Re-Read Solar

A week-to-week plan is available for re-reading VALIANT from the beginning...
start anytime, go at your own pace.

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Post by slym2none »

'All of the above?'

:? :lol: :wink:



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Post by dave »

Solar 33-35
Genocide

We interrupt this comic series to bring you a three issue story arc wherein we abandon our hero, utterly destroy one of our best adversaries and ruin our readers' eyesight all in one fell swoop.

I don't know why the powers that were decided that the Spider Aliens had to go, but away they went. They took three issues to tell a story that needed only one.

Did they really think that Valiant Vision was going to salvage the entire line? As bad as this was, the ads for Starwatchers (Psi-Lords) make me think that they really wanted to revolutionize the industry with this new coloring process. The fact that they had secretly hired Navin Johnson as marketing director all but confirms it.

I defy anyone to tell the three covers apart with just the cover art.

Thankfully, the Chaos Effect is looming just ahead to keep me motivated.

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Post by dave »

Ravenous!
Solar Man of the Atom 36 and 37

Ravenous. That is how I would describe comic book fans desiring a meaty story.

These two issues brought us the return of Ravenous and Dr Eclipse. We have your standard routine. They escape, they find Solar, the threaten to harm his friends. Then they return to the phantom zone, or unreality or whatever and do battle. If I had a dime for every time a Valiant energy being said, "I was barely able to pull myself back together!" I'd be a rich man.

The interesting thing here is, Phil loses his friend, John Veerhusen. John nearly died so he said he was through. This makes almost no sense. First of all, he lived. Secondly, who wouldn't want to keep every "all-powerful" friend they had? And finally, John realizes that Phil needsa human friends in order to stay sane. He even says so to Gayle as he's leaving for good.

Like I said at the beginning though, I'm hungry for a good meal, and Chaos is looming ahead like a porterhouse steak!

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Post by JonesyAZ »

dave wrote:Ravenous!
Solar Man of the Atom 36 and 37

Ravenous. That is how I would describe comic book fans desiring a meaty story.

These two issues brought us the return of Ravenous and Dr Eclipse. We have your standard routine. They escape, they find Solar, the threaten to harm his friends. Then they return to the phantom zone, or unreality or whatever and do battle. If I had a dime for every time a Valiant energy being said, "I was barely able to pull myself back together!" I'd be a rich man.

The interesting thing here is, Phil loses his friend, John Veerhusen. John nearly died so he said he was through. This makes almost no sense. First of all, he lived. Secondly, who wouldn't want to keep every "all-powerful" friend they had? And finally, John realizes that Phil needsa human friends in order to stay sane. He even says so to Gayle as he's leaving for good.

Like I said at the beginning though, I'm hungry for a good meal, and Chaos is looming ahead like a porterhouse steak!
Well, if you want a good meal from Chaos Effect, you MAY be disappointed :(

I still haven't been able to sit down and read the entire Chaos Effect story in one sitting.

I'll be interested to read what your thoughts are on the crossover, or at least the Solar issue :)

The standout issue from Chaos Effect for me was the Turok issue, mainly because I really enjoyed the tribal lore brought into the issue.

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Post by chisumwomack »

From what I remember, Chaos Effect was OK. I remember enjoying it more than a lot of the storylines preceding it. But still, don't expect greatness.

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Post by Daniel Jackson »

chisumwomack wrote:From what I remember, Chaos Effect was OK. I remember enjoying it more than a lot of the storylines preceding it. But still, don't expect greatness.
The only thing I really cared for out of the Chaos Effect and tie-in books were the 2 epilogues.

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Post by dave »

Yeah, I was being sarcastic.

I did like the idea for the Chaos Effect plot.

When I re-read Unity, I only read Solar, and the story was fine. Chaos Effect was not the same. I can post my thoughts here right quick-although I try to spread them out...they're always on my Blog a little earlier-with photos!

and I got some feedback from my mom, and she says that my blog is not that hot.

Betrayed! :lol:

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Post by dave »

I don't think that DJ is gonna like this post... :lol:

Must be Canon

Solar Man of the Atom #38.
It is a little known fact that this particular issues settles once and for all the battle tunic versus skirt issue regarding Magnus' outfit.

Here we have Archer himself, presumably after deep meditation, clarifying the identity of Solar in stark contrast to Magnus who "wears a skirt".

I took a picture of the word balloon in question that can be found on my blog, but I don't know how to host an image here...if somebody more smarter wants to attempt it, I'm sure it's not all that hard...

Solar has no power to keep from phasing through his bed (even though he doesn't sleep) yet he can still fly. Gayle saw a strange phenomena in the sky, but didn't mention anything until after pulling Phil out of the bed. After seeing the weird looking sky Solar decides to fly around in his rather impotent state.

It was really weird that he learned so many things "off camera". He asks Sandria Darque who she is, and who her brother might be, then he tells Archer and Armstrong all about her in Ladakh.

The cover for this one depicts Solar being torn asunder while Gayle looks on helplessly. Nice. I hate these kind of covers. The kind that depict something that did not occur within the comic. As soon as Solar began to "battle" the Chaos Effect he ditched Gayle and we don't see her again.

In my opinion, the Chaos Effect was a good idea. The problem was that in the execution they failed to capture many great moments as they had done in Unity, leaving this a nothing more than your typical crossover, where everyone shows up.

I believe it was a mistake as well to tie four titles together for the Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon weeks instead of leaving then as stand alone issues which compliment each other.

Andrew Wendel did a good job on the art with the exception of Archer. He looks like a dweeb.

Everything I read from here on out will be a first time read.

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Post by dave »

Sorry about all the typos. After my mom told me that my blog wasn't all that hot, she told me to proofread my writing. Which of course made me launch into the worst post of my blogging career just to be a dork!

Solar 39 and 40
Both books have two "Solars" on the cover. Neither one of the stories makes much sense. Phil is a basket case again. His friend Bruce even refers to him as Sybil.

In the first book, the Destroyer is having trouble fitting in to the world around him, because their isn't any violence. Finally he gets the chance to take over a colony in space.

In 40 solar flares are causing Phil to want to take over the world and to force everyone to listen to his every command.

In a very dastardly move the new, darker side of Phil changes Gayle's clothes back to a style she wore over two years ago. This cruel act caused her to no doubt become the scorn of all of her friends. Imagine her shame as she arrived at work in a dress that was, "So two years ago!".

Cruel and unusual punishment to say the least.

Number 40 gave advent to my least favorite ad campaign: Valiant House Style?

Heck no! We're Image comics now baby!

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Post by dave »

Sorry for the delay, I took my daughter out to Virginia for a campus tour last week, and had to shelve posting about comics for a while. We were so busy we didn't even hit any shops out there.

41
Phil's secret is out! He kept his Milli Vanilli tape and he's proud!

For some reason Phil decides to take Bruce for a joy ride. They are flying around in the desert. What I like about Kirkman's Invincible is all the moments like this, when his friends want to fly around and he says, "this is so gay!".
Needless to say, in a plot that Stevie Wonder saw coming there was a fil crew out in the desert filming their movie, wherein "Jenni and Cliff have been trapped on Mars and they've got one Snickers bar left. Show me CONFLICT!"

Phil takes the camera guys film away (duh) but not before Toyo Harada gets the same idea by osmosis. For some reason Toyo wants Phil to go fix his ship. First he rigs it so that another of his guys ends up stranded in space in a very Major Tom moment. Then he wakes another guy up to fight Phil once he's there. Phil rescued the dude that Harada set up and gives this ominous advice to Toyo (who presumably can hear Phil wherever he is in the world) "You better watch your back, Harada!"

Bob Layton turned 40.

42

This cover is so generic that I accidentally bought three of them thinking I didn't have it yet.

Elements of Evil part One! (Of three-only it's two!)

Steve Sullivan write this one while Scott Rosema did the pencils.

The gang is going to Hawaii, but look out! It's Terrance the terra form man! And Kris the - tornado lady! She attacked their plane! Oh no! Phil fixed it.

When they hit the ground Gayle introduces Phil to her old college friend. She calls Phil "her current roommate". Nice. Better watch your back, Phil!

They are going to attack Phil through his friends. Sound familiar?

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Post by dave »

Solar 43
Okay, Solar 42 was "Elements of Evil" part 1 of 3. Solar 43 is "Elements of Evil" part 2. Of 2. I suppose they needed to speed up to get to the Solar as a policeman story I've heard so much about.

In this enthralling conclusion Solar battles "Terrance". His first shot hits T with a K-Zwaff! But Terrance, undaunted, strikes back with a Ka-Whoom! That hurt! I know, because Solar said, "Ouch.". Finally Solar realized that he had to pull out the big guns. He shoots Terrance the Terrible Terra-form Monster with a resounding Ka-Bam! Zzzap!

Later we discover that Necromantic fire is antithetical to Solar's power. Uhm. Yeah.

Gayle's bff Lani gets turned into Fire so that Earth, wind and Fire can beat up on Solar. There's a fourth member of this band though, named Water. Must be from their early MoTown days, before they got big.

Phil knows he can save Lani, if he can just reach her through the pain.

"Be yourself. You know how to do that!"

Watch out Vince Lombardi! Those are some inspiring words!

Finally, Phil and Bruce go off in search of Bobby Brady's totem. Really.

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Post by dave »

Solar 44 and 45
Christopher Priest takes on the writing duties for this two issue arc called, Steel, Meat, and Potatoes. The much heralded story of the all powerful Phil Seleski moonlighting as a cop is here at last!

This story came from out of nowhere. There is no explanation, Phil is simply calling himself Miller and we're playing catch up.

I don't want to ruin it for those who have not read it, but suddenly there is this whole other side of Phil and he's doing things I never imagined he would.

The art is Valiant "house style" for sure and I like it. I like the two stories, it's just that they aren't Valiant-esque. This is a totally different guy playing the part of our hero. Gayle is different too, and I can't help but wonder if Priest wasn't given a shot simply because the powers that be knew that Dan Jurgens was coming soon, and everything was going to super after that.

Cover art.

44 sports the one and only Bob Hall Solar cover which, oddly enough, I think is terrible.





I love his art, and his Shadowman covers were always great, but this one...well...
I don't like it very much at all. It has a Mike Mignola feel to it, which again is odd, because I always enjoy his work as well. I'm not sure what it is about this piece that I don't like. I think it might be the inking. Any art critiques out there have any input? It's a shame, because Bob Hall is a terrific artist. Check out his Shadowman covers-they were some of the best covers that Valiant put out - especially post-unity!


45 is a terrific cover.


Sean Chen does a great Solar. This one reminds me of the work I've seen done by Bob Layton and it makes me wonder if there wasn't some secret Jedi training going on at the time. The art is clean and simple without being bland.

Of course, the "style" of the cover is about to change again. The current style began with the Chaos Effect cover and will change again for the July offering. As if changing your logo again is going to boost sales.

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Post by dave »

I just finished reading 46-50. Only ten more to go! Wow.

I'll review the Brave New World story as a whole, tonight, more than likely.

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Post by dave »

Solar: Brave New World
I think that my blog posts tend to be overly long. At the same time they seem to be rather negative. I have come up with a solution. I will only talk about the merits of these books. That should really help me in the length department!

Brave New World! Great title! Where have I heard it before? Just kidding, I would do rip-off titles too. In High School I wrote a song called "Great Expectations". Yeah. I was actually ripping off the refrain from an INXS song. A friend of mine called me on it.

Brave New World. This was probably a good idea. It's hard to tell. It should have been set up with some frame of reference. Instead we got plopped into the middle of a story that would have been fitting for a Zero issue.

This is part of why I don't understand my friend Mike's views on the potential of/for a reboot. This story is a reboot. This doesn't fit anywhere into the mythos. Mr Phil Seleski is not Solar, he didn't fall into his wish machine. He was just a guy, married to a woman named Donna and he died.

I don't like to play semantics games, or to argue abourt comics for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that Solar and Magnus were both rebooted before VH-2.

I've been pretty positive thus far. Now, let's talk about some lame dialogue.

When one of the new "bad guys" (who are actually good guys) sees Solar for the first time he says, outloud, "I say we throw the first punch!"

Awesome! That's the deep philosophical title I'm accustomed to!

I was quite annoyed by all of the new characters. It was bad enough to introduce spandex clad teams of super heroes that could never have existed within the true Valiant universe, but even worse that they were all such blatant Image rip-offs.

The art was pretty good. I liked seeing Solar in a black costume. "It mirrored the darkness of his sooooouuullll!". Not to mention the time it saved Mr Jurgens at the art desk.

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Post by slym2none »

If only Solar had self-flagellated himself, all the while yelling "Impudent strumpet! Impudent strumpet!"

:wink:



-slym

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Post by dave »

slym2none wrote:If only Solar had self-flagellated himself, all the while yelling "Impudent strumpet! Impudent strumpet!"

:wink:
-slym
Self -flagellated himself? :P

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Post by slym2none »

Yes, flagellate. Didn't you read Huxley's "Brave New World?"



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Post by dave »

Nope.

I got out of that one!

That was nice and subtle.

:wink:

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Post by slym2none »

Praise Ford for that.



-slym (goes to get some soma)

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Post by Chiclo »

dave wrote:
slym2none wrote:If only Solar had self-flagellated himself, all the while yelling "Impudent strumpet! Impudent strumpet!"

:wink:
-slym
Self -flagellated himself? :P
This post approved by the Department of Redundancy Department.

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Post by dave »

Solar 51

Have you ever read that mock-interpretation of Dr Seuss' Cat in The Hat? The one that approaches the text in light of a Freudian interpretation? I considered doing something similar with this particular issue of Solar, until it became eerily real. Perhaps this issue was meant to lay some groundwork for the future of this series.

We'll play a game. I'll give you the line - not completely out of context, and you tell me what they're talking about:
Interesting.
Crystalline in appearance. Enormous in size. Impressive.
When I was a kid I used to fantasize about extraterrestrial life...
Big mistake Charlie.
I won't allow you to harm me!
What's this?
Never been picked up like this before!
This must be one huge life form!

The journey seems to take hours--instead of just the few seconds it really took. No surprises there, but he seems delighted!
I'd like to know where you come from.
It's best to show him that we're on equal terms...I'm not about to be another one of his specimens.
You're disappointed? Are those tears?
Look, it'll be hard for us to communicate when you're so much bigger than I am...

A cosmic butterfly collection. Wow. I had one of those when I was a kid, too. Wow.

I want it! It's mine!

Sorry, but I'm my own man.

You have no choice.

No! Can't escape! Feels like I'm being sucked inside out--everything going white.
I'm in trouble. Big trouble. And so is Earth.

Pretty saucy stuff, right?

At one point there are eleven panels on two pages with sixteen characters depicted within. Taking a page from the Rob Liefeld school of art, Mr Jurgens drew Zero feet. No pouches though-he must have dropped out. I went backed and checked it out. With a deadline looming Danny boy must have only had the first half of the book complete. There are no feet in the second half of the book. He was drawing so fast that his anatomy is way off is several places. In fact, it was art depicting the moment when Solar blew up a moon base or something that got me wondering about the "hidden" meanings of this ish. The energy beam he shoots seems to emanate from his pelvic region. It's understandable though. His thoughts are on Gayle and he thinks he's been gone for a thousand years-maybe more. His plumbing's gotta be pretty backed up by this point.

I'm looking even closer at the art and it suddenly hit me. This can't be Dan Jurgens work, it just can't. I check the credits. Tom Grindberg. Never heard of him. - apologize to Dan for all of my mean comments, but I'm too lazy to go back and change it. Maybe I'll go "update" Wikipedia to say that Dan Jurgens did do the artwork! That'll fix it!

I figure what happened is this. He wrote Brave New World for Image two years earlier,but they rejected it for lack of depth. Valiant ate it up, but asked that he actually read Solar 1-45 before taking the series any further. That's why Gayle suddenly appears on page one of this issue after being absent from the last six. He must have read them, since even Gayle's mom shows up. Wild. Maybe we'll get to see what is up with Phil and his dad before too long. I wonder if Bruce is still covering for him at his job there in Cupertino? This series has been all over the map lately.

The new Solar claims his greatest strength is his focus. Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it!

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Post by dave »

Dan Jurgen's Solar End Run
Solar 52-54 mark the end of Dan Jurgen's run on the title. Issue 54 ends with the promise that he won't be leaving Valiant since he was already busy developing a Sentry mini-series!!! Man, I wonder if he's still doing research for it?

Come to find out, the "Earth" that we've been witnessing was an alternate Earth, in the same time line. Solar created this Earth and watched it grow for a few thousand years. After Brave New World, he returned to our Earth and only a few months had passed. Oddly enough, Gayle was upset at Phil and smashed a photo of him at the precise moment he made an ethereal entrance into her home. He instantly realized that they could never again have what they once had. Imagine that. They worked through the fact that he once created a black hole and ripped her to shreds, but taking off for six months and smashing a photo frame was simply too much.

This cleared the path for his next love interest, The Marauder. The Marauder gained a reputation for being a ruthless businessman and dismissing the ladies. He is taken by Solar's unique qualities and his penchant for flying about in red tights. Yes, the story is as ridiculous as it sounds.

The lone high point was a New York cityscape that included the Twin Towers and the Voyager communications building! That was cool.

Grindberg's art improved dramatically during his few issues, but he could still use some anatomy classes.

Next up: Tony Bedard gets his shot at the flagship title in issue 55!

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Post by dave »

Y'all ready for this?

:P

Call it a case of low expectations, but I was actually...

I can't say it.

Solar 55

Tony Bedard saves the day. Really. They should have given him the title back around issue...33? VanHook straight to Bedard, that would have been the way to go.

I know I promised to be more positive, but I'm not just putting you on. He brought Solar back to the core of the character. He brought back John Verhusen! He didn't take the easy way out with the languages! When Solar said that he had spent quite a bit of time learning other languages I instantly rolled my eyes. When he said that Chinese wasn't one of them I was really surprised!*

He did a very good job using thought boxes to move the story along just like Shooter and Windsor Smith did in the early issues.

Here's a gem:
"I can feel the truth of the unified field theory, even if I can't phrase it mathematically. Later when no one can understand him due to the language barrier he laments: "Why can't everyone just speak English, like on Star Trek?"

That is such a Phil thought!

Later, Phil is clearly brooding over the past, which shows the introspection of the character as well as recapping some events while giving us some plot exposition, when suddenly his computer alerts him to a new threat. He rushes off, excited to work and thinks as he flies off, "The brooding can wait.". Again, this is classic Seleski.

Another great moment which seemed "so Valiant" was when John called the FBI to warn them about the threat to the safety of all mankind and was put on hold. Subtle Jabs! Nice!

Bedard brought Bruce and Gayle back, acknowledged Jurgen's run and even his run-in with The Marauder while staying true to the character that was established in Solar 1-10. No easy task, that, yet he did it quite well, and gave us a new story while doing so.

The artwork was very good. Not just good compared with Grindberg, but really good.

Not everything was great though. Some of the dialogue was a little forced. You can see that Valiant was trying to "stay with the times" so they take great pains to mention e-mails, fax machines and even red flagging data. It's great to be current, but the effort showed.

The villainous threat was also a pretty poorly designed character visually. He looks so bad that I was really prepared for this to be another stinker of an issue.

Clearly Tony Bedard has a love for this character as well as knowledge of his history. I honestly can hardly get over how much I liked this issue.

Can he keep it going?

*not learning Chinese while studying French was a pretty dumb idea. Most people who speak French also speak English anyway, while there are millions who speak only Chinese. There goes that dumb rocket scientist again!

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Post by JonesyAZ »

dave wrote:Y'all ready for this?

:P

Call it a case of low expectations, but I was actually...

I can't say it.

Solar 55

Tony Bedard saves the day. Really. They should have given him the title back around issue...33? VanHook straight to Bedard, that would have been the way to go.

I know I promised to be more positive, but I'm not just putting you on. He brought Solar back to the core of the character. He brought back John Verhusen! He didn't take the easy way out with the languages! When Solar said that he had spent quite a bit of time learning other languages I instantly rolled my eyes. When he said that Chinese wasn't one of them I was really surprised!*

He did a very good job using thought boxes to move the story along just like Shooter and Windsor Smith did in the early issues.

Here's a gem:
"I can feel the truth of the unified field theory, even if I can't phrase it mathematically. Later when no one can understand him due to the language barrier he laments: "Why can't everyone just speak English, like on Star Trek?"

That is such a Phil thought!

Later, Phil is clearly brooding over the past, which shows the introspection of the character as well as recapping some events while giving us some plot exposition, when suddenly his computer alerts him to a new threat. He rushes off, excited to work and thinks as he flies off, "The brooding can wait.". Again, this is classic Seleski.

Another great moment which seemed "so Valiant" was when John called the FBI to warn them about the threat to the safety of all mankind and was put on hold. Subtle Jabs! Nice!

Bedard brought Bruce and Gayle back, acknowledged Jurgen's run and even his run-in with The Marauder while staying true to the character that was established in Solar 1-10. No easy task, that, yet he did it quite well, and gave us a new story while doing so.

The artwork was very good. Not just good compared with Grindberg, but really good.

Not everything was great though. Some of the dialogue was a little forced. You can see that Valiant was trying to "stay with the times" so they take great pains to mention e-mails, fax machines and even red flagging data. It's great to be current, but the effort showed.

The villainous threat was also a pretty poorly designed character visually. He looks so bad that I was really prepared for this to be another stinker of an issue.

Clearly Tony Bedard has a love for this character as well as knowledge of his history. I honestly can hardly get over how much I liked this issue.

Can he keep it going?

*not learning Chinese while studying French was a pretty dumb idea. Most people who speak French also speak English anyway, while there are millions who speak only Chinese. There goes that dumb rocket scientist again!
I felt the same way as you did about the villain in this story, but after reading next issue, you might enjoy him. Doesn't he remind you of one of DC's Darkstars?

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dave
Turok #12 is the 1st appearance of Turok
Turok #12 is the 1st appearance of Turok
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Valiant fan since: Bloodshot #1
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Post by dave »

I don't think that I'm familiar with the Darkstars, but he looks a bit like Darkseid with a few dreadlocks hanging off his head.


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