Power of the Atom Podcast #611

Victory Day

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• Joining the Justice League?
• By Roger Stern, Graham Nolan, K.S. Wilson and more!
• From DC Comics's Holiday 1988 cover-dated Power of the Atom #9 & Justice League International #24!

Counting a Maxwell Lord Bonus Book, in the third story from Justice League International #24 by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, & Joe Rubinstein, the team has a post-Invasion super-hero party at the New York Embassy. It doubles as a recruitment drive for a second European-based division. Everyone seems happy to see a "real" Green Lantern in Hal Jordan, especially Hawkman. Hal himself is pleased to see Ray Palmer and Ralph Dibny, saying it felt like old times. He's got his back to Katar and doesn't reference him, so it's almost as cold as when Ray says "Too bad Flash couldn't be here." Wally West was standing right there, but Elongated Man sort of consoled "He means the real Flash, Wally." Meanwhile, Hawkwoman was on the other side of the room with Ice being sexually harassed by the Creeper.

The Atom sat on Hal Jordan's shoulder in silent agreement as the Corpsman assessed "This isn't the League I know." Hawkman thrust his finger angrily in the general direction of the group, warning that they should burn their J.L.I. invites if they knew what was good for them. Katar continued to excoriate the undisciplined, self-indulgent, irresponsible, foul-mouthed, immature misfits. The Thanagarian hoped that his circle of men of character and fortitude would be a good example to this lot. Atom piped in with the defense "Aw, c'mon Katar-- they can't be that bad. J'Onn seems pretty proud of this bunch." Hawkman countered that the Martian Manhunter had changed too, singing and dancing on the front lawn while looking like Gumby when he thought no one could see him.

When some temporarily shrunken Khunds were spontaneously restored to regular size, they unwisely confronted the heroes, and Atom was one of the many metahumans tripping over themselves to round the aliens up. Having served his role of disgruntled fan proxy to the hilt, Hawkman finally took this moment to quit loudly and directly to J'Onn J'Onzz's face. It would have been really cool if Hawkwoman had stayed on without her lesser half, but she would have soon enough been rebooted from the team regardless. Meanwhile, shameless Elongated Man took the opportunity to sign-up for Justice League Europe.

Back in his home title, J'Onn J'Onzz strikes an Uncle Sam pose to declare that he wants Atom for the JLI. Ray's already declining at the top of the following page. Palmer starts off on the "it's not you, it's me" tip, but without any provocation slides right into "but actually, it is you." The Atom thinks that there are too many bozos and jerks on the team, and when Guy Gardner leads a drunken conga line into the room, Ray asks "Didn't we used to fight guys like him?" Sure, Ray's life is a mess and he hasn't settled into his old life again, but mainly he doesn't want to spend time with guys with the manners of Attila the Hun who would make ring projection bunny ears behind the Martian Manhunter's back. The Atom wasn't tolerating the open disrespect for himself and J'Onn, so he trips Guy so that he lands on his fanny and spills his beer.

Hal Jordan jokes that Ray Palmer should have been a Green Lantern, since the Atom wasn't afraid to interrupt Batman's own hard pitch to reclaim a classic Justice Leaguer. Looking at Guy and G'nort, Ray figures the Corps is in even worse shape than the League. If you want evidence that Hal's a moron, he took career advise from The Atom, star of exactly two short-lived solo series in the past sixty years, and the last one was three decades ago. But then, Hal saw financial stability in being one of the anchor series in Action Comics Weekly, soon to be reclaimed as a Superman solo monthly.

The Atom jumps out a window to escape this asylum, drifting near-weightlessly on the winds between New York skyscrapers. His newfound Al Pratt-style atomic punch allows him to rip the rear chassis off a drunken driver before he plowed into a celebratory parade. A cop alerts the Atom to a nearby riot, so Ray rides a tossed bullhorn before growing to talk sense into the crowd. Failing that, he racks a guy, as you do. Batman shows to congratulate the Mighy Mite on his nutcracking, and the JLI takes it from there.

Alpheus Hyatt accepts a collect call, and the Atom is back at Ivy University. Tricked by call forwarding, Ray walks right into a surprise welcome home party. Enrica Negrini used his return from Australia as an excuse for the celebration he didn't get when he unexpectedly came back from Brazil. Ray surrogate father, adventurer Ted Ralston, even flew in from the Andes. Norman Brawler pitched Ray on an expanded edition of his biography for the Warner Books paperback edition. Ray was never one for big parties, so he snuck off to brew some decaf coffee before planning to sneak out the back. He'd been looking for his ex-wife, Jean Hoben, who stumbled in looking for her own cup of java. They spoke for the first time since Ray'd come home, and it was the first Jean had heard of the deaths in Morlaidh. By the end, everybody was crying as the former couple embraced, including Enrica, who stumbled upon them. Jean's current husband Paul, recently chastized for hitting the booze too hard at the gathering, was quite the sullen boy as well...

Justice League International,Hawkman,Green Lantern,Hawkgirl,Elongated Man,Jean Loring,POTAcast,Power of the Atom,Ray Palmer,

Power of the Atom Podcast #607

Comings and Goings

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• Guest-Starring The Elongated Man, Maxwell Lord & Oberon!
• By Roger Stern, Dwayne Turner & K.S. Wilson!
• From DC Comics's December 1988 cover-dated Power of the Atom #5!

I somehow missed covering this story on Shag's Justice League International: Bwah-Ha-Ha Podcast this week. Probably on account of how I didn't do any research beforehand, only looked at the assigned issue the day of recording, and never read #5 before today. That'll do it. Maybe a week of daily podcasts has worn me down, but I just can't get mad at this one. Skipping the flashbacks in favor of editor's notes probably helps, but I figure it's mostly that I like the Atom hanging out with his old Satellite era Justice League buddies. The "bold new direction" horse is well out of the barn by this point, so might as well take comfort with the sheep on the pasture. Not like that. I'm clearly not good at metaphoring. Metaphorizing. Websters says "metaphorizing." Who knew that kid would pick up such big words around Alex Karras?

In this issue, Ray phones into the C.I.A. office of Everett Bailey, who freaked out over both the security breach and the prospect of having the perpetrator in his stable of operatives. However, Ray "nah dowgs" the C.I.A., then phones out with little explanation. Bailey pitches a fit, and lets slip that he might have had something to do with Operation Fireball in front of a non-corrupt subordinate. Scene shifts to the sunny beaches of San Clemente, California, specifically a cliff-side mansion. A mobster and his tower henchman make a bunch of time puns and prepare for a well researched confrontation with the Atom like we didn't already immediately know that this was Chronos. It's the only Atom villain that anyone can name, assuming they could name an Atom villain, which is not a safe assumption. You're more likely to get someone like Vandal Savage from a DC's Legends of Tomorrow watcher. It's been over a decade since the last attempt at an Atom ongoing series. If you don't teach your kids at home, there's no telling what they'll pick up on the streets.

The Atom next phones in to the New York Embassy of Justice League International, a call that startles Oberon right off his bar stool. Despite scoring a direct extension to the super-team at their current number, the Atom still plays off like "I don't recognize any of these team members" from the onscreen duty log. What, you couldn't ask Norman Brawler, "yo, who's J'Onn J'Onzz and the Batman been teaming with since I've been gone?" Plus, Ray's one of those "The Batman" people. Dude, you were never cool with Batman if you're "the"ing him. Fake familiar. Ray's all like "I'm just here visiting, not looking for a job, where's everybody and what's your 401k matching plan?" Also, Ray stays eye-to-eye with Oberon, which is courteous, except he instantly jumps up to full size the second Maxwell Lord walks through the door. I see you, Ray. Eyes on you, bruh.

Despite making all the overtures of being on the market, Max Lord is way too thirsty for the Atom. He's oily to begin with, but Ray has got to know by now that nobody that hot for the Mighty Mite is offering a good scene. Maxwell Lord once used his superhuman persuasion powers to force the Huntress onto the team, and her super-hero ability is crossbow. She can use a mechanized weapon from 650 B.C. I don't think she's a master with it or anything, and I think archers laugh at their accuracy, and there's barely a competitive sport for crossbow, so it's kind of like being able to set the recording time on a VHS at this point. Related: my father is too cheap to spring for broadband, and still uses multiple VCRs to tape his broadcast shows each night to avoid commercials. He's the Huntress of VCRs, but I'm not recruiting him for my super-team.

Most of the JLI are in outer space trying to fly to Apokolips, which seems inefficient, and that's what Oberon tells Ray. Mike's Amazing World then lost its mind over the glaring continuity error of only part of the team being in space and the other part staying on Earth to fight Lobo and don't even get him started on the European team, I guess. Whoops, JLE forms after Invasion, so my joke has a glaring continuity error. Calm down Mike. When people ask me how I'm doing, I don't bring up my hemorrhoids acting up because of all the time I spend sitting to work on podcasts. Thank you for your interest, but the League is in outer space at this time. That's all you have to say. We'll pass a message to Martian Manhunter when he gets back, because The Batman damned sure won't be calling.

Ray's still playing off the "Who's this Captain Atom that stole my name while I was gone" despite knowing he came out a year-and-a-half after the Charlton hero, but "I don't know him," right? Despite there being a perfectly good phone that he came in on, the Atom has to walk out the front door of the JLI Embassy in front of a gaggle of reporters camped out there and still be like "no comment." You know what you're doing, Ray. "Oh these paparazzi follow me everywhere I call to tell them where I'll be. Everybody wants desperately to work with me according to my solo title and nowhere else." The Atom is the Lindsey Lohan of super-heroes over here.

Ray Palmer then goes to a diner with a hat on, pretending that he hopes not to be recognized while racking his brain for anyone else who might be excited that he's back, and could tell him how much they enjoyed his biography before he pulled a Greta Garbo. "Oh, don't speak of my New York Times bestseller, I only want to live my life in anonymity while seeking out publicly known super-heroes to be photographed with." He peruses a newspaper, which I guess is like the MSN homepage, but nobody who looks at the MSN homepage hasn't held a newspaper before, probably that very morning at Denny's. There's an article about how the Elongated Man and his literal better half who everyone prefers to him are vacationing in Florida, so Atom makes some more phone calls. Slag on the Tiny Titan all you want, but instantaneous transport by telephone is one of the best powers. I've been on a plane for a literal day. I'll take that over eye beams, thanks.

Ray finds his old pal Ralph Dibny, and asks how he deals with being a celebrity without a secret identity. Ralph explains that he's a fame whore who married a rich debutante who leaks is vacation itinerary to the media and will happily upend his life and move to France at Max Lord's beckoning in a few months. Ralph is named Ralph. Why even try to front. Elongated Man and the Atom team-up to confront parrot smugglers on the high seas. You think I'm kidding. Like me, the writer has given up any illusions that Power of the Atom will last much more than another year, so we're going with armed parrot smugglers who wear Penny Loafers. Ray Palmer isn't looking for fame, so he keeps his name out of the papers when the Dibnys are interviewed on the dock with the perpetrators in Dockers. I'm sure that was entirely down to privacy concerns rather than not wanting to be associated with parrot pushers in print like sad, desperate Elongated Man. And talking on sad spectacles, the issue-closing teaser is tubby middle-aged Chronos burning his old clown costume in favor of a bland tunic that hides his spare tire. Not gonna lie, I'd wear it, too.

Ray Palmer,Chronos,POTAcast,Power of the Atom,Elongated Man,Justice League International,Power of the Atom Podcast,Post-Crisis,