Any love for Doctor Solar? Number 1 appreciation!

[Cyo-migration]

The Valiant days of the early 90s got me turned on to the good Doctor, so I grabbed this original back in the day. Going to get it slabbed, but here is it in it's raw glory:

 

 

 

[steveinthecity]

Was the Valiant character similar to the one in Gold Key? I'll admit I'm not familiar with this.

[MR SigS]

I think they're the same guy, but I'm not too sure. I know the GK Solar had green skin... for some reason.

[excelsior1986]

Same guy. I love the painted gold key covers.

[Hepcat]

Here are scans of some of mine:

 

1 Northland copy

 

 

2

 

 

4

 

 

5

 

 

6 Northland copy

 

 

7

 

 

I thought I had completed my run of Doctor Solar comics in VF/NM condition or better until I took out my stack a few months ago and discovered a white paint smear on the bottom left of issue #3 that I must have overlooked previously thinking it was just part of the swirl of colours in the background!

 

[Cyo-migration]

Wow! That's a great set of Solar. Thanks for sharing.

[namisgr]

Those raw copies look really sweet, and they all sport great cover art.

 

Diamond Run: As the label notes, it's Gold Key's first new character, and I think an undervalued early SA key. Great 'atomic accident' cover painting. Groundbreaking modern style given the way comic cover art looked in '62.

 

[rodan57]

That Doctor Solar is a brilliant cover. It made me look up some of Powers' other work. I hadn't realized that I already had a number of his works as covers of older sci fi novels.

 

 

 

[namisgr]

He painted a bunch of sci-fi book covers in the fifties and sixties, and is one of the best known artists of this genre. He's in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

 

Ish 2 was his other Dr. Solar cover, and it's an incredible piece. Hepcat's raw copy of it is gorgeous. It's an even scarcer issue in high grade than #1.

 

[Cyo-migration]

I think #2 is better than #1. That black really makes the color pop. It has much greater impact.

 

Great, now I gotta look for a #2 for my collection...

 

[Rosland]

I'm a hopeless romantic

 

[jmg3637]

Here is my Solar #1. I thought I had scans of most of the run..Guess that is what I get for trusting a my own memory

 

 

At least I have most of the Solar's just not scanned

[Ken Aldred]

Was the Valiant character similar to the one in Gold Key? I'll admit I'm not familiar with this.

Different characters.

[Gatsby77]

Great book. Not scanned, but my copy's a lowly 6.5!

[namisgr]

I'm a hopeless romantic

 

 

Sole 9.6

 

[Hepcat]

Ish 2 was his other Dr. Solar cover, and it's an incredible piece. Hepcat's raw copy of it is gorgeous. It's an even scarcer issue in high grade than #1.

 

I've found that #2 issues are usually tougher to find than #1s.

 

 

[Rosland]

What about #5? The census has only one graded copy above 0.5...

 

 

[Gatsby77]

I'm a hopeless romantic

 

 

Wait, so you're the mythic holder of the Dr. Solar Pacific Coast run? Could you please un-lock your # 1 registry set so we could see the grades, books, and the one you're apparently missing? You bought them as a set, right?

 

Or could you simply post images of them here so we could drool?

[Rosland]

Never knew I was mythic before

 

But yes, I have the Pacific Coast Dr. Solars. Got them from Doug a number

of years ago.

 

It's not too hard to figure out the missing issue. Only one has never

been graded, #30 (from 1981). Not particularly important, but still, there is

that hole...

 

I've been waiting to complete the set before unlocking it, but I can post a couple

of them. If someone can find me a 9.6 copy of #30, the overall wait could be shorter.

[Gatsby77]

I'm working on finishing a Magnus run in (avg.) 9.4 or better.

 

Doctor Solar just seems like the next logical pursuit. But with one person owning all the Pacific Coasts it might take a long time to fill in the high grades. Likewise, it looks like a majority of the Twin Cities and Savannah copies have either sold already or are GLODs.

 

Plus, I just think it's cool that you sprung for all of them rather than (the usual practice of) picking off the first issue or two and letting the others scatter to the winds.

 

For what it's worth, I've found the hardest Magnus to find in anything above a raw 8.0 is # 29, from 1971. I don't envy you the Whitman Doctor Solars.