Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #3 (Dark Horse – Shooter / Robinson)

The dark god Moloch the Devourer pits his demonic hellfire against the thermonuclear fury of Doctor Solar. Whitmore Pickerel, whose power to bring his imagination into existence unleashed the Devourer, conjures the mighty sun–god Surya for protection. But instead, Surya bows before Moloch, and the Man of the Atom faces cosmic-scale war on a second front. With the power of Solar pitted against the god of the sun, can the planet survive?

This last weekend, I was able to sit down and read all three issues that are out of Dark Horse’s modern take on comic classic Doctor Solar.  Doctor Solar was originally a Gold Key creation (those are the ones I remember), but in the 90′s he has been re-imagined by Valiant comics which had a decent run, but then they were bought out by Acclaim (note to self: comics and video games should not mix) which then went bankrupt and Solar was lost in limbo as rights were argued about and redistributed but not comics were printed.  That is until recently, when Dark Horse made the correct legal aerobatics and found him (and not to mention other Gold Key properties like Turok, Samson and Magnus) and went with the re-boot.

Issue one started off an origin story so new readers could jump right in (good move, given the long bewildering history of character).  To write a description of Solar’s powers that the younglings will connect with, I will simply say that this is a character that the Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan could have been loosely based on.  He basically has unlimited power over matter and energy and he is trying to find his humanity in the middle of all of that.  Jim Shooter does a great job writing and creating a story construct that is interesting.  His characters are slightly melodramatic archtypes, but I believe that to be on purpose given the overall stilted themes of good versus evil and what is the nature of man.  Roger Roberson’s art is reasonably good and seems like he was paying homage to the visions of Solar that has come before.

My biggest and really only grip with the book is that it is coming out every 2 months plus – that is a huge amount of time for fans to stay interested, even in a good book.

Issue Grade: B