost plays the role of reason in Solar’s life.  I feel like he plays the role of what’s normally going on in Doctor Solar’s subconscious.  But yet again, we have almost no background on him, we have no idea if he has a family or anything else.  It’s like we have a painting but nobody bothered to paint the background in, so it’s just white.  Where’s the background here?

There’s a lot of good stuff here, but there’s not a whole lot of enjoyment.  It feels like everything is without a soul.  We don’t get a real sense for any of the characters, which is usually something Shooter is very strong with.  Unless this is done intentionally, maybe this is supposed to be emotionally devoid and disconnected.  Maybe Doctor Solar, in recreating 18 seconds, actually recreated the planet and it’s just kind of a fake world. That might explain for the disconnect, but it still just feels weird.

I think next issue would be a good time to start filling in the holes.  Let us see the dreams and feeling of Solar and the important people in his life.  Otherwise this whole thing has the feeling of being nothing more than a dream.  There are fun concepts here and the issue isn’t terrible, but it’s missing key ingredients.  It has to go to the next level and I hope it gets there soon.

On the other hand, the artwork is much improved.  Roger Robinson gives it a slight Mignola feel, but more detailed.  Everything looks pretty good in this issue.  The storytelling of Robinson is pretty strong, I can tell what’s going on with ease.  That’s the part of drawing that’s hard is making sure you’re getting the story across without making it difficult to see what’s going on.  So Roger Robinson is a vast improvement and makes this issue much more enjoyable.

Despite all of the issues with the writing, it’s still a pretty decent issue.  Not much above average, there’s definite room for improvement.  Let’s see if he can step it up a notch here and keep making it more interesting. Also the cover is excellent stuff, but we all know not to judge a book by it’s cover, no matter how great.

out of 5.

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Comic Book Review–Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #2

Comic Book Review – Magnus Robot Fighter #1

Another Dark Horse/Gold Key revival, once again written by Jim Shooter.  And right of the bat, it feels very familiar to anyone who has read Magnus before and they’re staying fairly true to script without changing everything up and I like that.

The original Gold Key version of Magnus Robot Fighter was done by Russ Manning and is a classic still today.  In fact, you can still purchases the archive versions and trust me, they are HIGHLY recommended with much gusto!  Valiant Comics brought this back in the 1990’s and this title help Valiant catch fire and produce some great books, including the run of John Ostrander that was truly epic.  The Ostrander issues you can pick up super cheap, just check eBay for lots of them.  My tip is to search “magnus comic lot” and you’ll find something pretty cheap, I assure you.

So issue #1 rolls out and what do I see?  Well, first of all, an excellent cover done by Raymond Swanland.  It’s an awesome image and as a side note, Raymond was discovered for his artwork he did for Magic: The Gathering cards.  Our artist for this issue is Bill Reinhold.  He does a decent job and keeps things pretty simple, but I think the colors and inking leave it feeling a tad overshaded at times so we can’t see as much of the artist.  Feels a bit muddy in spots because of that.  But I think Reinhold does a good job and it feels like he’s trying to do a little homage to Russ Manning with his art and who can blame him?

The story is pretty standard fare.  There is a “Metal Mob” which is something a little new and could be very interesting with different “robs” than what we’ve seen in the past.  I’ll be very interested to see where that story arc goes.  Then we get a lot of background, which stays pretty true to form and doesn’t stray a ton from the original.  There are some genuinely good moments in here, just nothing that’s outstanding yet.  But that’s not a bad thing, this issue is very good for newcomers, but it just lacks the wow factor if you already know Magnus.  This Magnus is very much like the one we see in the Gold Key/Valiant line so far.  No crazy plots like in the Acclaim comics version.  Oh boy, I had to bring that one up.  Ugh.

There is another great bonus to this first issue though!  It is 56 pages long and includes the Original Magnus Robot Fighter comic in it as well by Russ Manning.  The story is still good to this day and very enjoyable.  But all this does is enhance this issue’s value.  So if you like Magnus already, you know you want it and it’s worthwhile.  If you’ve never read Magnus before, jump on now and get a great value for $3.50!  That makes it a must buy in my books!  This one is off to a better start than Doctor Solar, but I’m still holding out hope that next issue rocks my proverbial socks off.

    

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Comic Book Review – Magnus Robot Fighter #1

Comic Book Review – Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom #1 (Dark Horse)

I need to preface this by saying that one of my favorite writer/creators I’ve ever read is Jim Shooter.  Jim Shooter is the current writer for Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom, Magnus Robot Fighter, and Turok Son of Stone.  These are all old Gold Key Comics titles that are being revived once again.  The last time we saw these three titles together were in the dying days of Acclaim Comics which had bought out Valiant Comics.  Jim Shooter made Valiant successful before he was ousted in a bit of controversy.  It was never quite the same after he left because they lost his vision and focus.  He founded a few other comic companies each with great storylines and feel but as the comic industry went spiraling into decline, they too, vanished.

When Dark Horse announced they were bringing back these Gold Key characters back under the supervision of Jim Shooter, I was somewhat excited.  The only thing I didn’t like was that there was no “shared universe” for these characters like we saw in Valiant.  Jim Shooter is at his best when he can tie things together into one universe.  So, while I was happy to see these characters revived, I still have reservations.  However, with Shooter’s writing, I know the stories will at least be solid.

So here we are, diving into the first issue of the rebirth and hopefully being of a wonderful new era for this character.  So how does it pan out?  It has a bit of action to jump into things before we start getting some explanations.  So that’s typical fare now days to kind of jump start into things.  I don’t always like that though as it seems to pull us away from the character and their motivations.  But I see it for what it is.

The issue gets stronger as it goes along.  We find out Doctor Solar was exposed to a nuclear incident involving a black hole as well.  Not very many major twists on his origins, which is fine.  We don’t have to relearn much about him and no sense in reinventing the wheel.  But we found out that he himself has create a quantum event that is creating abnormalities in our reality.  So we have the premise set and we see some of those abnormalities introducing themselves.

My gripe with the comic is the art.  I did not enjoy Dennis Calero’s artwork at all.  His characters are very stiff and not at all fluid.  The action sequences are abysmal at best and I can’t figure out exactly what’s going on in half of them.  Jim Shooter has a way of getting artists to become better storytellers, but I don’t think he had a lot of time here.  From an interview I read, some of the early pages were rushed and Jim never saw them so they could get those pages out early for previews.  I could tell from those interviews that he wasn’t quite pleased with them.  There are some decent pages, but nothing great.  I hope Jim Shooter can bring him around to being a better storyteller, but I don’t know if he can improve Calero’s style much.  His characters, especially the character Vanguard, aren’t drawn very realistically at all.  The only thing people seem to like about his artwork is his “shading”, so that’s all I need to know there.  I hope they either switch artists or he improves quickly because he’s dragging this issue down.

Oh, and this is a 48 page spectacular!  What does that mean?  Well we get a reprint of the original Doctor Solar published by Gold Key.  I had read this recently and is a decent enough story.  A bit outdated, but fun stuff anyway.  For $3.50 you’re getting two stories, so that definitely makes it worthwhile, especially if you never read the original series.

Overall, a good buy for the price.  The story is a little disjointed but builds up well towards the end.  The artwork isn’t very good though and draws away from the storytelling that SHOULD be going on. 

3 out of 5 stars (the bonus feature helps it out)! 

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Comic Book Review – Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom #1 (Dark Horse)