Unsung Superheroes: The Atom

 

Unsung Superheroes

At first I thought I was going to write posts about the side characters in the 2025 Superman movie and then move on to others. But I decided to skip ahead to a different character. Why? Because I thought it would be best to emphasize what DC's deal was in the 1950s and 1960s. Because when you pay attention to commentary and discourse about superhero comics, you hear a lot about how Marvel Comics came along in the 1960s and broke the mold. But little is said about DC, with the implication that they were just the old guard who were writing “the same old superheroes”. But it was actually something that DC did that revived interest in superheroes and set the stage for what Marvel would do later.

You see, the Golden Age of superhero comics started in 1938 with the creation of Superman and lasted through World War II. The superheroes created during that time were pulpy, two-fisted “mystery men” who took on a lot of gangsters before they started taking on Nazis. But once the war years ended, the days of the superhero kind of wound down. I mean, some of the big names like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman hung around, but a lot of the other superheroes were retired. In their place, other genres cropped up. Among them were comics based around westerns, war, horror, crime and romance. And they sold rather well, too. Granted, during that time, practically every child in the U.S. read comic books. It wasn't to last, though. You see, it was the 1950s and the United States was in a very conservative place at the time, and the stage was set for a moral panic about comic books. A child psychologist named Frederic Wertham wrote a book titled Seduction of the Innocent in which he blamed comic books for juvenile delinquency and various other moral failings (if we can call things like homosexuality and Communist sympathizing “moral failings”, because I'm sure he did) on children's exposure to comic books. The end result was a series of Congressional hearings about comic books and the institution of a strict self-censorship system called the Comics Code. The Code essentially cut a lot of the new comics genres off at the knees, causing them to lose a lot of their edge. The horror comics could no longer be horrific and were consigned to an early grave. The western comics heroes could no longer engage in the gunplay they were accustomed to. And the protagonists of the romance comics could no longer show any desire other than the desire for marriage and a stable home life.

So, what were the makers of comic books to do? Well, DC editor Julius Schwartz had an idea. They would bring back the superheroes they had once published. This time, though, they'd be reinvented. Characters like Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman and the Atom would get new designs, new origins, new powers and it would be brand new characters under the masks. And probably the biggest move that would set the stage for what DC would be about for a couple of decades and which would have some echoes beyond that: These new heroes would be based firmly in the realm of science fiction.

It made sense. Schwartz and many of the other editors, writers and artists working in comics had roots in science fiction publishing. And also, it was the late '50s by this point and the children of the United States were rapidly becoming more fascinated by space, speed and science as the country started moving toward its first space flight. It should also be noted that when I say DC was committed to science fiction, I mean they were sincere about it. There are many cases where something is considered science fiction or “sci-fi” and the science being touted is iffy at best (like Marvel's tried and true “radiation causes super-powers” approach). DC at least tried to include some degree of plausabity. At least plausible enough for an adventure story aimed at 8-year olds. For example, it was more important to establish that the Flash could move at the speed of light at his upper limits so they could explain to kids exactly how fast light was than to explain how he was possibly able to do that (Note: this might be why DC superheroes can often seem a bit overpowered). And so, the Silver Age of superhero comics was born.

So, which DC character best represents that commitment to science fiction and the transition from the pulpy Golden Age to the science-minded Silver Age? Well, the usual answer would be the Flash. However, the Flash is actually a bit too well-known to be a subject for this column, what with having been the star of a nine season TV show. So, I think the second best choice would be . . . The Atom!

The Golden Age

Al Pratt as The Atom

So, the very first Atom made his debut in All-American Comics #19, cover dated October 1940. And his whole gimmick was . . . that he was short.

The original Atom was Al Pratt, a sophomore at Calvin College in Calvin City, who was teased for his diminutive 5'1” stature and lack of athleticism. However, he was trained by ex-boxer Joe Morgan and would become strong despite his small size. Atom became a member of the Justice Society of America and would fight against enemies like The Emperor of America, The Black Dragon society and Cyclotron. It was in 1948 that DC decided to beef up Atom further and gave him atomic-powered super-strength, attributed to an after-effect of a battle he had with Cyclotron in 1942. Atom's last Golden Age appearance would be with the Justice Society in 1950.  (Editor's Note: Some of this is canon that was written after the fact).

He would reappear years later as DC would revive the Golden Age heroes as denizens of the other-dimensional Earth-2.

The Silver Age

An early appearance of Ray Palmer as the Atom

In 1961, comics readers were introduced to a brand new Atom. Showcase #34 saw the introduction of Ray Palmer, physics professor at Ivy University in the small college town of Ivy Town. One day while working on an experiment, Palmer sees a meteorite strike the earth. He runs to investigate and finds a meteor that he theorizes had once been part of an ultra-dense white dwarf star. He lugs the very heavy rock to his car and brings it back to his lab,. Where he fashions it into a lens. Ray Palmer puts the lens to work in his experiments in reducing matter but finds little success as the things he shrinks end up blowing apart. Later, Ray goes on a hike with his girlfriend, lawyer Jean Loring and the Ivy University Nature Club down into a cave and brings the explode-y shrinking lens with him. However, a cave-in traps them in the cave. Ray then decides to use the lens to shrink himself to find a way out. He does, and manages to save everyone and return himself to regular size without, you know, exploding. Later on, he concludes that some force within his own body must allow himself to use the shrinking lens without blowing up. So, Ray works the shrinking tech into a belt and adds controls to manipulate his weight and density too. He figures out how to shrink down and travel through phone lines. He also develops a costume that somehow appears when he's shrunk and disappears when he's full size.

And that's basically how Ray Palmer's career as the Atom starts. He becomes good friends with fellow superhero Hawkman. He joins the Justice League of America. He goes up against villains like Chronos the Time-Thief, the Floronic Man and the Bug-Eyed Bandit. He also had some adventures involving something called the Time Pool, which allowed him to travel to the past. Interestingly, much of his motivation for being a superhero at the time was to catch criminals for his lawyer girlfriend to prosecute so he can boost her career so that she will someday marry him, which will prove ironic later. If nothing else, the Atom served as a fun way to expose kids to basic physics ideas like mass and density, as well as to show off other small-scale scientific concepts. Though, like a lot of superheroes, the Atom proved to have a limited shelf life as a solo star. Despite being one of those classic superhero concepts, shrinking heroes usually don't last long (Atom wasn't the first or the last shrinking hero. He was preceded by Doll Man in 1939 and followed by Ant-Man the next year in 1962). And it was after that that things got kind of tough for Ray.

He still hung around the DC Universe as a very specific utility player for whenever a story needed a physicist or a guy who can shrink. But his life kind of took some hits and he went in some strange directions.

He split-up with his girlfriend-turned-wife Jean Loring because, irony of ironies, he was spending too much time adventuring as the Atom.

Then, for a little while he became the sword-wielding hero of a tiny alien race that crashed in the Amazon in the miniseries Sword of the Atom.

Sword of the Atom

After that, he was even deaged into a teenager so he could join a new version of the Teen Titans.

The teen version of the Atom

I know this seems like a lot. But it serves as an illustration of all the ways that comics book writers and editors will try to revamp a C-List character. Anyway, all the while, his relationship with Jean Loring deteriorated more and more as DC writers started to write her as more and more unstable.

Which leads us to the third Atom . . .

The Modern Age

Ryan Choi as the All New Atom

The year 2006 introduced DC Comics readers to a brand new Atom. After a storyline in which Jean Loring killed the wife of one of Ray Palmer's old friends, Ray disappeared to parts unknown. Filling in for him at Ivy University was a hotshot young physics professor straight from Hong Kong named Ryan Choi. Ryan was a big fan of Ray Palmer's work as a physicist, and after coming to Ivy Town inadvertently takes up Ray's superheroic role as the Atom in order to stop a brewing war between science and magic that was incited by Palmer's old enemy Chronos.

The one thing consistent about Ryan's tenure as the Atom was that he was always more excited about the scientific possibilities of his work as the Atom than about the adventure and action.

Ryan's tenure was relatively short, though. He was killed off by a new villain group (his solo comic book was also cancelled after losing readers from a radical tonal shift after issue #12. I remember because I was one of the readers who was lost. It was one of my favorite comics for the first year).

But in superhero comics, nothing stays gone forever. And DC has a tendency of trying to reset everything.

So, Ray Palmer came back. This time with a revamped back story that emphasizes Ray trying to use his Atom powers to live up to the example of a father and brother who were both firefighters. And Ryan Choi also returned as Ray's lab assistant who wants to use science and the Atom powers to surpass the various allergies, phobias and other frailties that have held him down. So, now they're both operating as the Atom.

The Atom Project.  Choi (left) and Palmer (right).

But it is a good example of the radical change from the 1940s heroes to the ones of the 50s and 60s. From athletic short guy to size-changing physicist. And the way the Atom's stories emphasized physics shows how a pivot towards science fiction has influenced DC comics even to today. And all of it wrapped up in a small package.