Magnus, Doctor Solar, Doctor Spektor and other Gold Key characters will return in new stories from Dark Horse comics.
Dark Horse President Mike Richardson confirmed, okay, was coerced
into confirming, that the hard-fighting heroes who were once part of
the Valiant universe will return, along with other 1960s Gold Key
characters that Valiant never used.
"We've been republishing collections of the Gold Key Magnus and
Solar, Man of the Atom, books for a reason," he said, backstage in the
Dark Horse booth at the San Diego Comic Con. "When those are done,
we'll be coming out with new adventures."
He was not ready to announce the creative teams on the new books, or what other Gold Key books were in the mix.
For those of you with bad memories, Magnus was born in a future
where humans had become reliant on robots to do everything. As robots
sometimes do, some revolted and Magnus was there to karate chop them
into submission.
Doctor Solar's origin sounds a great deal like DC's Dr. Manhattan,
though Solar was decades earlier. A scientist is trapped in a nuclear
thingee and becomes an energy creature.
The lesser known Doctor Spektor was an investigator of the occult.
His adventures ran toward vampires, werewolves and the like and lasted
through the early 1980s. Doctor Solar guest-starred in a couple issues
as did another Gold Key superhero, The Owl.
Magnus and Solar were two of the main reasons for the success of
the early Valiant comics, that coupled with the writing of Jim Shooter.
After the powers-that-were at Valiant dumped Shooter, the books went
into the toilet.
Hey, wouldn't it be amazing if Dark Horse could get Shooter back
to write the books? I never thought I'd see Shooter back on DC's Legion of Super-Heroes and
there he is, so anything is possible.
Join with me now:
WE WANT SHOOTER.
Speaking of the San Diego Comic-Con, since I'm giving my last word on
the subject, two of the most exciting announcements involved returns of
lost heroes.
DC Comics hired J. Michael Straczynski to bring back the old
Archie superheroes like The Fly, The Shield, the Black Hood and
eventually The Mighty Crusaders. The new series starts early next year
in the Brave and the Bold comics.If JMS can do as much for the Archie heroes as he did for “The Twelve“
(and you know he will) this should be the revival of the year.
DC is also bringing back the former Milestone Comics characters into the DC universe under the steady hand of Milestone
founder (and JLA writer) Dwayne McDuffie. Milestone, published by DC in
the early 1990s, featured black and minority characters like Blood Syndicate, Icon, Hardware and Static.
Static will join the Teen Titans. Hardware will appear in the Justice
League series and other characters will show up in various parts of
other DC Comics.
Since everything about San Diego has been said, let me step in here with some sage words of wisdom.
If you’re planning to go next year, get tickets early, like before the
end of this year. At $75 a pop, they are not that expensive. If you
don’t use ‘em, you can always sell them. There were people outside the
hall who would have paid a fortune for a ticket.
On a practical, level, it’s nice to stay in a downtown hotel and
be near the action. But if you can’t afford $200 a night (or more)
consider the southern suburbs.
I found a very nice hotel just off Route 5 in Chula Vista for $79
a night, with a pool. If you can split it with someone, even better.
I always rent a car for the con, but this year the car was just in
the way. Parking has become insane. I spent 90 minutes sitting in
bumper-to-bumper traffic within blocks of the convention center on
Thursday morning. Thursday
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t park because all the nearby lots were
full. Finally, I reached a lot about 1.5 miles away and parked for $15.
The next day I was smart and took the trolley from Chula Vista downtown, $5 roundtrip.
Likewise, it costs half as much to eat out in the boonies as it
does downtown and you avoid the lines. Eat before you get to the con
unless you don’t mind paying $3 for a soda and $4 for a really terrible
soft pretzel.
And lastly, wear comfortable shoes because you‘ll be doing nothing but walking.
All week I was hearing rumors that the con might move to Vegas or
LA. I doubt it, the con is too much a part of San Diego for the city to
let it go without a fight.
