The Black Dragon versus The Atom

"Ripsnorting?"  Spy rings are not "ripsnorting".  Fraternity parties; saloon fights; supercell tornadoes; political harangues; brimstone sermons; these are things that can be "rip snorting".  Spy rings are not rip snorting, not even ones that intend to blow up San Francisco.

Well, this seems like The Atom's speed. Just find a bunch of Black Dragon guys and beat them up one by one, which is exactly the kind of thing he does. This particular Black Dragon cell has stolen a powerful micro-explosive with which they fiendishly intend to blow up San Francisco.

You know: the only major American city that's already proven it can bounce back from having its entire downtown destroyed.

Once again, the Black Dragon's plan is fiendish, but not necessarily well-considered.

Just like the other heroes, the Atom is assisted by someone who simply walks up and tells him where the bad guys are.

The guy in the green suit.  The second guy, I mean.

The Atom, who is not known for his delicacy, handles the situation with his characteristic aplomb.

Didn't even hear him?
HE WAS SHOUTING YOUR NAME, you NIMROD.

Well, I'm sure Al "The Atom" Pratt recovers from this awkward meet-rude gracefully.

"Good boy! Who's a good Jap? You are, yes you are! Have a Jap biscuit!"

I suppose we should at least be grateful for the well-meant attempt to show that "not all of Them are the same!"  I kind of draw the line, however, at "The Good Boy" calling others "Japs", which seems rather unnatural.

You know, I can't tell whether people REALLY talked like the JSAers did in the '40s, or whether it's just an artifice of contemporary pop culture.  Regardless, it seems like Snapper Carr would have fit in much better as a mascot for the hep-talking JSAers rather than the straight-talking JLAers, who never had any idea what he was talking about.

So through this sequence I learned that The Atom will believe absolutely anything you tell him and that leading him into a death trap would therefore be the easiest thing in the world if that Good Boy were, in fact, a member of the Black Dragon.

By the way, ever notice that The Atom looks like he was kit-bashed from three other, unrelated heroes?  Maybe it's just me.

Fortunately for Al Pratt, the Good Boy is in fact on his side.

Four panels of dental jokes, Atom? Look, I can handle some Golden Age pun-ishment during fight scenes, but not when you are obviously just doing it for YOURSELF.

The Atom: when subterfuge and delicacy are not called for.

I think it's the REPEATED "bam" that makes that panel so sickeningly violent.  But Al's gonna Al, after all.  At least he knows himself well enough not to try anything stealthy or tricky.

Oh. My. I... I seem to have spoken too soon.

Um...yeah. 

Al Pratt is, remember, only 5"1", which he (and the writer) thinks makes him a perfect candidate to infiltrate the Black Dragons in "yellow-face".  Yikes.  That's so absurd it almost completely eclipses the insanity of the throwaway line, "Am I glad I learned to talk Japanese".  When'd you learn to do that, Al? On the drive over?  Anyway, if yellow-face worked for Mickey Rooney, I guess it'll work for Al Pratt.

Oh, wait, that's right: it  DIDN'T really work for Mickey Rooney, did it?

I guess the tunnels are pretty dark, because Al pulls it off well enough to confirm the Black Dragon's plan to blow up San Francisco from below.

Land of the Rising Headlight

Where is Aquaman when San Francisco needs him?!

Washing his hair, of course.

Mercifully, after a few panels of gauging the extent of the tunnels, Atom gives up on infiltration and just starts pummeling the tunnelers. But not before we are treated to this gem:

まさにその通りだ！
(masani tonõrida!)
I mean, I just ASSUME Al's talking Japanese here.

Anyway, back to punning and punching.

It's really just wise-cracking.  Al's a physicist and really doesn't even have enough wit to make a pun.

The one (relatively) clever bit is this Horatius-at-the-Bridge scenario: the tunnel's being narrow keeps the Black Dragons from ganging up on the Atom, which allows him to punch them into oblivion one at a time.

The Atom, of course, beats everyone unconscious, so there's no one to give him any further information about the operation, which is really kind of sad, since,  you know, he went to the trouble of learning to talk Japanese and all.

Fortunately, help arrives immediately in the person of

THE GOOD BOY!

Omitting a few more panels of Dragon-pummeling, we catch up with the Atom as he locates the explosive and threatens to blow them all to kingdom come.

The Mikado comment is a joking reference to the legendary bloodthirstiness of the character from the eponymously-titled Gilbert & Sullivan comic operetta, a reference which apparently the writer assumed all 1940s American elementary-schoolers would understand.

The Atom having accomplished his object all sublime, the explosives are returned to Uncle Sam and the WPA sets up to fill all the tunnels with cement.

The Atom's a hero and the Good Boy never even gets a name.  Thank goodness for the Atom's Olympic-level yellow-face skills!

Tomorrow, you may want to hit the ground because Starman is up and this is going to be OOPMHY.

Yeah, the Black Dragon doesn't stand a chance against the DRAMA of Starman.

Swords!

 The Sword of the Atom (Ray Palmer) versus the Sword of Atlantis (Aquaman).

Sometimes, the Sims is VERY satisfying.

To The Artists on "The Atom Project"

 As has been mentioned in comics about 27,000 times, Ray Palmer is 6 foot tall.

I mean... it's built into his schtick, people.

Ryan Choi is 5'8".

For the record, 5'8" is not "short, short". It's barely even "short".  He's taller than I am. 

Other than Ray's auburn hair color and Ryan being Chinese, their heights are perfectly much the only defining physical characters they have.  

It is NOT asking too much to have you draw them at different heights, especially when together. 

And if it IS too much, then you shouldn't be the artists on The Atom, which is pretty dependent on being able to draw things at different sizes.

Endorsement: The Atom Project

There is a lot happening in the DCU right now. And, surprisingly... I endorse almost all of it, including...

The Atom Project.

The ostensible plot of The Atom Project is that Ray "The Atom" Palmer, as the classic JLA's premiere scientist, has taken on the task of fixing the Wacky Power Scramble caused when (in DC's latest universe-changing crossover) Amanda Waller's army of Amazos blew up, forfeiting (somewhat haphazardly) all the powers they had stolen.

Paired with his fellow "The Atom", Ryan Choi, Palmer is having limited success, but exposits that working with Nathaniel "Captain Atom" Adam is the key to unlimited success.

There are so many reason to dislike Captain Atom that the stupidity of the "Adam/Atom" thing is sometimes overlooked.

Why is Captain Atom the key?  I'm not going to bother to explain the in-story reason (especially since I don't understand it), but the meta-reasons are obvious. First, no one ever knows what to do with Captain Atom,  DC's red-chested stepchild from the Charlton Universe. Certainly he has no fans other than complain about his use/misuse/abuse.  Second, he's an angsty, volatile character, making him a perfect unstable platform for "the Atom Project" to teeter upon.  Third, he is, quite simply, a hero with "Atom" in his name.

Because, clearly, one of the longer-term goals of this miniseries to is creating an Atom Dynasty (that is, a dynastic centerpiece model build around Ray Palmer, an idea I have obviously endorsed for, um, some time.

After all, how could you possibly go wrong centering your world around Ray Palmer?

The real Atom (Ray Palmer), the "ethnic counterpart"/"junior partner" (Ryan Choi), the sidekick (Atom-Smasher), the black sheep (Captain Atom).  It's a solid start.  

Sure, I'd love to see the return of the mysterious Molecule, 

Who, despite being nameless and appearing in perhaps three panels total, seems to have more potential than Vixen, Voodoo, and all of Stormwatch combined.

smart'n'sexy Enrichetta Negrini, 

Objectively, if I OF ALL PEOPLE think a woman is too smart and sexy to go to waste,
then she damned well IS.

and the ultimate animal sidekick, the bionic Major Mynah.

I do not love Major Mynah despite the fact he's absurd.
I love Major Mynah BECAUSE he's absurd.

But all this point I'm just happy that DC sees Ray Palmer as deserving of dynasty and making the effort to build one.

The creators clearly set up Ray and Ryan as a bad science-cop/good science cop duo, or, more accurately, and cold and calculating scientist / sensitive and humanist scientist duo.  I'm not really sure this jibes well with their past portrayals but, let's face it: neither Ray Palmer nor Ryan Choi have (or ever had) sufficiently strong characterizations in the past to complain that this new interpretation of them is off-model.  On the whole, Ray has generally been noted only his outstanding level of confidence (even for a superhero) and his problem-solving nature.  

The amount of confidence required to casually, commandingly SLAP JEAN "THREAT TO ALL WHO LIVE" LORING in the face is far beyond my ken.

And Ryan Choi, well, I think his most consistent and identifiable traits are hero-worship and haplessness.

You're a physicist, Ryan. Don't do engineering, it's beneath you and you suck at it.  Do you try to do your own dry-walling, too?

So, for the time being, it seems a reasonable way of not only distinguishing the two Atoms, of making them not just non-redundant but necessary counterparts.  There aren't a lot of crimefighter duos in comics anymore and two Atoms just might be more viable than one (something the Flashes have never made work).

As long as they are assembling a world of characters around Ray Palmer, it begs the question, where, if anywhere, is Jean Loring?

Again--try to imagine the confidence. This woman eats a bowlful of Karens every morning for breakfast and then shits Yelp reviews.

Jean Loring was alive two or so years ago (in Cold Coast Asylum) but that was two years; how many times has the DCU been soft-rebooted since then? To my satisfaction, it has not really been established whether Jean Loring's long and storied history still stands in current continuity.  Is she still dead, eaten by sharks? Or has she NOT YET HAPPENED?!

AGAIN, try to fathom the degree of confidence required to propose to Jean "you vermin, I'll rip your face off" Loring ONCE, let alone FIFTY-SEVEN TIMES.

Oh, yeah. Let's get on that rollercoaster AGAIN, daddy!

The Atomic Dynasty

My recent post about a heroclix map for the Atom made me realize that, although I've mentioned the fact that Atom doesn't really have much of a dynasty, I've never made any suggestions for changing that.  [I actually did, but I'm sure you don't remember, and the universe has changed repeatedly since then.]

Let's do that now (although it may take some effort to figure out).

The Atom doesn't have a lot of existing organic connections to other heroes or potential dynasty members.  He has no cousin from his home planet, no orphaned wards, no tribe of warriors in a hidden distant land.  

At least, not any more.

So, the sensible approach would seem to be arranging around him characters with related powers (size/shape-changing) and affinities (science and acrobatics).  A lot of these connections have been made in a scattershot way, across various versions of the character, but a good comic book editor (if such a thing still existed) could pull it all together for writers to work with.

Apache Chief. Yeah, I know his name is problematic, but I also know it can be solved. Meanwhile, Tye Longshadow could easily be a professor of Native American Studies at Ivy University.  Being from the Humanities rather than the Sciences, he would add a warmer, perhaps more philosophical touch to Team Atom (and a lot of raw power).

Micron. Since he only had only one brief, but awesome appearance in the animated universe, Micron is a blank slate with great potential.  Since he's portrayed as an adult in the future, he could easily be an adapt pupil of Ray's in the present and a precocious college-aged partner in crimefighting. Like Longshadow, he'd bring some ethnic diversity to the Atom dynasty. His power set is a nice complement; unlike Atom he can get larger, but unlike Apache Chief he can get smaller.

As the old song goes, "I'm a little taller than the Atom but smaller than Apache Chief."

The Golden Age Atom (Al Pratt).  Tying these two together has never been natural.  In fact, I'm not certain I've ever even seen the two together.  Unlike Flash and Green Lantern, the Atom doesn't share a power set with his Golden Age predecessor.  However, it has been established that Al Pratt was a college student who went on to become a physicist.  Perhaps he could head the Physics Department where Ray works, as a pleasant Perry White figure.

MORE pleasant.

He could provide a seasoned perspective on problems not solved by superpowers and help Ray (et al.) cover up any secret identity issues.; "Prof. Palmer is on sabbatical.  Prof. Longshadow is doing field work.  Mr. Micron is working on his thesis."  He could be both the Atom dynasty's Elder Statesman and Authority Figure.

Lord knows it couldn't be Chief Baxter.

Chief Baxter.  Okay, I know I just said Chief Baxter couldn't be the Atom's Authority Figure because, well, Chief Baxter is a moron.  He's the college town police chief from the horror movies, the one who doesn't make any of the obvious connections that would prevent all the murders on Sorority Row.  He's so stupid I suspect he's a foreign exchange cop from the Jessica Fletcher Universe (JFU).  But then again... perhaps that is exactly the reason to use him.  The DCU is, after all, already full of hyper-competent, bad-ass authority figures, like editor Perry White, Police Commissioners Jim Gordon and George Emmett, and General Phillip Blankenship.  

And, of course, Director Danvers.

Perhaps the Atom dynasty could distinguish itself by having an obvious moron as the Authority Figure?  Since every else in the Atom's ambit is a Very Smart Person, it might make for nice contrast.  If there's anything I've learned from working in Washington DC it's that being an obvious moron does not necessarily disqualify you from being an Authority Figure.  I particularly like the idea that Team Atom do everything they can to help Chief Baxter stay in his position, because having a police chief who's a moron make THEIR jobs (and secret identities) as superheroes much easier.  "Helping Chief Baxter keep his job" would be the equivalent of "hiding my secret identity from Lois".

Bumblebee.  Oh, Karen! I remember how ridiculous you seemed when you were first introduced! 

I have spent over forty years looking for an excuse to say
"Sorry, sweetie, my honey-gun is cancelling your gig."

Sure, what Karen Beecher can do and why is a wildly varied mess over her various versions.  Maybe she can shrink; maybe she can only stay shrunk; maybe she's always my height (5'7").  Who cares? Just pick a version and go with it. She's a brilliant science student who in at least one universe is Ray Palmer's protege.  She's Bumblebee, she's fun; just make it work. And don't worry that she's too much like the Wasp; unlike Ant-Man, Ray Palmer would never slap a woman!

Well, hardly ever.

I personally am fond of the idea of a Bumblebee who DOESN'T shrink (even though everyone would assume she does).  She could be the dynasty member most at home with regular-sized heroics.  Despite expectations, she could be just a smart sturdy gal in a high-tech bee costume, slinging out sassiness like ""Sorry, sweetie, my honey-gun is cancelling your gig."

Molecule. During Geoff Johns's incredibly odd and muddled run on Teen Titans, he (briefly) introduced a teen version of the Atom, named Molecule.

It's important to forget that Ray Palmer himself once became a teenage version of the Atom. Because comics.

Molecule, like Micron, is mostly a blank slate with a neat costume. 

An unnaturally buff teenaged blank slate.  Kind of like a Disney Channel star.

Molecule, however, could be a pre-college age sidekick. A nephew? Ray does have a dead brother, after all.  Molecule is/was, of course, also dead, because Geoff Johns enjoys killing characters almost as much as he does bringing them back from the dead.  But that's certainly no reason not to bring him back.  Molecule, I mean, not Geoff Johns. Speaking of Geoff Johns...

Atom-Smasher.  Al Rothstein! OH, how I used to enjoy picking on him for being terrible!  

What kind of idiot arm-wrestles BLACK ADAM?!

And he's about to get a much higher public profile now that's in the Black Adam movie.  He is clearly the choice for the Black Sheep of the Atom dynasty, indulged because of his connection with Al Pratt, but always a morally-challenged giant impulsive aggressive muscle-head in a group of thinkers and strategizing gymnasts.  His codename is very troublesome, obviously, but there is some way around that.

Something nuclear-themed, say.

Major Mynah.  Oh, yeah, I'm going there.

"It's the Atom, riding a bird!"

In case you don't already know, Ray used to have a pet Cambodian Mynah bird named "Major".  Major was also a crime-fighting cyborg bird. Because comics.

He was also a savage lunatic. Because birds.

Look, there's not too much in comics more ridiculous than Major Mynah.  But as a wise man once said, "If you can't make the likes of Tawky Tawny work, then you probably shouldn't be writing Shazam in the first place."

Besides, that is why he absolutely must be part of the Atom dynasty.  It's like this:  most superheroes have powers that are just elaborate extrapolations of what humans can do. Flash can run.  Aquaman can swim. Superman can lift stuff.  Green Lantern makes things.  Wonder Woman can fight. Green Arrows shoots.  Batman can figure stuff out.

We heard you the first time, Ray.

These are activities we can vaguely identify with. But the Atom's power is NOT like that. The Atom SHRINKS. This is not an extrapolation of anything human, in any way.  It's weird and completely alien to the human experience.  

The only way to make that work is to surround him with WEIRDER things, that help make the Atom himself seem more normal in comparison.  It's the "Niles Crane" Principle; the way to take a side character (like Frasier Crane from Cheers) and put him at the center of an ensemble is to have some characters that are even more outré than he is so that he's not the outlier.  Gail Simone understood this, which is why her All-New Atom was absolutely bat-**** crazy (that, plus the fact that B-S crazy writing is her forte).  Which leads us to ....

Ryan Choi. Well, yes, certainly we want Ryan Choi! His tenure as the Atom was MUCH shorter than Ray's, of course, but he's gotten some good multimedia exposure; he was in Batman: Brave & the Bold and Zack Snyder's Justice League.  There's the minor problem of his having the same codename as Ray, but that's no insuperable obstacle; is "All-New" too absurd as a codename? 

And he had charm that Ray never quite did.

And unlike Ray, Ryan is SHORT person.  Short people deserve an Atom they can identify with.  

Personally, I identify with Bumblebee; she's the same height as I am, you know.  And can also fire projectiles out of her butt at high velocity.

Ryan has a facility for out-of-the-box thinking, which Ray values.

Ray and Ryan could easily be the Frasier and Niles of weird science heroes and I think they'd both be richer characters for it.

Doll Man.  Commenter Glen Davis once suggested that Doll Man be the Elder Statesman of the Atom dynasty.  Well, I've got a higher purpose for him: he's the Crazy Uncle.  I could write books about how crazy Darrel "Doll Man" Dane was.

Usually this is the origin of a VILLAIN.

Running around in swimming togs, a red Dr. Strange cape, and pixie boots, he was crazy reckless and had a bondage thing going on.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Unlike the Atom, whose shrinking power comes from comic-book physics, Doll Man's shrinking power (the ability to be either six foot or six inches tall) came from comic-book chemistry, which eventually left him susceptible to mental instability.

Not that there weren't signs earlier.

This makes him a perfect candidate for the Loose Cannon role, the kind of person who creates as many problems as he solves, serves as the reason to get The Team involved in something, and becomes the unpredictable distraction that you employ in a large-scale offensive.

"Large-scale" being a relative term, of course.

"Offensive" is ALSO a relative term.

Darrell Dane's powers might require him to be at one size or the other for certain amounts of time, or risk going crazy (or shifting uncontrollably to the other size).  He'd be the dynasty member the team is always a bit worried about. Is he taking his meds? Can we rely on him? Maybe we shouldn't mention this situation to Dane.  He'd be a lively addition to a pack of highly rational science-heroes.

I'm sure he and Major'd get along famously.

Rita Farr.  Despite her television version being part Elastic Lad, part The Blob, Rita's canonic power is simply size-changing (the one thing the show ignores).  I couldn't believe it when the Doom Patrol members (except Larry) all got shrunk at the end of the first season and she couldn't simply GROW back to her normal size (even if that was classified as being a giant version of her shrunken size).  

I mean, look; it's not as if she's doing anything (except on television).  HBO Max notwithstanding, Doom Patrol's not going to get a book any time soon.  She could at least be a frequent guest-star in the Atom dynasty, where instead of being branded as a FREAK (as Doom Patrol's branding demands), she would be comparatively pedestrian. "Oh, yeah? You shrink and grow? Yeah, us, too. But you are a MOVIE STAR?! Awesome!"  

Adding Rita into the mix wouldn't be so much about her power set but rather all the story opportunities and connections her celebrity and Doom Patrol connections could bring.  Last I was paying any attention, Doom Patrol's HQ was in Midway City, anyway, which is Hawkman's turf.  Creating an axis between Hawkman/DP/The Atom would be a piece of cake; not only are the organic connections there, but they all deal with WEIRD STUFF.

Sure, I could have chosen the cover with the winged space-ape, but that seemed too obvious.

Add to that the rest of the Weird Science characters: Mr. Terrific; The Metal Men;  The T Council.  Face it, they aren't doing anything else for the foreseeable future.  Ray is, de facto, the human, JLA-style superhero face of weird science in the DCU; it's not for nothing that he was part of S.H.A.D.E. in the Frankenstein series.

He HATES it when you call him Melmoth.

The Atom should be the center of gravity for weird science in the DCU.  It makes at least as much sense as Wonder Woman being in Justice League Dark.

And, last but not least: Asimov.  I just love that little guy. Ray definitely deserves a shrinkable robo-Alfred. 

So, all in all, I imagine the Atom dynasty could look something like this: