As a child of the 70s, I loved the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman. While superheroes seemed like fantasy, these two were normal, everyday people who received special abilities. Like, of course, this could really happen with modern technology.
I watched both TV shows (and their TV special reunions), and had all of the dolls (Steve Austin, Jaime Sommers, Oscar Goldman, and Bigfoot), and their accompanying playsets. I never did get that Fembot doll, though -- dammit! -- which, I'm convinced, was the inspiration for Austin Powers' fembots (minus the gun nipples).
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| Bionic Man #1 |
I was excited when Dynamite Comics started to release Kevin Smith's Bionic Man monthly comic book. I was even more excited that it was released monthly, as scheduled. Kevin Smith doesn't have the best track record with completing his assignments on time. Dynamite probably knew that and that's why they took the basic story idea(s) from him and had someone else more reliable actually scribe it. The series started out really good and then started to get a bit lackluster. It lost its character edge and everyone seemed so generic and uninteresting in the latter single digit issues.
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| Bionic Man #11 |
With issue #11 (the first one not bearing Kevin Smith's name across the top), character development was at its peak. Steve's adventure-filled life comes to a slow crawl as he returns to his family's farm. Here, we meet Steve's dying father, his strong-willed but tender mother, and his doting sister. They all thought Steve was dead (because that's what the news reported) and are surprised and happy to see that he's still alive. His secret soon comes out, though, and they realize that he's no longer just a man anymore. But while this story was the best in the series so far with character development, it also felt a bit weak at the same time. The family doesn't seem truly overjoyed with the news that Steve is alive. It was as if Steve just told his family that he got a small promotion of work and his mother replying, "That's nice, dear."
The story does have some tender moments, though, and I'm glad that we, the readers, got to meet Steve's family. Ironically, it made him more human than previous issues depicted.
After reading issue #11, I can honestly now say that I'm looking forward to the next installment of the Bionic Man. Why? Toward the end of issue #11, we get a glimpse of something watching Steve from the woods. It's no secret who/what it is, though, because they reveal the secret already in the "next issue" column: it's Bigfoot. I love the image, too, because not only is it Bigfoot, Steve's nemesis from the old TV show, but Steve's wearing the red track suit (that the Steve Austin doll came with). Euphoria washed over me seeing that nostalgic image.
On a related note, like the TV show, Jaime Sommers was so popular in the Bionic Man series that Dynamite gave her her own monthly series in Spring 2012. After two issues, though, the series was apparently abandoned. I guess sales weren't as good as they had hoped, but I was really getting into the story...and I always did prefer Jaime Sommers over Steve Austin.
I hope Dynamite continues producing a great monthly comic and that we one day will see the return of the Bionic Woman.
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