The best thing about Solution Squad is its concept -- a superhero team based on the motif of mathematics. Using Solution Squad's collective intelligence and their mathematics-related powers, Jim has a (ahem) powerful tool here for mixing entertainment with education.
Rather than collecting just a series of comic book stories, the trade collection is a hodgepodge of materials. It leads off with a 3-page feature from another book called Reading with Pictures that uses panels from Solution Squad as examples. There is a reprint of the first ever issue of Solution Squad, a 24-page comic book story called "Primer" that I feel is the strongest story in the whole book.
"Primer" serves as an introduction to the heroes, using the technique of teaching us about them as one new hero joining the team gets to know them. Five already-established heroes round out the team. Given how many superhero characters have come out before them, it can be forgiven if most of them are not that unique. Absolutia has the powers of the Marvel Comics villain Equinox -- but what makes her special is that she is the team's founder and financier but not its leader. La Calculadora (team leader) is a female version of DC Comics' Mister Terrific. Equality's power is like the Marvel Comics hero Mimic. Abscissa and Ordinate remind me of Marvel Comics' Aurora and Northstar -- also twin speedsters -- with the exception that Abscissa can't fly and Ordinate can only levitate up and down fast. It isn't clear how old any of them are, but they appear to be young adults in their early 20s. The last story has a clue that the "Ordered Pair" twins are only 18.
But the real gem is the newest member, Radical. His power is not entirely unlike the Invisible Woman's force fields, but Radical creates invisible, solid prisms only and rides them as a form of transportation (also an innovation use of the Invisible Woman's power developed by John Byrne when he was writing the Fantastic Four back in the 1980s). What makes Radical so different is that Jim decided to take the connotations of "radical" and treat them as a feature instead of a bug -- Radical hails from the 1980s (when people actually said "Radical!") due to time travel, and the fact that we never learn how he time traveled adds to his mystique. Plus, he has the most charming personality of the whole team (easy to do, as Equality and Ordinate are quite flat and come off as background characters).
Further, the story of "Primer" is solid, with it making sense that the heroes would use math to solve their way out of a puzzle trap, and the art by Jim's daughter Rose is solid and dependable. This is the only issue in the book that is a reprint; the rest was written specifically for this volume.
Next there is a 24-page comic book story called "The Trouble with Trains" that, despite coming next in the book, is not treated as issue #2. Since the art is so much looser than in "Primer," I was sure this story was drawn earlier, but I was wrong -- "Trains" was drawn three years later and the young artist had simply changed her style between outings. This story tackles the old story problem cliche of "If two trains leave the station..." and turns it into an adventure tale with a twist ending. I found the math more confusing in this one, but I never did like story problems.
Next is a 16-page text story called "The Last Boy." Instead of math, it deals with the topic of bullying and does an adequate job of doing so without being preachy. We learn a little more about some of the heroes, including some much-needed characterization for Ordinate.
"The Candy Crimes of the Confectioneer" leads off the contents of issue #2. It is not designated as such in the book, but "Confectioneer" and some bonus material that followed was reprinted in a comic book that served as #2 in the slowly-created series. "Confectioneer" is a 10-page adventure with some easy math in it (used to distract the villain), and the return of prime numbers from "Primer" that are used as a secret code among the heroes. The story is slighter and so is the art -- though Serena Guerra is great at drawing characters, too many panels have no backgrounds.
There is a 18-page section of profiles of characters (written in the style of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe) surrounded by a 4-page comic book framing story of how the team shows this comic book to Radical so he can read the profiles. The profile pages are blessed with art by pros Gene Ha and Jeff Moy -- and mega-pros George Perez and Joe Rubenstein!
Between "Confectioneer" and the profiles is a 3-page filler called "Operation: Potio Arabica." It's a very slight piece that lets us see how some of the team dress in their downtime and tries to solve the problem of giving Equality a personality. I am not a fan of the art by Jessica Lynn, which does not seem to mesh well with the genre.
(I have a copy of issue #2 in storage somewhere, but I haven't found it to verify how many of the pages above were in #2; it would be an especially long comic book to have included all of that. I suspect it did not have "Potio" and the last eight pages of profiles in it.)
The last story is a fragment of an origin story for a group of kid sidekicks for Solution Squad, Factor 5. These kids are maybe 7-12 years old and have their own set of powers. There are only six pages of story, done in a more manga-esque style.
And in addition to all of that, there are covers, pin-up pages, and a 1-page fragment story teasing us what it would look like if Gene Ha drew an issue of Solution Squad.
Does it fulfill its main objective of being a good teaching aid? I'm unqualified to say. Is it a good comic book on its own merits? Yes. Do I want to read more? Heck yes! I understand, after a long delay, issue #3 is finally in the works, and hopefully there will be more after that.
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