Power of the Atom Podcast #603

"Just Like Starting Over"

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• The Atom returns to super-heroing!
• By Roger Stern, Dwayne Turner & K.S. Wilson!
• From DC Comics' September 1988 cover-dated Power of the Atom #2!

We all agree that Ray Palmer would have hated John Lennon, right? I figure Ray's one of those "I'm not into music" people, or maybe a jazz guy, like Julie Schwartz. Anyway, the C.I.A. is put out by how the vast majority of information they have on Palmer came from his biography, and how those Justice League guys are really good about hiding their identities. Meanwhile, three-foot-Ray got checked out by family doctor Alvin Jeffries, who gives him a half-sized bill of health, excepting the shrinkage. Ray had a lens sizer that he'd developed with the Hawks secreted into a wall, but it didn't work in his current predicament. With a bit of time to kill, Ray perused Norman Brawler's leftover magazines to catch-up with the times. He was surprised to learn about the Legends event where a demagogue temporarily turned the population against their super-heroes. Also, the Hawks' identity had been publicly exposed, but their whole existence would get retconned soon, so no big loss there.

The next day, Ray and Norm visited Ivy University to meet with the newly named Associate Professor of Physics, Dr. Enrica Negrini. She had once been Ray's lab assistant, and the envy of all the ladies on campus, but Ray only ever had eyes for Jean. Ricki ran some tests and determined that Ray's body had been impregnated with white dwarf matter and the remains of his old costume. Ray stayed in her lab alone overnight to work on his problem, and determined that he could use intense bio-electric activity on his brain's frontal lobe via an encephalo-cybernetic web in a revised costume to merge with his old one and regain his lost mass. It's weird that they would specifically reference a method that would require that Ray wear a skullcap mask when they new his new costume for this series would air out his top. The other ill-considered alteration to his classic suit was explained by Norm messing up the dye pigments, and Ray not caring if it was pink and green so long as it fixed his powers. Part of what made the original suit so great was that he was the rare hero who wore full pants and that the points on it indicated forward motion for an always acrobatic character. The new suit emphasized his crotch in panties that now seemed to point all the way up his chest. Seriously, the worst thing about this book forever shaking DC's faith in the Atom as a solo character is that the best thing about the entire property is the costume and they haven't stopped messing it up for a fourth straight decade and counting.

The revised suit work in restoring Ray's height, but he immediately passed out from being up for something like 36 hours straight to get it done. Ricki volunteers to sit watch over this handsome man while he slept, until he was roused by an alarm. Quraci terrorists had taken hostages in the library, and the campus was being evacuated. The Atom reflexes went straight there, and because these are swarthy Middle Eastern types, he tries to manipulate them by pretending to be Allah and a genie, in that order but interchangeably. It doesn't work on all the terrorists, but it does on some, so go ahead and shake your head at the Bill Maher of it all. At least the Tiny Titan managed a decisive victory against numerous men with sub-machine guns, even if this is the second issue of the Mighty Mite fighting plain dudes.

In the end, it turns out the C.I.A. had tipped off the terrorists that Amir Lashgary, nephew of the late President of Qurac, had been pursuing a graduate degree at Ivy U for two years under an assumed name. The spooks had endangered all those lives solely to draw the Atom out of hiding, and none of us batted an eye. Later, to help sell the dud duds, we learn that the new costume will remain visible at full height, can disappear or reappear at will, and the Atom's neurological connection to the costume makes his powers more responsive than ever. He'll needed it, since the Amir respected Atom's request for discretion regarding his rescue, but the C.I.A. leaked Atom's return to the media to put pressure on the hero...

Ray Palmer,POTAcast,Power of the Atom,Power of the Atom Podcast,Post-Crisis