Big news about a small superhero: The Silver Age Atom

My Silver Age reread has given me fresh appreciation from how well Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox and Gil Kane rebooted the Golden Age Atom. More precisely, how they made this reboot different from its predecessors, the Silver Age Flash, Green Lantern and Hawkman.

The first three Schwartz reboots all had a lot in common with the Golden Age original. Barry Allen and Jay Garrick had the same powers. Hal Jordan and Alan Scott both wielded a power ring that could do almost anything, though the origins were radically different. Katar Hol and the Golden Age Carter Hall had different origins but almost identical outfits and abilities.

It must have been obvious that that wouldn’t fly for an Atom reboot. Golden Age Al Pratt was just an undersized guy whose grueling training regimen made him tough enough to handle crooks twice his size. Later on he got super-strength but even that hardly made him stand out. The Silver Age Atom got a size befitting his name.

In his debut, Ray Palmer, grad student on a physics research fellowship, figures out how to shrink things in size by use of a white-dwarf star fragment. Trouble is, everything he shrinks blows up if it stays small or if he restores it to normal. His accomplishment is still amazing, but he keeps hoping to perfect it. Then, while leading a spelunking expedition with his girlfriend Jean Loring, a cave-in traps them. Shrinking down and climbing inside the one remaining opening, Ray enlarges it for everyone else to escape, though it will cost him his own life. Except he returns to normal size without exploding. At first he thinks he’s licked the explosive problem, but everything else he shrinks still goes boom (a few decades later, they’d have explained it as his metagene kicking in).

That established Ray as completely different from his namesake. But he’s also different in key ways from the other Silver Age revivals. For starters, there’s his motive. Barry Allen, Hawkman and Hawkgirl were cops; Hal Jordan assumed a cop’s role when he accepted the power ring from Abin Sur. Ray isn’t a cop, he’s a researcher. Jean, a lawyer, was determined not to accept his proposal until their careers were established, so Ray figures using his powers to clear her clients will do just that (no, none of them turn out to be guilty). Of course Ray’s soon doing nightly patrols, fighting supervillains and working with the Justice League but the “get Jean to marry me” rationale did explain him getting into the suit.

Ray’s relationship with Jean is different from other three heroes too. Barry and Iris were a couple but they’re most remembered now for Iris constantly nagging him. Hal Jordan was in love with his boss, Carol Ferris; he could have won her as Green Lantern but he wanted to do it as himself, regular Hal Jordan. The Hawks, of course, were married superheroes. Ray and Jean aren’t married but their relationship is way more harmonious than Barry’s or Hal’s. Jean’s clearly into him and they’re probably the kissing-est Silver Age couple next to Adam Strange and Alanna.

Then there’s the stories. Silver Age Flash was best known for supervillains with some super-science stories mixed in. Green Lantern favored SF stories but also fought supervillains (both series had other types of stories). Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s stories were a mix of pulp adventure (sorcery! Yetis! “The World Where Evolution Ran Wild!”) with the occasional supervillain and crooks-with-a-gimmick who would have fit comfortably into the New Look Batman era.The Atom fought few supervillains. By The Atom #20 he’d faced exactly three, the Plant Master in his first issue, Chronos in #3 and Dr. Light in #8.(And may we take a moment to admire those amazing BUY ME NOW!! house ads?)

Even though he fought an alien in his Showcase debut and a couple of times after, the Atom didn’t travel in space the way GL and the Hawks did. He visited subatomic worlds but Green Lantern and Flash visited one before he got around to it. Atom and Flash both traveled in time, but where Flash usually ran into SF foes such as the ornithomen (Flash #125), Atom’s trips through the Time Pool led to relatively mundane encounters involving Jules Verne, Dick Turpin and other historical figures.

Most of the Atom’s adventures were closer to New Look Batman than to the other Schwartz reboots. Clever crooks with a special SF gimmick or an angle, or Russian spies plotting some deviltry against America. Atom was a detective in both identities: police often called on Ray when they confront a crime with a super-scientific angle. Hell, Atom and Ray did more police work than Barry Allen, who rarely spent any time in the crime lab back then.

In #11, Atom confronts a former college buddy who fights like Bruce Lee and can turn the Atom to normal size instantly. It turns out the dude is using hypnosis to make everyone think he’s invincible. In Showcase #36 the Tiny Titan takes on a telekinetic who uses his powers for sleight-of-hand rather than brute force: create a distraction, levitate the jewelry or the money away before anyone looks back. A couple of stories involved the crooks using the Atom to power their gimmicks.

It’s a good approach that fits with the Atom’s powers. He’s not at the Green Lantern/Flash level of might and the creators don’t pretend he is. His SF stories only occasionally hit the world-conquering level; more typically he faced individual adversaries like his evil energy duplicate.

Gardner Fox’s tricky stories are a big part of the appeal for me, though they probably explain why Ray’s never been as successful holding down a series post-Silver Age. Superheroes have upped their game a lot; fighting ordinary crooks, however ingenious, doesn’t have the appeal it once did. The Bat-God sucks up all the air available for superhero detectives. And Atom’s powers aren’t world-shaking; as I’ve mentioned before, I’m fine with that, but I think a lot of comics readers aren’t.

Still, I don’t think any reader in any era could deny that Gil Kane’s art on this strip was amazing. Nobody has ever made shrinking for justice look as cool as Kane did drawing the Atom. Whether it’s diving over a telephone, jumping in and out of a toaster or simply whaling the crap out of the crooks, the Atom makes Silver Age Batman look arthritic by comparison.Like I said, none of this helped the Atom after the Silver Age ended. But put it all together and his adventures are a pleasure to reread.

#SFWApro. All art by Gil Kane