Take Up Thy Stethescope

Dark Horse recently revived Doctor Solar, the nuclear-powered hero with a nuclear physics Ph.D. As a pre-teen, I remember hanging around in the comic shop after school – the owner was a distant friend of the family who knew I was harmless (and had a direct line to my mom if I wasn't) and therefore never bothered kicking me out – and checking out all the cool stuff I didn't remotely have the funds to purchase. For some reason, Doctor Solar always stood out. He looked, to me, like a cooler version of the pre-Jim Lee (or post-John Cassaday) -era Cylcops. I thought he may have been a ripoff, what with the popularity of Valiant, the publisher of his first revival, long waning by the time I got into comics. It turns out that Solar's first appearance, published by Gold Key, was in 1962 – beating the debut of the X-Men by almost a year.

My favorite aspect of Doctor Solar is the Golden Age covers art. While the internals were pretty standard Golden Age work, the covers were painted and resembled dimestore pulp novels. I found a number of them on this website and want to share a few of my favorites. Unfortunately, I can't find who the artist was, so if anyone has a clue, let me know in the comments:

Click to Enlarge

Related posts:

1. Where’s My Money, Honey?