May present a choking hazard

May present a choking hazard

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Countdown Special: The Atom #1

Written by Gerry Conway
Art by Alan Lee Weiss, Arvell M. Jones and others

Nice cover by Ryan Sook here, if not slightly misleading to anyone not familiar with the story.
Taken from Super-Team Family (1977) issues #11 & 12, Jean Loring is bonkers! She's well on her way, anyhow...
We start off with The Atom and Flash battling a group of baddies known as the Wind Pirates (legendary) in Ivy Town. Supergirl shows up providing some unnecessary help, and the 3 win the day.
They clean themselves up and march off to Ivy University to attend the Women's Career Symposioum where Supergirl, Jean, and Iris Allen will parade around as the cream of the crop.
Aside from Barry pissing Ray off with some cocky remarks, the event seems to be a success.

Oh, that is until the girls are reduced to 3 piles of individual ashes right there in front of the entire auditorium!
With some sweet investigating (such as The Atom shrinking down and exploring Jean's pile!) our two heroes find themselves face to face with...

T.O. MORROW, THE MAN WITH THE COMPUTER MIND!'

And he's all suped up.

Things go from bad to worse to better to Jean flipping a crazy switch and beaming herself to another dimension.
That brings us to part 2 of this issue where Ray teams up with Hawkman and Hal Lantern in an enjoyable romp.
With the group forced to split up, Atom and Hawkman battle the baddies of Auria, eventually finding themselves imprisoned with some old hag.
Lantern travels the hyperspace highway back and forth, searching for Jean, and stumbling upon some unearthly medieval war in which he lands himself in an arena-based sword fight against a tyrant named Brewtus.

Good times.

I picked this up (as I will #2) because uh... it says The Atom. I do enjoy this storyline and for people who have not read these issues before, and could never get their hands on them, this is a pretty damn good thing. At $4.99 it's certainly a lot cheaper than shucking out the money for decent copies of those Super-Team Family issues.

5 comments:

rob! said...

those Sook covers are nice, and of course Neal Adams turns in another winner!

Doug said...

Nice stuff! I actually tracked down Super Team Family #11 a few years back based *editorial-boxes in JLA #193.
A fun read. Looking forward to my copies coming from the DCBS.

Awesome, awesome, awesome Sook cover. That guy has talent to spare and is certainly having some fun doing these catastrophe covers for DC right now.

Anonymous said...

You know, I really hate that this LOOKS like a NEW comic staring Ray. However, seeing as I've never read the original tale, I am really glad they are reprinting it. I just am more than slightly annoyed at the misleading cover.

On the other hand, this story sounds really awesome, so I am definitely going to have to pick it up!

Damian said...

A comic in which Ray captures and cuffs his own people.

Still love the cover.

Diabolu Frank said...

The story sounds like fun, and its tough to go wrong with Weiss. Love that Sook cover. The guy has surpassed many of his influences at this point.