Review: The All-New Atom - The Hunt for Ray Palmer

With questions growing regarding the verity of Ray Palmer selecting Ryan Choi to be his successor as the Atom, Ryan begins a quest to find his missing mentor. This journey takes him to the jungles of South America and into a temporarily alliance with Donna Troy, Jason Todd and a Monitor. Then, Ryan must work to solve a mystery when Ivy Town and its citizens are transformed into hippies from the 1960s.

The All-New Atom: The Hunt for Ray Palmer collects issues 12-16 of The All-New Atom, written by Gail Simone and Roger Stern with art by Mike Norton.

The bulk of the issues collected in this edition act as a tie-in to the then-current event known as Countdown. As such, the narrative flow of this series is interrupted and creates a disjointed feel that works against it. The premise of the four-part “The Hunt for Ray Palmer” arc is for Ryan to find his one-time pen pal and get answers to the many burning questions he has for him. Unfortunately, the arc leaves just about everything unresolved. Ray Palmer remains as elusive as ever and Ryan is left uncertain as to why he was given the size-changing belt. The problem here is that this series is being roped into an ongoing storyline elsewhere, specifically the “Search for Ray Palmer” arc from Countdown. That means that there can be no resolution since the main story happens in an entirely different book.

Of course, Gail Simone and Mike Norton do deliver some great content. Visually, Norton continues to excel as the penciller for the series and provides some stunning panel work. His characters are memorable and distinctive. He’s also given the chance to draw Donna Troy, which is nice since there have been so few women in The All-New Atom. Simone, despite seeming like she’s writing after being backed into a corner, does incredible character work as always. The interactions she’s able to write between the individuals featured in this arc is really entertaining, particularly the dynamic she creates between Atom and Donna Troy (the former has a bit of a crush on the latter). It’s also interesting to see the way in which Simone explores some of Ray’s past as the Atom, particularly as she devotes an entire issue to the Morlaidhans.

For issue 16 in this collection, legendary comic writer Roger Stern takes over the writing duties. What he creates is obviously filler. Though Stern understands Ryan’s character and the tone of the book, he appears to phone in his work here. The premise is clichéd and the events predictable. Ivy Town goes through a time flux and is transformed into something straight out of the 1960s, leaving Ryan as the only one unaffected by the change. The story does fall under the “weird stuff happens here” status quo Simone established, but doesn’t do anything inventive or engaging.

The Hunt for Ray Palmer is an unfortunate letdown after the impressive second collection of stories from The All-New Atom. While Simone continues to show her incredible grasp on Ryan’s character and her dialogue remains quite humorous, this collection’s tie-in status really drags it down. Though Simone would later prove herself capable of writing tie-in material that is often superior to that of the main event (i.e. Batgirl: Death of the Family), such is not the case here. Despite its shortcomings, The Hunt for Ray Palmer is still entertaining. Simone’s usage of Chronos is fantastic and her homage to kaiju films is absolutely hilarious. Norton’s artwork also helps to elevate the title and establish a consistency that is needed for the book.

RATING: C+

Review: The All-New Atom - Future/Past

Upon receiving a call from his high school crush, the Atom returns to Hong Kong under the pretense of helping to protect her from her abusive husband. He soon learns that not everything is as it seems – especially since her husband is dead and has returned to enact his vengeance on the person responsible for his death.

The All-New Atom: Future/Past collects issues 7-11 of The All-New Atom, written by Gail Simone with art by Mike Norton and Eddy Barrows.

Future/Past contains two story arcs. The first is a two-part story featuring figurative ghosts from Ray Palmer’s past returning to haunt his successor, while the second sees our titular hero facing off against real ghosts as he attempts to come to terms with his own past. In “The Man Who Swallowed Eternity,” the Atom is approached by Ryak the Rogue and is threatened into turning over a man he has yet to meet. As the plot unfolds, we learn that the time stream has been tampered with due to the activities of a friend of Ray Palmer. It’s a fairly straightforward science fiction-leaning story that brings our hero into a possible future, one which gives us a potential glimpse at where the DC Universe might end up. It’s engaging, but lacks depth and direction. The second arc, simply titled “Jia,” is really where things get interesting.

Over the course of three issues, writer Gail Simone teases out an incredible horror-tinged sequence of events that see the Atom venturing back to China in order to seemingly protect the woman he’s loved since he was a teenager. Simone rather brilliantly ratchets up the tension throughout the narrative, keeping readers on their toes by forcing us to confront and question the honesty of those involved. Jia, Ryan’s high school crush, is painted as a dejected and emotional wreck of a woman whose husband was abusive. Her husband, as we learn, once tormented Ryan in school and this makes matters even more personal. Upon his return to Hong Kong, Ryan learns that Jia’s husband is dead and is haunting her. Once we learn the reason for the haunting, things get really intense and it places our hero in a position where he feels powerless. Simone has never been one to play things safe or depict characters in a way that is predictable or one-dimensional, which is why it’s all the more thrilling to see how Jia and her husband are developed through this arc. It’s one of her most cohesive and compact storylines, especially since it occurs within a relatively short amount of time. I personally love when Simone gets dark and twisted, throwing horror at her readers, and she certainly doesn’t disappoint here.

The art in this collection is flawlessly executed and sets the tone for both stories. Mike Norton’s pencils are exuberant and youthful, depicting Ivy Town and its inhabitants in a much more colourful manner. Norton is more simplistic in his style and this suits the two part “The Man Who Swallowed Eternity” quite well. By contrast, Eddy Barrows has a more mature and detailed aesthetic. It’s darker and he excels at creating a sinister vibe for the book. His action sequences also continue to be superb.

I enjoyed Future/Past significantly more than the collection that preceded it. Simone hits her stride here. She trims down the supporting cast, utilizing both Panda and Ryan’s father in a manner that helps to further define Ryan’s character. She develops our hero’s past and hints at his future while delivering two engaging storylines, the second of which is massively entertaining in a twisted kind of way. This is further enhanced by the incredible work done by Norton and Barrows.

RATING: B+

Review: The All-New Atom - My Life in Miniature

Moving from Hong Kong to the United States, Ryan Choi becomes the new nuclear physics professor at Ivy University. He takes up residence in the former home of Ray Palmer, otherwise known as the superhero Atom. When he discovers the Atom’s size-changing belt, Ryan dons the familiar red and blue costume and becomes the newest Atom. Not long after this, Ivy Town goes topsy-turvy as science and magic duke it out for possession over the town and its inhabitants.

The All-New Atom: My Life in Miniature collects issues #1-6 of The All-New Atom and Brave New World #1, written by Gail Simone and illustrated by John Byrne and Eddy Barrows.

Following his disappearance at the end of the controversial Identity Crisis, Ray Palmer left the world without an Atom. As one of DC Comics’ most prominent Silver Age characters, the Ray Palmer iteration of the Atom was a member of the Justice League and helped to inspire a number of size-shrinking heroes. When it came time to create a new character to fill his boots, Gail Simone, Grant Morrison and John Byrne teamed up to create Ryan Choi. Positioned as a former pen pal of the missing Ray Palmer, Ryan moves to Ray’s old stomping grounds and replaces him as a professor at Ivy University. What follows is a series of events wherein Ryan becomes the new Atom and must deal with the consequences of his predecessor’s size-altering on the powerful nexus beneath Ivy Town.

Gail Simone, with the help of John Byrne and Eddy Barrows, channels the Buffyverse in her quest to legitimize Ryan Choi as the new Atom and redefine Ivy Town for modern audiences. My Life in Miniature is quirky and darkly funny, utilizing a sleepy university town as a setting for its B-movie style horror monster conflicts. In addition to our shrinking protagonist, Simone introduces a scientifically-advanced miniature society (that lives on a dog) and a Lovecraftian mystical creature as the antagonists for this arc. It’s silly, but playfully so. Humour and horror are two consistent trademarks in Simone’s work and she utilizes both fairly well here. Though it’s not nearly as pitch-perfect as her opening arcs on Batgirl or Secret Six, the tone she selects does what it needs to in order to set-up our hero and his surroundings. Even still, the supporting cast (composed almost entirely of fellow male scientists) isn’t particularly memorable and the overall execution of the conflict is muddied. Despite this, Simone gets bonus points for her creative usage of a civilian Giganta and the admirable creation of the extremely unhinged villain Dwarfstar.

The issues collected from The All-New Atom in this trade are illustrated by John Byrne (issues 1-3) and Eddy Barrows (issues 4-6). Though Simone and Byrne had previously worked together on Action Comics, I can’t say I enjoy his art with her words. Much of this has to do with the decrease in the quality of his work since the 1990s. Byrne makes Ryan look pubescent, while everything else seems to have a sketchy and rough quality. Of course, I may be especially hard on Byrne given his astonishingly bad run on Wonder Woman. When Barrows takes over the art chores for the remainder of the issues collected here, there’s a marked improvement in the dynamics of the book. His characters are more distinct, particularly Atom and Dwarfstar. The action is bolder and seems to match the tone of Simone’s writing.

My Life in Miniature does an adequate job of laying down the groundwork for what could very well be a great series. Simone has more hits than misses under her belt and, in these first six issues, has managed to make me far more interested in Ryan Choi than his predecessors (of course that may also be because of the gratuitous butt shot in issue 1). Though I’m not particularly impressed with the supporting cast and would have preferred more of a focus on Dwarfstar, I dig a lot of the choices made in My Life in Miniature and it leaves me invested in Ryan Choi as a character.

RATING: B-