The All New Atom #1

I'm giving out double doses here at the Atom bloggage. Since I'm mega-behind on enlightening people on the All New Atom series, and people need to start getting copies or it's going to go away, I'll run through the issues and tell you why you should already own it. I also don't want people to have that empty pit in their stomach from lack of Atom stuff, so I'll keep throwing those up. Who knows what might happen. It's just unpredictable and scary here.

I'll just get it out of the way and say I'm not crazy about Ariel Olivetti's cover here.

Gail Simone and John Byrne together again. I am a Simone fan.

As for the comic itself, we're introduced to Ryan Choi, longtime correspondent of Dr. Ray Palmer, and his replacement at the university in Ivy Town. Now you may have to be in full comic book mode to accept Choi as a professor of anything, as he looks young, and acts... a bit immature. But he's very excitable! #1 is a fine "getting to know ya" issue that people like me fully embrace and people just picking the comic up with no real prior knowledge might be turned off to. It's not really action packed (although the Atom has never exactly been one to just slap bad guys around, eh), but it's a swell first issue.

There's mention and homage to Palmer on almost every page, and you half expect to see him pop up in a frame sooner or later. He's there in spirit!

You get yourself a good feel for Choi right off the bat, and he's a fine replacement (although there's no replacement necessary!) for Ray Ray. Ryan, while being of the mold superheroes are built on, comes off a genuinely nerdy and gung ho about all things science. He dives into it all head first and sorts it out later. This first issue sets a feeling for Ivy Town that just gets better as the series goes on. Very off kilter.

If for nothing else, it's worth turning to page two and seeing Supes, Hal, WW, Bats, and Hawgirl tied up.

Start checking it out!