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When Julie Schwartz and his crew at DC Comics began reviving Golden Age
characters at the dawn of the Silver Age, one of the most heavily altered
in his Silver Age incarnation was The Atom. Originally, The Atom was Al
Pratt, a little man with a big chip on his shoulder. One day he bought
dinner for a down-and-out vagrant named Joe Morgan, a former boxing champ
who took Al under his wing. Promising to transform him into a "little
Superman" in under a year, Al began a strenuous workout regimen under
Morgan's expert coaching. Morgan had hopes of molding Al into a boxing
champion, but Al had different ideas.
Devising a garish yellow and blue outfit, Al Pratt became the Mighty
Mite, The Atom. With nothing more than the skills he'd learned from
Morgan, and the determination of ten men twice his size, he earned his
place in the Justice Society of America, the world's first super-hero
team. Later, as a result of a battle with the villain Cyclotron, Al
developed "atomic" strength, making him a true "super" hero.
With other Golden Age revivals, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, etc.
the new characters held very close to the originals in powers and, in the
Flash's case, origin. The Atom would be different. Where Al Pratt was a
diminutive man whose will and hard work made him the equal of any man,
the new Atom, physicist Ray Palmer, would make his mark on the world by
shrinking.
Palmer was a graduate student when he discovered the shrinking
properties of a lens made from a fragment of a white dwarf star, which he
used to shrink himself to doll size in order to help a group of kids who
were trapped in a cave. Using some of the star material, he was able to
fashion a costume that would change size with him, and even vanish as he
grew to normal size. The lens was incorporated into his belt buckle and
he added size and weight controls to his gloves, to give him greater
control.
Over the years, he developed many unique techniques for fighting crime,
from travelling through phone lines at electron size, to dropping on an
adversary at the size of an ant, with his full 180-lb weight.
Upon graduation, Palmer became a physics professor at Ivy University,
fighting crime as the Atom to help his girlfriend, Jean Loring, establish
her career as a lawyer. Ray and Jean would eventually join that smallest
of minorities in the super-hero community, they got married.
The marriage of Ray Palmer and Jean Loring was not meant to be, however.
Before long, they began to drift apart and eventually divorced. Between
the domestic problems at home and Palmer's growing health concerns over
his years of exposure to radiation from the white dwarf material, the
Atom vanished from the scene for a while. It was during this period, when
his size controls were malfunctioning, that Ray Palmer spent a few years
living in the Amazon jungle with a group of 6-inch tall humanoid aliens.
In recent years, the Atom has returned to the mainstream super-hero
community, rejoining the Justice League of America. He's been through
many changes, spending some time as a teenager after the battle with the
time-controlling villain, Extant. He was a member of the Teen Titans for
some time, but has been returned to something more like his normal age,
now.
Now we get down to it. The whole reason I do this column, every month,
the chance to recreate a favorite character. For my design, I borrowed
heavily from Gil Kane's during the "Sword of the Atom" days, adding a
utility belt and sidearm (I never understood how these shrinking heroes
could stand to go around unarmed when they're smaller than the average
icky spider). The gun I have in mind is an electron blaster/stungun,
built on the lines of the venerable Broomhandle Mauser. Another small
change I made was in the footgear. Too many heroes traipse around in what
amounts to nothing more than slipper-socks. I gave the Atom a decent pair
of boots, tough, hard-wearing engineers boots that protect the feet and
let you put a little extra >oomph< into a kick. The wrist bands are
additional electronics, communications and such, that always seems to be
an afterthought in costume design.
Hasn't everyone wondered what it would be like to "get small" and play
with your action figure accessories? I think that's the appeal of the
incredible shrinking hero.
What do you think?
(No icky spiders were harmed in the production of this column, stunt
spiders were used for all dangerous shots and were well-paid for their
time and trouble.)
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