Creative Staff:
Story: Frank J. Barbiere
Art: Joe Bennett & Jonathan Lau
What They Say:
You’re Erica Seleski. Yesterday you were an architect. Today you can pretty much do anything. Can the brand-new WOMAN OF THE ATOM figure out her incredible abilities in time to stop a full-on alien invasion? (Hint: No.) It’s a brave new world for Solar from the astounding vision of FRANK BARBIERE (Five Ghosts, New Avengers) and Joe Bennett (Iron Man)!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Erica has had a lot to contend with all her life, but it’s certainly become more complicated since she gained the abilities of her father – as well as having him as a constant presence around her. There’s a real raw nerve that you can sense being touched often and hard when it comes to the way he tells her to do things, especially since the two just view how to do things in very different ways. This is even worse when he tells her she has to do something, fast, but he doesn’t say what because he hasn’t a clue either. It’s one of those times when you wish he was smart enough to figure it out. That at least lets Erica just go and do what comes naturally, and she does just that early on here while dealing with the aliens that have come for her and her abilities. So just getting to cut loose is definitely in her wheelhouse.
Erica’s approach works good for a bit, but there’s just the issue of the power of the aliens, the destruction that can be caused in fighting them and then there’s the massive ship that’s sitting over the city that they’ve come in. In a way, you really do have to appreciate her plan in that she wants to let them capture her so she can stave off the fighting until inside and then push back once dealing with their leader. The downside is that they are aliens and they do have advanced technology and they can immobilize her, which she wasn’t expecting. And the whole capture technique puts Phil on the outside as he seemingly blinks out of existence amid all of it as well. So, it’s a mixed blessing from her point of view in a way. The back and forth engagement with the aliens is a bit predictable, but I did like that we got a wordless view of why they’re after Erica/Phil and what they want to use him for. It certainly makes sense in a most basic of ways and you can understand their drive to capture such a powerful source of energy.
The fight runs across pretty much the whole book and we get some decent stuff in how it’s laid out and progresses as Erica really gets into a difficult series of events here that puts her in real peril. She lashes out, she tries to think of ways out of it and she puts it all together, rough and randomly, in order to break free of it all and hopefully push hard enough to end the hunt for at least awhile. There’s bound to be more to come, but what we got here feels a little anti-climactic after the first three issues with the scale of power and abilities, but it’s the opening chapter of the bigger story so it’s easy to wait and see. Similarly, we get a few pages here with what Colin is doing with Nuro, who is looking to buy out the company after all that had happened with Phil and the projects there. Much as we see Eric standing up for herself, we see Colin doing the same and looking to step out from under Phil’s shadow and establish his own path. Of course, just like Erica, it’s going to have its own problems and villains – which I suspect could find agreement in working together against them.
In Summary:
Solar, Man of the Atom has had a good run in its first four issues and there’s a lot of places it can go. The shift from Phil to Erica was a bit surprising and I’m enjoying her having to deal with the situation that she’s herself in, especially now that we know what happened to Phil that caused the aliens to go after him. I do miss some of the early stuff with just Phil and his view and understanding of the cosmos and reality with how he worked it, but a blending of the two can work well and make for tension, humor and interesting results. The same is expected when it comes to Colin’s story, which I can see weaving back into main storyline material as this goes on. It’s a bit weak at the moment but that’s because it’s seeding things. There’s a lot to like here with this issue when it comes to the fight, pacing and artwork but it needed a little more oomph to really make it fully engaging.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: July 23rd, 2014
MSRP: $3.99
