The Man of the Atom, like the Fantastic Four, was a late arrival to the superhero fashion show.
“Stan (Lee) talked many times how the FF was his last stab at ‘doing superheroes right,’ and a large part of that was realism (relative to the time),” noted comics historian Don Alsafi. “So he avoided the genre trope of secret identities, and likewise avoided giving them costumes. But after the first two issues, the readers wrote in to say they weren’t having any of it — and Stan, quick to respond, had Kirby give them the blue suits they’re known for, their Fantasticar — a/k/a ‘the flying bathtub’ — and their famous headquarters, the Baxter Building. No more meetings in ‘secret apartments!’”
Gold Key tried the same thing in 1963 with Dr. Solar, the Man of the Atom, holding out until the fifth issue before giving their nuclear-powered superman a costume, mask, and dual identity.
“Gold Key Comics got a tremendous launch in 1962 — a brand-new imprint of Western Printing, Gold Key started with dozens of titles that Western had formerly farmed out to Dell Comics, a large majority of which were based on licensed properties such as Woody Woodpecker and Tom & Jerry,” noted comics historian Don Markstein. “But the new publisher also began introducing occasional original series of its own, such as Mighty Samson and The Close Shaves of Pauline Peril. The first of them was Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom, who debuted as part of Gold Key’s first set of releases, cover-dated October 1962.”
In or out of costume, the Man of the Atom had an impressive array of powers that rivaled Superman’s — light speed, super-heat, super-cold, magnetism, lightning projection, radar vision, a tornado form, and more. Like the Hulk, he didn’t particularly need a costume because readers recognized him by his green skin (and his inevitable lab coat).
“His crimson costume, with a radiation symbol on the chest, was added in the fifth issue,” Markstein noted. “As for the name — his actual name, right there on his birth certificate, was Phillip Solar; and the ‘Doctor’ part referred to his Ph.D. in physics.”
His superhero identity became the second line of his title’s name — “The Man of the Atom.”
Stuntman Buddy Baker, a/k/a Animal Man, first appeared in the superhero-free Strange Adventures title and resisted changing his clothes for a while.
“Though Buddy found it very nice to have superpowers, he wasn’t particularly motivated to put on a costume and fight crime, which may have been why it was four issues before he was seen again, and six issues after that before he actually did put on a superhero suit,” Markstein noted.
Dell tried the same civilian-clothes trick with their Brain Boy in 1962. The teenage spy, who had telepathic and telekinetic powers, suffered from spotty and erratic art, however, and faded away after six issues.
Public pressure eventually forced all of the superhero holdouts to succumb to their gaudy fate. The 1960s weren’t the era for plainclothes superheroes. But the 1970s would begin with a prominent one on TV — The Six Million Dollar Man.
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