In keeping with the spirit of the other new Silver Age DC pages I've adding to the site this week and the last -- i.e., "Heroes Who Were Thoroughly and Inarguably Screwed Up Beyond All Recognition By the Powers-That-Be" (Green Lantern; Hawkman; etc.) -- I thought it appropriate to say a few words regarding one of the company's all-time most under-appreciated characters "Ray Palmer"... a.k.a., THE ATOM.

It was not always thus, of course, in the case of the Tiny Titan; back in the 60's, he benefited from a high-profile (and highly-regarded, by the readers of the day) monthly solo title, with intelligent scripting by the likes of JUSTICE LEAGUE impressario Gardner Fox, and jaw-dropping penciling by an in-his-artistic-prime Gil Kane. [See cover, accompanying]

Like those of his Silver Age DC counterparts Flash and Green Lantern, the Atom's adventures were steeped in scientific (if not pseudo-scientific) lore and minutiae. Given a hero who (by definition) could never be bigger or stronger than his foemen, Fox resolved the issue neatly by portraying his protean protagonist as a nimble-witted and relentlessly inventive opponent in combat, cunning enough to utilize his (comparatively) gigantic surroundings to his own battlefield advantage. A cufflink could become a sturdy shield; a rubber eraser, a trampoline by means of which to launch himself towards some unsuspecting gunsel's jaw.

While the Silver Age DC comics are (justifiably) remembered for their well-rendered and innovative covers (see the three-partHow the Silver Age Comics Covers "Worked," and Why, elsewhere on this site) THE ATOM was particularly noteworthy in this regard. Artist Gil Kane has gone on record, in the course of numerous interviews, as stating that it was the ATOM series, in particular, which afforded him the requisite opportunities to experiment with concepts in draughtsmanship and composition.

As the accompanying cover images throughout readily attest one would be hard-pressed, indeed, to find a happier (or more artistically productive) pairing of penciler and protagonist anywhere within the annals of Silver Age lore.

Such creativity, however, was scarcely limited to the outsides of the comics in question. Between the covers of THE ATOM, each and every month,could be found such challenging and imaginiative storytelling concepts as "the Time Pool" (a diminuative "rip" in the chronological fabric, through which the Atom would occasionally sojourn into the past, there to unravel some long-unsolved mystery or another); and a miniaturized race of archaic "Bat-Knights" (tiny, ATOM-sized warriors who lived apart from the human race, and who haunted the nighttime skies astide specially-trained bats as their "steeds"), among other such fancies and conceits.

In the Atom's "world," it often seemed, mystery and adventure might just as readily be found crouched behind a nearby pebble -- or skulking within a hairline crack along the far wall -- as anywhere else. Call it "the Extreme Close-Up Effect," if you like.
Fox made frequent and effective usage of the close friendship between the Atom and fellow Justice League member HAWKMAN[see cover, accompanying], allowing the two to "team up" on numerous occasions in both of their respective titles.

The two heroes had quite a bit in common both were highly analytical types, given to cracking particularly challenging cases by means of painstaking ratiocination, rather than fisticuffs; both were drawn towards tough, competent and independent women (in the Atom's case, long-time fiance -- and, later, wife -- career-driven attorney "Jean Loring"); and both were less-than-omnipotent costumed adventurers who, nonetheless, managed to garner the respect of such infinitely more powerful spandexed "peers" as Superman, Green Lantern and the Flash. Their pairings -- while never as "high-profile" as those frequently enjoyed by, say, the Silver Age Green Lantern/Flash team-ups -- were consistently well-written and enjoyable; the two were a thoroughly natural storytelling "combo."

Having been referenced in the paragraph preceding, the Ray Palmer/Jean Loring relationship merits some further explication. As the leading criminal attorney in their mutual home town of "Ivytown," Ms. Loring was portrayed (long before such things became "politically correct" and de rigueur) as being in the putative "driver's seat," re her romantic involvement with Ray Palmer. (A characteristic she shared, incidentally, with -- among other notable comic book women of the day -- Carol Ferris [GREEN LANTERN] and Iris Allen [THE FLASH]) In THE ATOM, it was Ray Palmer who continually "pushed" for marriage, while the career-conscious Jean repeatedly avowed that "my work comes first."
"Old hat," today, to be sure... but as a recurring leit motif throughout the DC titles of the 60's and early 70's, ground-breaking in the extreme.

(Compare, if you will with the Marvel comics women of the period; even when legged in spandex, such ostensible "action heroines" as Sue Richards [FANTASTIC FOUR] and Marvel Girl [THE X-MEN] were just as likely to spend the bulk of their "face time" mooning like lovesick calves over their respective romantic idee fixees as they were demonstrating actual Competence or Self-Sufficiency. "Point," in this instance DC.)

THE ATOM soldiered onward for the better half of the decade as a moderate sales success, only to later find itself one ofthe earliest casualties of the industry-wide sales "deflation" in the wake of the brief, meteoric "comics as Pop Art" craze of the '60's. His title was conjoined, for about a year after that, with that of pal Hawkman's (whose own title was undergoing a similar "slump," as well)... but the resultant effort, while certainly interesting in its own right, never really caught the collective fancy of the readership.

For quite some time thereafter, the two heroes could only be seen on any regular sort of basis within the pages of the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA title. The Atom's portrayal therein, during said period, is worthy of some additional analysis.

It was at (approximately) the same time that his own monthly solo venue was headed towards That Great Spinner Rack In the Sky, you see, that long-time JLA scribe Gardner Fox finally handed over the storytelling reins to one of the younger turks entering the field, at that point future scripting superstar Dennis O'Neil.

Mr. O'Neil promptly took each Leaguer currently (at that point) sans a monthly title of their own, and grafted onto them one particular personality "quirk" or trait, in turn. Green Arrow, therefore, became cocksure, bordering upon arrogance outright; Hawkman metamorphosed into a stiff and "stuffy" by-the-books type... and the Atom...

... well... the Atom, for his part, developed something of an inferiority complex.

While this particular character development certainly did seem (at the time, at any rate) somewhat... jarring, to those already long familiar with Ray Palmer and his costumed alter ego, it made a certain sort of sense, nonetheless. Surrounded on all sides by virtual gods and goddesses (Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, etc.), it seemed reasonable -- in retrospect -- that a man whose sole claim to super-hero "fame" was the ability to render himself pencil-sized might succumb to the occasional, faint gnawings of self-doubt, in turn.

Mr. O'Neil's "take" on the character of the Atom was picked up and amplified, later on, by future JLA scribe Steve Englehart ... to the point where Ivytown's resident super-hero, eventually, was openly ruminating upon the possibility of hanging up his spandex altogether, and simply chucking the whole hero "gig" in favor of... welllllllll... almost anything else, really.

Certainly, the character might have been spared much in the way of needless embarrassment, had he actually followed through onsuch a notion. In the course of the ensuing years, the Atom has been artlessly transformed -- at various points -- into both a six-inch-high, sword-wielding barbarian (don't ask) and, more recently, a befuddled teenager (!!!).

The simple, elegant original premise behind the Atom -- i.e., "He Really, Really 'Stoops' To Conquer" -- has been all but abandoned by the storytelling wayside. And -- as a result -- so has the character, by and large.

I suppose its only a matter of time, really -- given how Really Lousy ideas continually re-surface, within this industry -- before the characater is "revamped" once again by some modern-day fanboy parvenu-turned- comics-scripter, in order to render him suitably "fresh" and of "a 90's sensibility."

Possibly something involving Really Big Guns. Or retractable claws, maybe.

Don't laugh. I guarantee it somebody out there, just now, brightened visibly at that line, and muttered "... heeeeeeeyyyyyy..."