The strange motivation of The Atom.

[AdamYJ]

Now, I've never been a big fan of the Ray Palmer version of The Atom (Ryan Choi is the one I know best). However, whenever people start talking about him, they come up with interesting things. Scientific exploration. subatomic universes, etc. They make him sound like the DC universe's equivalent of Reed Richards without the long, scientific speeches. A guy who became a superhero to push the limits of scientific discovery.

Recently, I picked up Showcase Presents The Atom vol. 1.

And now I've read more than halfway through it. Generally, he seems to be a guy who fights penny-ante crooks and saboteurs a lot. And his main motivation is to help Jean Loring win her court cases so that she can prove herself as a lawyer and then marry him (he proposes in nearly every issue). It kind of explains why he took it so hard when she went kookaloo. He created a large part of his life to help her and it ended up driving her nutso.

So, what's everyone else's take?

[octothorp]

I like your comparison of Palmer to Richards. I don't think that's been done before. Richards took a very public role, as an adventurer and celebrity, while Palmer tried to keep his civvy and hero roles apart. Richards gets the fame, his own building complex, apparently enough cash to roll high, and fights Galactus. Palmer makes do on a professor's salary (I was an untenured grad assistant and associate lecturer long ago, and made minimum wage or less, per hour, so I know how hard that could be!) and rides Aquaman's shoulder while the JLA beats up on the Key. Damn. Palmer loses in the game of superhero lifestyles. No wonder he's been a little bitchy, of late! :evilsmile:

[CBikle]

I think you're take is pretty accurate.

Initially, it seems like Ray's motivation for scientific exploration is to impress his girlfriend enough that she'll commit to marrying him and later, he seems to enjoy being a superhero for the thrill of it; he's not as interested in expanding his knowledge of the universe as he's interested in jumping out of a phone line and breaking the jaw of a would-be bankrobber or kidnapper.

I think it'd been established that Ray was a sci-fi fan, but more of a pulp sci-fi fan where the story focuses on the adventure part and not as much on the rubber science stuff and I think that fits Ray's personality.

[Monty_Cristo]

Now, I've never been a big fan of the Ray Palmer version of The Atom (Ryan Choi is the one I know best). However, whenever people start talking about him, they come up with interesting things. Scientific exploration. subatomic universes, etc. They make him sound like the DC universe's equivalent of Reed Richards without the long, scientific speeches. A guy who became a superhero to push the limits of scientific discovery.

Recently, I picked up Showcase Presents The Atom vol. 1.

And now I've read more than halfway through it. Generally, he seems to be a guy who fights penny-ante crooks and saboteurs a lot. And his main motivation is to help Jean Loring win her court cases so that she can prove herself as a lawyer and then marry him (he proposes in nearly every issue). It kind of explains why he took it so hard when she went kookaloo. He created a large part of his life to help her and it ended up driving her nutso.

So, what's everyone else's take?


Atom's # 1 enemy has always been poor execution. i think he has the potential to be DC's Reed Richards (but cooler), though.

[spidervenom]

I think morrison should give him a go.

[AdamYJ]

Atom's # 1 enemy has always been poor execution. i think he has the potential to be DC's Reed Richards (but cooler), though.

And here I thought it was either Chronos or Jason Woodrue (he should come back to bother Ryan Choi sometime). :biggrin:

[echopryme]

Ray's actually a lot more interesting than that if you dig deep into the character.


At his heart, Ray is a family man, like Ralph Dibney, but has always had problems dealing with that. He's a lapsed Jew, which never went over well with his parents. His "love-of-his-life" is, at best, a bitch to him and at worse a pain in the ass to society as a whole. His work is largely seen as useless to the world most of the time, and is always unpredictable when he tries to apply it to actual problems of the world. He's always strapped for cash. His ex-wife wrote a book talking about how inadeqate he was as a husband.


And they say Peter Parker is the real "hard-luck hero."


Ray is a guy that's ben having his heart broken and his world torn out from under him for as long as I can remember, and he's ALWAYS up for the action, even when there's not much he can do. He has respect from the other DCU heroes... but what he really wants, and needs, is respect for himself.



In that way, RAY PALMER IS THE ATOM!!! Period.

[Lupek]

Is it really so strange that a man (or comic book character) would do almost anything in the pursuit of vagina? I think not.

Ray might have sealed the deal earlier though, had he worked out a way to grow instead of shrink.

[AdamYJ]

Ray's actually a lot more interesting than that if you dig deep into the character.


At his heart, Ray is a family man, like Ralph Dibney, but has always had problems dealing with that. He's a lapsed Jew, which never went over well with his parents. His "love-of-his-life" is, at best, a bitch to him and at worse a pain in the ass to society as a whole. His work is largely seen as useless to the world most of the time, and is always unpredictable when he tries to apply it to actual problems of the world. He's always strapped for cash. His ex-wife wrote a book talking about how inadeqate he was as a husband.


And they say Peter Parker is the real "hard-luck hero."

Hm. I always thought Parker was more analogous to Barry Allen, because they were both sort of "everymen". However, I rarely think about the bad luck angle.

Ray is a guy that's ben having his heart broken and his world torn out from under him for as long as I can remember, and he's ALWAYS up for the action, even when there's not much he can do. He has respect from the other DCU heroes... but what he really wants, and needs, is respect for himself.



In that way, RAY PALMER IS THE ATOM!!! Period.

Well, we'll see what Ray does out of costume in Robinson's Justice League book. Meanwhile, Ryan Choi's doing pretty well as the Atom (well, he was until Remender).

[Ghost Shark]

I despised Ray Palmer as a character until the original SWORD OF THE ATOM mini-series. I've always kind of wished they had let him stay there with his princess instead of killing most of the amazonian aliens off and dragging him back to civilization. Who knows? If they'd done that, Ryan Choi might have shown up a decade or so earlier and gotten a chance to really prove himself before he was canceled.

[Lupek]

From an old article hyping Robinsons Justice League........

Joining Green Lantern and Green Arrow on the team (which will be complete and an official “team” by the end of the first arc): Ray Palmer (not as the Atom though – at least at first)

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=150409

Hopefully he will suit up sooner rather than later.

[Monty_Cristo]

I despised Ray Palmer as a character until the original SWORD OF THE ATOM mini-series. I've always kind of wished they had let him stay there with his princess instead of killing most of the amazonian aliens off and dragging him back to civilization. Who knows? If they'd done that, Ryan Choi might have shown up a decade or so earlier and gotten a chance to really prove himself before he was canceled.

what was there to despise? i'm genuinely curious. Ray seemed to be one of the more laidback/likable heroes around in the early days.

[Ghost Shark]

what was there to despise? i'm genuinely curious. Ray seemed to be one of the more laidback/likable heroes around in the early days.

Perhaps despised was a bit strong. I did, however, dislike his character. I found him bland, forgettable, and altogether uninteresting. It was in the SOTA series that I not only grew to like Ray Palmer as a person - and saw him as human rather than a cypher for the first time - but SOTA also made me start liking Gil Kane's artwork greatly. Up until that time, I did not like his line work at all. I found his style annoying. But with SOTA, I ate it up! And I even went back and was able to appreciate his work in previous books that I had not liked before. Weird.

You could definitely say The Sowrd of The Atom was a turning point in my appreciation for both Ray Palmer and Gil Kane, which is why I pine for Ray's return to the Amazon.

That being said, I was a big fan of Ryan Choi (when Gail was writing him), and I was really pulling for that series.

Oh, and if anyone else is a fan of SOTA, it's writer, Jan Strnad, published a horror novel a few years back called RISEN under the name J. Knight, which is very excellent. If you ever find a copy, pick it up.

[Lupek]

Oh, and if anyone else is a fan of SOTA, it's writer, Jan Strnad, published a horror novel a few years back called RISEN under the name J. Knight, which is very excellent. If you ever find a copy, pick it up.

I enjoyed Sword of the Atom quite a bit. I wound up liking to dislike Jean Loring in that one.

What other comics work has Jan Strnad done?

I'm not up on stuff but I think Jean is no longer Eclipso. Maybe this has been done already, I never did get around to read Identity Crisis. But powers or no, Jean would make a good arch nemesis for Ray as the Atom. An ex wife can be as powerful a motivator in your life as a wife.

[Ghost Shark]

As of COUTDOWN TO MYSTERY, I believe Eclipso is now bonded to Bruce Gordon again. I didn't rad the series, but I flipped through it.

As for Strnad, he worked more with Star Wars novel tie-ins and TV writing than comics. Too bad for us, really.

[Lupek]

As of COUTDOWN TO MYSTERY, I believe Eclipso is now bonded to Bruce Gordon again. I didn't rad the series, but I flipped through it.

As for Strnad, he worked more with Star Wars novel tie-ins and TV writing than comics. Too bad for us, really.


Yeah, that is a shame. I can't even find an entry for him on wikipedia.