My thoughts about Stan Lee’s “Soldier Zero”

Soldier Zero is an upcoming comic series by Stan Lee with writer Paul Cornell (Action Comics, Doctor Who) and artist Javier Pina (Superman, Batman).

“When an alien parasite falls to Earth, wheelchair-bound college student Stewart Travers becomes infected, and goes through super-human changes that no mortal could imagine. Forced into a galactic war that’s chosen Earth as the battlefield, Stewart defends the front line as Soldier Zero!”

It doesn’t sound bad, but it doesn’t sound great either. My problem with the story is the classic “scrawny kid has a freak accident and is endowed with superpowers!”

In the old days of comic books this was fantastic, but nowadays it’s repetitive, like many of the old Stan Lee’s creations.

Don’t take me wrong, I’m a fan, but how many times have we had a similar story?

Spiderman: scrawny geeky kid gets bitten by a radioactive spider, gets superpowers.

The Hulk: scrawny geeky scientist is involved in a gamma ray explosion, gets extreme mutation and superpowers.

Thor: scrawny limp doctor finds Mjöllnir, becomes the thunder god.

Captain America: scrawny limp kid gets super soldier serum, gets superpowers.

The list goes on and on….

I know it’s nearly impossible to get something original when pretty much everything has been covered in one way or another, but this sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon…

I will give it a chance though, I’ll read the first 3 issues and I just hope the story is better than the main character’s origin.

Soldier Zero will hit the shelves on October 27, click here if you’re interested in pre-ordering it.