Sword of Atom 1-4
“The Sword of The Atom”
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| The Toad appears, don't worry. |
The Atom shrinks. How is this a power:
the ability to go from 6 feet tall to 6 inches tall? What's he going
to do, save someone's car keys from under the couch? What happens if
the family cat takes a liking and starts swatting around a 6-inch
tall man in spandex? All good questions, no doubt, and the answer to
the questions above, in the order asked are: Yes, he shrinks; yes,
he'd save your car keys, and yes, he becomes kitty chow. While The
Atom shrinks, he does have an even better super power, a more
interesting super power: His real name is Ray Palmer, he's a
physicist, and his super power is science.
The DC Universe, both Pre- and
Post-Crisis, is rife with all kinds of scientists. Mad scientists
like Prof. Ivo, a genius obsessed with immortality and willing to do
anything to achieve this goal, even turning himself into a monster;
T.O. Morrow (great name) a specialist on artificial intelligence,
able to create synthetic gods whom he only has the foresight to send
on criminal errands; and Dr. Sivana, a troll of a scientist who
delights in creating monster men and other such afronts to life.
Scientists of a more altruistic bent are also in supply: Dr. Will
Magnus, the medicated madman who gives life to The Metal Men,
superheroes destined to die again and again and John Henry Irons,
engineer who created a suit of armor to give him power like Superman
in a time when the world needed a hero. And then there's our boy Ray
Palmer.
Physicist Ray Palmer works at the
prestigious Ivy University in idyllic Ivy Town, a quaint hamlet
nestled somewhere in New England. Think New Hampshire or
Massachusetts. Aside from being a brilliant man of science, Ray also
finds himself married to successful lawyer Jean Loring. Ray has
everything a normal man can want, but he wants more. He wants
adventure. Using the myriad powers of science at his disposal, as
well as matter from a white dwarf star, Ray is able to fashion
himself a uniform that allows him to control his size. Not wanting to
be a useless six-inch man, and using all the gifts of physics his
powerful brain can muster, Ray is able to ensure that even at
six-inch height, he packs the power of a 170-pound, pissed-off
scientist in his punch. Hell yeah!
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| Um, fighting rats is superheroic, right? Also, a fantasy-genre staple! |
Ray is successful at his career as an
adventurer, whether it's foiling the time-strained plots of Chronos;
master of time; out-witting The Thinker, his super-scientist
adversary; or even our old pal, The Floronic Man, the tree who hates
meat. Ray is able to secure himself a place on the Justice League of
America where he is able to act as science consultant on many cases.
Success comes to Ray Palmer in all forms, but it's never really
enough for him and superheroing does talk him away from home a lot.
Away from Ivy Town and away from his wife.
It's at this point where 'The Sword of
the Atom' picks up. Ray stumbles upon his wife in the midst of an
ongoing affair. He's never around or if he is around, he's always
screwing around on more ways to make his dick smaller. Low blow for
sure. Ray can't even really argue this point with Jean so they agree
to a trial separation. If ray were a normal man, this would mean he
gets an apartment in downtown Ivy Town and lets his wife keep the
house for the time being. He at least has the decency to let her keep
the house, but being the overzealous superhero he is, Ray decides to
go on an expedition to the Amazon. And this being a story from the
80s, of course he runs into drug-runners and of course his plane is
shot down and of course Ray is soon believed dead by everyone he
knows.
This harkens back to being friends with
members of the Justice League as kind of useless.
They wouldn't help the Flash with his shit and they just happen to
buy that Ray is dead. What's the point of being friends with a
premier super team if they can't even take a weekend to confirm a
corpse?
Anyway,
Ray's believed dead, stuck in the Amazon, and, to make matters just
spectacular, he's 6-inches tall and can't revert to his original
height. This is when Ray meets the stranded yellow (meaning these
terrors can take out a Green Lantern)
aliens who are themselves 6-inches tall. Crazier coincidences have
happened in some fiction somewhere. I just don't know where off the
top of my head.
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| Alright, Atom just fights animals other superheroes would have no problem with. |
As
wild as the Amazon jungle has to be, 6-inch yellow aliens,
Morlaidhans, probably aren't on the menu of naturally-occurring fauna
and flora, so where did they come from? Big breath: The aliens were
surveying this planet when they crashed, with no means of contacting
their home world and the ship badly damaged, they set up a city,
Morlaid, in the surrounding jungle around it's remains and they
eventually grew more and more savage with jungle living, forgot the
knowledge of technology required to make any kind of repairs and
splintered into warring factions. Whew!
Ray,
of course, stumbles into this civil war and in true swashbuckling
fashion discovers corruption with the leaders of Morlaid, joins and
becomes leader of the rebel faction, swings a bitching sword, falls
in love with the deposed princess, Laethwyn, rides a might Toad
steed, fights lizards in the jungle, and saves the goddamn day.
Saving the day for Ray Palmer, now known to the Morlaidhan freedom
fighters as 'Atom' means heroic sacrifice. The fighting in the city
led to a catastrophic break-down in the previously-inert power source
of the long destroyed ship: white-dwarf star material, the same
material responsible for Ray's shape-changing.
In
convincing the Morlaidhans to flee the impending destruction of their
city, Ray is affected by the white-dwarf tar energy and regains his
ability to return to his original size. Six-feet tall again,
confused, Ray stumbles away from Morlaid before it explodes, the
entire city wiped from the map. Eventually Ray is found, rescued and
returned to his friends and family in Ivy Town where he refuses to
rejoin the Justice League, dreads reuniting with Jean Loring, his
estranged wife, and dreams only of returning to Laethwyn's arms.
Though the fate of the Morlaidhans remains unknown. Did they survive
the destruction of their city? Ray vows to find out.
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| He does have sex with yellow women too, just to make GL jealous. |
'The
Sword of the Atom' is not only a great introduction to, especially at
the time this came out, a second-string character who easily fades
into the sidelines. Take a scientist, give him a sword, dump him in
the jungle and drop all the supporting cast from previous stories and
adventures? Sounds like a revamp to me, and a damn good on at that.
Seek these stories out.
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