There’s a guy on a train, furtively moving forward as air force personnel question transport staff about someone they’re looking for.
As they get close, he takes drastic action.
Escape doesn’t look to be on the cards today, though.
Flashback to three weeks earlier, when Ray and fellow Atom Ryan Choi were catching up with a kid unable to handle the super-powers that had surged into him. Electricity bleeding out of a panicky Matthew was causing explosions and tossing cars towards fleeing families.
Super-science temporarily solves the problem.
Ray and Ryan take the boy to the Justice League Watchtower, where we meet the woman keeping an eye on a whole bunch of new metahumans.
Matthew is given larger quarters than the agonised unfortunates.
The heroes’ efforts to help Matthew and the other recipients of powers stolen by Amanda Waller’s army of Amazos involve a third Atom – Captain Atom.
It is, though, a painful process.
And it’s not obviously successful.
Which may be why, in the present day, Captain Atom – the stranger on a train – has gone awol from the project, causing Ray to get rough.
My apologies if I’ve gone too long on recap, but there’s a lot going on in Ryan Parrott and John Ridley’s story. Yep, it’s another Absolute Power spin-off, but I’m up for anything that puts a spotlight on Ray and Ryan. Mind, do they have to be in such hideous new outfits? Ryan’s is clunky and style free, Ray looks like he’s wearing a vest – that’s a tank top in the US, I believe, ‘wifebeater’ if it’s 1938. However we describe them, they’re a massive downgrade from the Silver Age classic and subsequent updates. Ryan’s seems to be nodding to the metal suit worn by the Arrowverse’s Ray, while Ray’s is all unnecessary tweaks.
And has Ryan swapped powers with Firestorm, he’s never been able to transmute stuff? As for Ray, he shrinks on the cover but not inside. The writers need to let the reader know what’s going on there straight away, rather than assume we’ll be back for explanations.
I’ve long been a fan of Captain Atom too, but DC Editorial seems strangely keen on presenting him as problematic of late, with him villainous in the current Jenny Sparks mini-series and here a massive hothead. It’s a shame, I was hoping 2017’s excellent Fall and Rise of Captain Atom mini had put him back on track.
I’m actually surprised Nate is so keen to get his powers back, they ruined his life in many ways… but then again, his exploded private life meant superheroing was pretty much all he had. As for Ray and Ryan, I hope we see what’s up with them in their everyday lives, the modern trend of ‘all costume, all the time’ has become rather tedious. And here’s hoping Dr Light gets a big supporting role.
This first of six issues is framed by conversing narrators, whom I at first assumed were Ryan and Ray, but it becomes clear that’s not the case. Fingers crossed they’ll be unveiled next time. Whatever is going on, the decision to have their words both in red boxes, only very subtly differentiated, is a terrible one for clarity. Would that be down to letterer Wes Abbott or colourist Adriano Lucas? I don’t know, though Abbott loses a point for making the classic ‘lightning’ misspelled as ‘lighting’ error at one point. Otherwise, both men do a bang-up job working with Mike Perkins’s typically photorealistic compositions. The style is a tad distracting at times… that ‘sounds great, sir’ close-up of Matthew, for instance, had me running straight to the reverse image search app (I didn’t find anything). Perkins’s art doesn’t look quite as great as it did in the recent The Bat-Man: First Knight series, but it’s still head and shoulders above a lot of what’s out there. My favourite panel is Ray and Ryan’s Boom Tube arrival, a dynamic view made to pop further by the colours of Lucas.
I enjoyed the dialogue from Parrott – a new name to me – and Ridley, though plot-wise, as usual with non-linear stories, I don’t see the point. Ryan Choi having debuted as a replacement for a missing Ray Palmer means we’ve not seen a lot of team-ups between the Atoms, but it seems enough time has passed for Ryan to get over his student/teacher deference. I’m intrigued by Ray’s assertiveness, and enjoying how Ryan tries to pull him back before he goes full mad scientist – the Atoms have been given a task by the new Justice League Unlimited, just as our writers have, it seems, been given a concept by DC Editorial. Good luck to the lot of ‘em.
Maybe by the close of this story Ryan and Ray will even sort out their hero names – they’re not both The Atom, Ray is The Atom, Ryan is An Atom. I love Ryan, but let him be Microbe or something. Shrinkydink, Titch… whatever, just not another Atom.
Perkins handles cover illo and colour and I like the result, it’s a shame the DC All In trade dress requires that cluttersome costume symbol be on the page, it’s one element too many.
I enjoyed this comic, but it didn’t blow me away. Let’s hope next issue does.
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
I’m also a big fan of Nate from his JLA/JLE days, and recently made an effort to collect his solo series which I was unable to get back in the day, and not sure what it is that has him being portrayed in the ways he has been. He has a really interesting dynamic, but it seems like they’re stuck on the fact he was supposed to be Monarch, which didn’t really make sense anyway, or that they think they need to match him to Dr Manhattan. (I did try the Jenny Sparks mini on the basis that maybe King’s style would fit with a more cynical character, but he seems not to have picked up on the hope she embodied and the idea of the Authority wanting to change the world. But his portrayal of Nate is even more off character and I wouldn’t be surprised if he originally planned to use Dr Manhattan as that’s what he seems to be basing it on.) From the write up I’m not sure if it’s worth me picking this up, I’ve never been totally sold on the aftermath of crossovers where people’s powers get scrambled, but I might give it a browse if I’m near a comic shop soon.
Stu
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Hasn’t King admitted he submits plots for approval first and editorial tells him what characters to use? It could be why none of his characterizations resemble what they are even when appearing somewhere else concurrently.
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I never bothered with the Jenny Sparks, I’ve had it with Tom King and DC… I listen to his interviews on the Word Balloon podcast and he sounds a nice fella, but the way he messes around with characters isn’t for me.
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The first issue of that execrable Supergirl mini was my last straw. Even before that I jumped in on his Batman run late, loved it, bought what I missed in trades, and then that Bruce-Selina breakup was so stupid and badly written, I dropped the book again and never read those trades.
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Bleagh! This book was a mess (for me).
The constant jumping around between “then” and “now” might have made some kind of sense if the narration boxes weren’t almost identical. If it wasn’t the Atoms having a back and forth conversation, by the way, then who is having the conversation? Someone who won’t be introduced until much later in the series? Dumb. I’m not invested enough to remember to try to figure that out next issue.
Too much of this issue is mystery for mystery’s sake. It feels like the writers have taken what sounds like a straight forward story and played around with the structure to make it seem edgy and cutting edge.
The new costumes don’t work for me. They’re not visually appealing, and also they’re too similar in appearance. Perhaps a different artist would be better able to differentiate between Ryan and Ray, but Perkins’ art is too moody and shadowy for my taste.
None of the main characters sound like themselves. Yes they’re scientists, but the way they’re written here, they could be any one of DC’s top brains. I’d rather see the Atoms known primarily for their shrinking and size control than for being the scientist on call when DC needs a smart person for a story.
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I agree with pretty much everything you say. And yeah, I could do without the Atoms becoming Hank Pym-style all-purpose scientists, but at least we get to see them (looking awful) and it’s a change from Mr Terrific. But please, give Kimi something to do with
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Hope folks who buy it enjoy this series. I’m watching from the sidelines. I’m just not sold on the “Absolute Power”/”All-In Special” fallout. I turned 50 this year and after reading comics for I’d say about 40-plus years and seriously collecting them since the late 1990s, I think my lack of interest is proof that I’m just done with (most) events. I’ll leave some wiggle room for myself… But I’m even turned off by “Justice League Unlimited” with MARK WAID!!!!! (who I love) at the helm because that title so far seems so tied up in the power loses/switches/death of Darkseid stuff. Again, I hope this is all successful and DC sells some books. And I really loved Ridley’s “Other History of the DC Universe” which I just finished reading a few weeks ago. But I’m just not feeling enthusiastic about the current key storylines tying DC together right now. I miss a “Justice League” like Morrison’s where the book was doing its own thing, and every stary arc was its own mini-event rather than cleaning up a prior event and leading up to the next event. Give me titles like “JSA” and “Metamorpho” which seem off doing their own thing.
-Brian
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Yeah, it’d be great if this Darkseid business didn’t hang over everything but I fear we have a couple of years of it… I think I read that somewhere. Mind, that could just be gossip, and it’s not like comic companies don’t swerve if things aren’t going well. I do miss seeing interviews with editors and publishers, anything that goes beyond Plug of the Month, giving us an insight into what they’re thinking.
And you probably know I’m very much a fan of every comic going their own way, with only occasional massive crossovers.
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I liked it despite the many, many things wrong. The time jump came off as reversed to me, with me thinking the confrontation on the train was earlier. Ray and Ryan are unrecognizable out of seriously fugly costumes, not looking like what they’re supposed to and looking almost like twins most times. Doctor Light should be their equal. Ray has never been this big an asshole.
Yet I liked it. Weird since I absolutely hated Ridley’s previous big book. Can’t recall exactly why now (I don’t think I even bothered finishing the first issue) but I guess a better story and a co-writer explain it.
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Fascinating! I wonder if it’ll keep your interest.
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I’m also not keen on the whole missing powers/power swaps subplot so soon after we had “Lazarus Planet” which Waid also penned. The concepts are pretty much the same – people who didn’t have powers now have them!!!! – and it really kind of boggles my mind that the decision was made to end “Absolute Power” essentially the same way as that prior event. I wonder if “Lazarus Planet” just didn’t do that well, so DC editorial figured readers with short attention spans had forgotten about it? Or the thought was, we didn’t milk the fallout from “Lazarus Planet” enough, let’s rectify that error and really dig in on the concept with “Absolute Power”…
I’m also a little worried that we are witnessing the Hank Pym-ing of The Atom, and by that I mean he can’t just be a straight hero anymore and has to have a dark/unstable/insecure edge. How long did it take following “Identity Crisis” for us to just get Ray Palmer back as a superhero rather than “Ray Palmer, the ex-husband of the woman who murdered Sue Dibny.”? It was years. Just like Hank Pym is often reduced to “the guy who slapped the Wasp 40 years ago and created the villainous robot Ultron.” Now, maybe I’m projecting my frustrations about the handling of Hank Pym over the years onto DC’s main shrinking adventurer. But I’m a bit concerned that at some point we’re going to see a storyline with the JLA taking on an out-of-control/unbalanced Ray Palmer…
-Brian
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Brian, what can I say? I agree entirely with everything you say.
I thought we would finally see the back of ‘Hank Pym, wifebeater’ after the work Dan Slott did with him in Mighty Avengers – the idea of him as Scientist Supreme was a hoot – but it was soon unravelled. It’s lazy and boring.
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Scientist Supreme was extremely silly and without the visceral impact of Jan taking a slap to the face from her husband, especially when we see later he blackened her eye. The character will never stay past that point because even the Ultron thing doesn’t carry that impact. New writers have to come up with scenes designed to overshadow it. Peter Parker is not remembered for the one slap he gave MJ in contrast because with his greater number of appearances and iconic moments it’s just a blip.
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I heard that Hank is now Ultron – ugh – but when I tried the new West Coast Avengers there’s an Ultron in there that isn’t Hank. It’s all so stupid.
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But we’re from the era where the Ultrons were numbered. That didn’t help? I remember there was even a good guy iteration once before.
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And after typing the above about Hank Pym/The Atom I realized that writers can’t seem to also get over making Captain Atom a bad guy or possible bad buy. When “Justice League Unlimited” was first announced and he was shown as a team member I thought it was refreshing and he would finally be used just as a straight up superhero. But I guess not?… Sure Captain Atom is a military guy. But so’s Steve Rogers, and he is a pillar of the Marvel U. Is it the nuclear powers angle that makes writers want to treat Captain Atom as someone who is a potential threat rather than just a hero?
-Brian
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It’s like DC Editorial and Supergirl/Power Girl, they either have no idea what to do with them, or just hate them.
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