Kickin’ It Old School: Solar, Man of the Atom #4

Welcome to a new edition of Kickin’ It Old School, our biweekly column in which we look to the past and review books from the original Valiant universe! Today, I’ll be discussing Solar: Man of the Atom #4.

Solar: Man of the Atom #4

Published in November of 1991
Written by Jim Shooter
Penciled by Don Perlin, Barry Windsor-Smith and Knob Row
Inked by Bob Layton with Tom Ryder
Colored by Knob Row

Synopsis

Phil Seleski is steadily headed towards the disaster that we know creates Sol, beginning with the successful launch of his fusion reactor. Meanwhile, Sol and Solar are fighting it out. Their epic fight takes them all over the place, eventually ending up in the sky as the fusion reactor explodes. They take their fight that way as Phil is also headed towards the reactor and the events that we know created his evil future self.

Sol and Solar beat him there, and Sol convinces Solar to merge with him again so, as one, they’ll have the courage and the knowledge to save the day. Once they’ve merged, Phil shows up and Sol convinces him to also merge, so the three parts of them can be one complete person/super hero. They merge and absorb all of the radiation, saving the day!

Review

Similar to the end of the first arc of Magnus shedding him of the shackles of his introduction, this issue of Solar resolves the convoluted story of three characters that all stem from the same person.  Present, future, and imagination were merged to create the Solar that will continue forward, providing a balance between a normal human life, great powers, and the creativity of a comic book from Phil Seleski’s childhood.  Now the Valiant Solar can be his own thing while paying respect to the past Gold Key Solar.

It seems to me that Valiant wanted to utilize characters that had already had popularity as a launching point for their company, drawing people in with familiarity and introducing elements of their own creations, and they’ve done a great job of it!  Rai has been thoroughly established by giving him half of each Magnus book, as well as Harbinger and X-O Manowar being teased in Solar and Magnus, respectively.

Just as I felt that Magnus was able to begin coming into his own in the story arc with Rai, I feel that Solar can begin to come into his own in the next arc.  We’ve seen him in the future in Magnus/Rai, so we know his power and importance.  I can’t wait to see what comes next!

Kickin’ It Old School: Solar: Man of the Atom #1

Originally from ValiantCentral.com