Issue(s): Captain Marvel #6
Cover Date: Oct 68
Title: "In the path of Solam!"
Credits:
Arnold Drake - Writer
Don Heck - Penciler
John Tartaglione - Inker

Review/plot:
After passing his psycho-combat test (which is more of an excuse to start the issue with an action scene than anything)...

...Captain Mar-vell is returned to earth just in time to almost get hit by a car driven by Carol Danvers, who is distracted by Yon-rogg's spaceship, which is performing an emergency landing for some quick repairs. Mar-vell, in his Dr. Lawson persona, acts like he doesn't notice the strange lights, sounds, and rocket impressions in the ground, increasing Carol's suspicions of him. There's supposed to be a little romantic tension between Carol and Mar-vell but it doesn't work for me, possibly because i know nothing comes of it or possibly because Marv looks to be about 30 years older than her.

Mar-vell then returns to the lab on the cape and tries to convince a crackpot scientist not to do crazy things involving a giant mirror floating in space, harnessing the sun's energy, and apparently launching an attack on Saturn! But since Mar-vell is not on Earth to help the humans, he gets reprimanded by Yon-rogg via a wrist shock. The experiment releases Solam, some kind of solar monster that absorbs energy and grows larger.

The standard way to defeat monsters that continually grow larger is to overload them with energy so that they grow too large for their own good, and that's Mar-vell's solution here, using knowledge he has from that time on Star System 127-8. In order to add the right amount of energy, Mar-vell has the earth scientists set up a network between four super-computers. Solam is defeated, but the super-network has attracted the attention of Quasimodo.

Gene Colan has been drawing this book, and it hasn't been great but it's been ok. Don Heck draws this issue and it's extra-sketchy.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A