Dynamite’s “The Six Million Dollar Man” is a tongue-in-cheek reimagining of the ’70s television property that opts for a humorous take over the relatively straightforward kitsch of the one-time pop-culture phenom.
Written by Christopher HastingsCover by Michael Walsh
Illustrated by David Hahn
Colored by Roshan Kurichiyanil
Lettered by Ariana MaherIt’s the 1970s. Things are going great. Steve Austin (used to be an astronaut, now has robo-parts and a laser eye) heads to Japan to help Secret Agent Niko Abe stop a madman with missiles. Steve figures, no sweat. But then…sweat. How’s Steve going to complete his mission, when his fancy $6,000,000 body starts (DRASTICALLY) depreciating in value!?
Lee Majors was the epitome of ’70s television cool. Paired with the high concept of ABC’s The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin’s bionic man captured a cultural zeitgeist. The iconic red-track-suited action figure was a staple of many toy arsenals, including mine. It’s still around here somewhere. A cybernetic man was not a revelatory concept in the ’70s. The Six Million Dollar Man merely brought a concept that had been plumbed by science fiction writers and in comic books for decades into the mainstream by putting it in our living rooms. In 2019, the concept is even less revelatory, but the is a built-in nostalgia undergirding Dynamite’s latest licensed property is palpable. It’s a shame that the tone of this first issue seems content to squander it.
For the uninitiated, Steve Austin of television lore experiences a technical failure on a test flight that sends his spacecraft plummeting to earth. Thanks to some pioneering scientists’ “We have the technology” attitude, Austin got a new lease on life as the world’s first cyborg. Dynamite’s Six Million Dollar Man has a glib attitude toward his enhancements that may have those scientists questioning their investment. Here Austin is presented as an overgrown jock, a ladies man who wears his flyboy astronaut cred (quite literally) on his sleeve when he’s called into action for his first mission, an act of government espionage that involves infiltrating an island stronghold that may be the home of a secret nuclear weapons facility and a textbook villain relegated to a shadow-draped office chair. As with all first missions, things don’t go as planned. Of course, that’s assuming there really ever was a well-devised plan.
It should come as no surprise that Christopher Hastings’s previous comic-writing credits have largely been comedic both in tone and subject, and if this book had a different title, it might work better. Here, it’s as if Hastings has filtered his version of the character through the prism of modern sensibilities and opted to poke fun at a property that has not aged well. A casual search of YouTube would result in a myriad of unintentionally comedic clips from the ’70s show (and its spinoff The Bionic Woman), but its a comedy born out of updated standards. I can only imagine that a full episode would be nearly unwatchable even for the most zealous of fans. In this premiere issue, Steve Austin’s bionic man becomes an easy mark for our more refined science fiction palates, and Hastings doesn’t fight it. Instead, he puts aside the jingoism and character pathos in favor of devil-may-care spy thriller. In terms of narrative, the issue is essentially your garden variety James Bond riff complete with aforementioned and Spectre-inspired remote lair and villain. Sword-wielding henchmen are on hand too. Hastings even couples Austin with a serious-minded female protagonist. The joke here is that Niko, the imbedded agent who has done all the legwork to uncover this plot, is more able-bodied for the job than our titular hero. It’s not an altogether unwelcome spin, but this issue seems to take great pains in showing Austin’s unsuitability for his mission, even at the expense of life and bionic limb.
The highlight of the issue is David Hanh’s masterful cartooning. While it doesn’t seem to take advantage of the period setting (an initial dateline puts the action in 1974), the sequential art is clear and effective at communicating Hastings’s story beats. The pacing is flawless. Hastings and Hahn know how to tell an effective comic book story, it’s just that this one doesn’t work hard enough to make readers care about what’s happening. While it might be easy to wish that that the story was infused with more 1970s grit, it’s equally easy to enjoy Hahn’s assured linework. His cartooning is a perfect match for Hastings’s chosen tone. It would be unfair to saddle Hahn with the weight of unmet expectations. It’s clear that he’s onboard with the aesthetic of this reimagining.
Hastings’s plan for the series seems to be to present readers with a swinging action story, but after this first issue, it feels like low-hanging fruit. While it’s certainly not necessary for Austin to grapple with his own humanity or issues of mortality or 1970s geopolitics, the complete absence of such themes is too facile in today’s comic book landscape. Even the 21st century version of 007 is not immune from more sophisticated and thematically-weighty storytelling. All in all “The Six Million Dollar Man” #1 is a lightweight and breezy first issue with some broadly comedic moments and drama that leans heavily on time-honored cold war action movie doomsday scenarios, but it seems like a missed opportunity to allow readers actually familiar with this classic property to experience a faithful update. They had the technology, but this creative team chose not to use it.
Final Verdict: 5.0 – Dynamite’s “The Six Million Dollar Man” #1 is an update to the bionic man mythos in name only, and if not for the disconnect it would make for a relatively fun comic book romp. Readers new to the property might dig it, but fans looking for a sophisticated update of the ’70s series beware.
