Broken Frontier

When you try and revive and relaunch a Silver Age character, it’s usually in the company’s best interest to update it into modern times. Dark Horse has seemingly missed the memo and here is Doctor Solar: Man of the Atom #2 – the book seemingly 50 years old but happening right now.

Jim Shooter is trying to construct a story around Doctor Solar, the man who can control molecules and matter who for whatever reason also looks just a little like Radioactive Man from The Simpsons and the assumed villain of the story – a writer who can materialise people by just thinking about them.

After the first issue where two creations from the writer, one a stupid muscle branded fighter and the other a musky big breasted woman who the creator had originally planned to sex up, have gone awry, issue #2 sees Radioactive Man – er, Doctor Solar trying to figure out just what he plans on doing with the troublesome two and how exactly he can fit back into his own life post nuclear reactor explosion. The thing is Jim Shooter drags everything on so much.

He doesn’t really give a chance for the artist to explore the characters, as it’s just full of exposition. Every single thing is explained: “I just jumped through the phone”… great, but do you then have to explain how you did it? As for the characters, they are about as one-dimensional as you can get.

Neither the lead nor the supporting cast has a unique voice about them. Conversations fall flat and there is simply no snap or hook to the dialogue. The writing is as cheesy as a comic from the Silver Age, with various characters coming up with remarks and quips that you would expect then, but which are drastically out of place now.

The idea of Doctor Solar isn’t so bad; it’s just the execution and the story that don’t seem to have any legs to them. The character himself, a seemingly impossible character in the same vein as Doctor Manhattan, has the world at his feet. But the book decides to involve itself in a story that, despite being done time and time again over the years, is simply just no fun to read.