The Atom #5 (1963)
by Gardner Fox & Gil Kane
Time for a review requested by one of my Patreon supporters: the alliterative “Diamond of the Deadly Dooms”.
This is from the first Atom series, which lasted until issue #39. The series was renamed “The Atom and Hawkman” until it was cancelled with issue #45… possibly because Hawkman was aware of this cover.
We begin, ironically enough, with some actual archeology when this guy finds a big diamond in the ruins of an ancient temple.
The guy is a friend of Atom’s secret identity, the scientist Ray Palmer.
Ray gets to him just in time to see that the diamond has some weird properties.
Now that’s Silver Age levels of timing!!!
The diamond is a cat person jewel, apparently.
Of course Ray’s first instinct is to become the Atom and shrink inside the diamond, because… well it’s the one superpower he has, what else is he going to do?
Now… I haven’t talked about Atom much and I’m not super familiar with him myself.
But it is important to note he’s the closest thing DC has to its own Reed Richards: when a superhero has an absolutely bonkers science problem, the Atom tends to be the resident expert.
Which is to say he’s really, REALLY smart and he knows his science.
So naturally his FIRST idea when seeing a diamond that shoots a strange ray is to immediately suspect that “some atoms may be entire solar systems”, which has nothing to do with what’s going on!
This is especially weird because, like most Gardner Fox stories, this series TRIES to inject SOME real-world scientific knowledge into the readers. Sure there are fantastic things that happen in the story all the time, but to give you and idea: THIS issue includes a full page that describes the history of the structure of the atom!
Considering that the Atom (the character) symbol is already the symbol of the atom (the atom), it’s clear that Gardner Fox had interest in this. Also notice that the Atom (the character) symbol follows the then-obsolete Thomson model above, while the story is based on the now-obsolete Rutherford model below…
…NONE OF WHICH ARE SHOWN AS SOLAR SYSTEMS.
Who was Fox’s scientific advisor?
Of course the Atom’s hunch is correct and there are worlds within atoms. To be clear, I don’t have problem with the fact that such a world exists… it’s a science fiction superhero story, these things are part of the genre. What is absurd is that Atom jumped straight to this idea for no reason and (at the time of this story) no precedent of this thing existing.
Atom, I appreciate the sentiment, but you know literally NOTHING about these people. For all you know, this might be a mating ritual!
I take back what I said about Gardner Fox and scientific realism, because THIS IS NOT HOW PHYSICS WORK!
The Atom can control his own mass, so he’s probably making himself lighter once he throws the rock, but he doesn’t say he’s doing it!
Atom controlling his mass is why he can knock out people after shrinking. But shouldn’t hitting a guy smaller than an atom with the mass of a whole human do WAY more damage!?
Just to give you an idea: an hydrogen atom weighs about 0,000000000000000000036 pounds. That’s the smallest atom, and compared to this guy it’s the size of a planet! And Atom just hit him with 180 pounds!!! (that’s 81.6 kg for most of Earth)
You might be wondering: how do these people even have a concept of “years” that could possibly be understood by Atom?
Because these people are FROM ATLANTIS.
Strap in, folks. This is going to be one of the weirdest origins of Atlantis I’ve ever covered, which is saying something after discovering it was either destroyed by Lois Lane or sinked by Star Boy.
And consider the Lois Lane story was published just a few months after the Atom one!
But forget about Atlantis being sank by Lois Lane sabotaging the invention of a Lex Luthor lookalike, or Star Boy sinking a colony from Krypton.
According to THIS story, Atlantis was destroyed by a relatively mundane volcanic earthquake. The Atlanteans were apparently advanced enough to have space travel, but couldn’t leave the planet because the Van Allen belt was way too radioactive at the time.
If they’re so advanced you’d expect them to move somewhere else on Earth, not MOVE TO A SUB-ATOMIC WORLD through “matter sublimation”.
Little known fact: if you shrink enough, gravity doesn’t work on plants.
Also there is a sun inside the atom. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM!?
This “atomic sun” makes these guys immortal but sterile. And in ten thousand years, they haven’t been able to see anything but the immediate vicinity of the diamond that contains their world.
I’m starting to question the scientic might of these Atlanteans. Sure they have a ray that can transmute people into diamond, but that’s BY ACCIDENT.
And then the atomic world suffers an atomquake…
…caused by some thieves that showed up at the gallery where the diamond is being kept.
So you guys sneaked in to steal the diamond and, instead of leaving with it, decided to cut it ON THE SCENE OF THE CRIME!?
Obviously these guys are no match for the Atom.
Because the real villain of this story are not the thieves, or the evil warlord of an interdimensional kingdom… but A F##KING BIRD.
On one hand I get it… you have a hero that can shrink, you want to put him in situations that wouldn’t apply to other superheroes.
But on the other hand… IT’S JUST A BIRD!!!
At least when Hawkman fights a flying animal, it’s stuff like THIS:
No animals were hurt by this comic. Just my brain cells.
The Atom doesn’t even defeat the bird: he has to be saved by the Atlanteans.
I can’t believe I just typed that.
So you didn’t bother to check if the warmonger was still knocked out or keep an eye on the ray while he was working on it!?
Good thing you left Earth, YOU GUYS SUCK.
And so the Atlanteans decide to stay in their sub-atomic world without ever contacting the outside world again because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Okay they ARE immortal there, so I kind of get it… but why exactly was this never told to anyone!?
Then again, it is a rather absurd story. Which expert would ever believe it?
Bonus round! There are TWO Atom stories here.
“The Specter of 3000-Moons Lake!”
by Gardner Fox & Gil Kane
This one begins with Ray Palmer going on a vacation with his girlfriend, “Lady Lawyer” Jean Loring.
Please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist please don’t do anything racist…
If we assume “3,000 moons” means 3,000 months, that would the legend dates back 250 years before the publishing date, or 1713. Not bad!
Apparently the first story wasn’t diamond-centric enough.
Well that’s your problem: your collection was geographically all over the place! The Mohawk are from the east coast and the Navajo from the west (MASSIVE simplification, I know).
There is only one scientific explanation: ghosts.
(???)
Unsurprisingly, someone is using tricks to fake being a ghost.
This guy shoulnd’t be a threat to the Atom: he’s not a bird.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen: defeated by glue and magnets.
The thief would be able to avoid anyone’s suspicion if it wasn’t for… come on, I specifically asked not to do anything racist!!!
Neat trick Atom, but… why exactly did you need to impersonate the ghost!?
Also the only reason why this random guy didn’t kill Atom is that he was too stupid to remember that water is bad for glue.
And he would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling Atom.
Historical significance: 0/10
I’m not hugely familiar with the Atom, but I can be fairly sure none of this is referenced again.
Silver Age-ness
“The Diamond of the Deadly Dooms!”: 10,000/10
This is a story about Atlantis having immortal descendants that live in an atom inside a diamond AND features the Atom fighting a regular bird, what did you expect?
“The Specter of 3,000-Moons Lake!”: 6/10
I really wanted to give this one 3,000/10, but it’s not THAT weird. It gets a relatively high score for the general tone and Atom struggling with mundane stuff.
Does it stand the test of time?
“The Diamond of the Deadly Dooms!”: 0/10
There’s something inherently silly in any story featuring microscopic world, but they tend to make at least the slightest amount of sense! This is all over the place, introducing insane stuff that isn’t brought up again. It’s an absolute blast to read, but it’s still very silly.
“The Specter of 3,000-Moons Lake!”: 2/10
I’m not the only one who sees the Scooby Doo parallels, right? Except this isn’t even funny.