May present a choking hazard

May present a choking hazard

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Sword of the Atom - Book One: Stormy Passage


Conceived by Gil Kane (art) and Jan Strnad (script)

Oh Ray. Dear, dear Ray...

You're driving Jean crazy, you are.
A pacing Ray Palmer wonders where his wife is. After all, she said she would be back.
Was that headlights?
Ray runs out into the rain to investigate headlights only to find Jean lip locked with some dude.
She's got a dude.

Everybody loves Raymond.

This of course doesn't go over that well, but Jean immediately goes on the offensive and blames it all on Ray.

Between research and running around as that Atom character, husbandry duties are being shirked here. Who could blame Jean for anything she does from this point on, eh?

Ray needs a vacation.
He decides to hire a small plane with a two man crew to take him over the Amazon jungle in search of a piece of white dwarf star material he believes landed there. He plans to locate such a small thing in such a vast area using a scintillation detector.
Getting a reading, Dr. Palmer wishes to fly closer, but... ah yes, the two men are involved in cocaine smuggling and Ray Ray has just gotten too close.
An on-plane brawl ensues - booo
Someone shrinks - yay!
A shot is fired - booo
The shrinker easily knocks out bad guy - yay!
The first shot finds a home in the pilot, and the plane is going down with The Atom hanging on the cargo door.

The Atom lands in some refreshing Amazonian water, takes a nap, and wakes to find that he can't work his size controls and would appear to be stuck at a height of six inches.
To further a slap in the face, a particularly nasty jungle snake had decided The Atom would make a nice snack. Without the ability to control his size or shift his weight to give him that atomic knockout punch, he's just a lil guy against giant jungle animals.



It's then that tiny poisonous arrows glide through the air, slaying the beast, and saving The Atom from having to do some fancy footwork.
But who shot these arrows?

Why it's a race of six inch jungle aliens!
With nobody knowing what the other is and not speaking the same language, this lilliputian race ties The Atom up (no fight put up by him of course) and brings him back to their jungle kingdom.

It's here that our hero finds the joint to be under the control of a mini-tyrant, along with some unhappy people. The Atom sides with another six inch alien prisoner upon his beating and jumps into action choosing to throw down with the guards. Holding up very well, sheer numbers over take him, and the two are dumped in a subsurface chamber.Aw rats.

1 comment:

rob! said...

a great series. i remember buying the first issue and being SHOCKED that a superhero's wife would cheat on him!