THE ATOM #3 (1962)
by Gardner Fox & Gil Kane
It’s a staple of heroes with shrinking powers to be threated by mundane situations, but the Atom usually got the worst of it.
This is the first time I’m covering the Atom, and it will probably be the last since his rogues gallery is quite lackluster. What you need to know is that he’s super-scientist Ray Palmer and he has a “lady lawyer” love interest…
…who is either constantly rejecting his marriage proposals or constantly ignoring them.
But the actual point of interest of the story is the time-themed Chronos.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one of the worst costumes of all time.
It’s the mask that gets me. Like… okay the clock hands are fine, but what’s up with the cutouts for the mouth and ears!?
The origin of Chronos is that he really, REALLY likes clocks and… that’s it.
Come on, even Penny Plunderer had a more complex origin!!!
When he’s not committing crimes wearing his horrible costume, Chronos runs a store that is both a clock shop and a clock museum.
Ray jokes that all he’s missing is an atomic clock. These ARE commercially available today, although from a quick research they still cost anywhere between 1,500 $ to 3,000 $.. but in 1962 I’m pretty sure only a lab could afford one.
So naturally Chronos decides to steal it with his FLYING SAUCER.
I wonder if this is based on something Doc Magnus created? The Metal Men DO have a flying saucer and he has to get the money to build robots made of gold SOMEWHERE.
Like many Silver Age villains, Chronos has a tendency to come up with some really fancy gadgets that really make you question WHY they chose to become gimmick-based villains in the first place.
Some of the gimmicks also have nothing to do with time. For example his Sandstorm Hourglass ™ is “just” a miniature sandstorm.
One of the most ridiculous things about Silver Age Atom is his costume.
Supposedly he’s wearing it at all times but it’s invisible when he’s at regular size… because it’s made from “fibres of the white dwarf mass”.
You know, white dwarf stars? Those things so massive that you would weight AT LEAST a million times more if you somehow survived on its surface?
Naturally that’s the best thing to use to make yourself a costume!!!
Not that physics really matter to the Atom, who is able to shrink so much that he can slip between individual grains of sand. And mind you, that’s not ANYWHERE NEAR how small he can get!!!
An often forgotten ability of the Atom is that he doesn’t only control his size, but also his mass.
Unlike Ant-Man, who is supposed to have human strength at ant size but is wildly inconsistent about it, Atom tends to be extremely consistent on this stuff.
Which is not to say he doesn’t do stuff that makes little sense. Why go through all the trouble of doing THIS if he could just shrink down to the size of a grain of sand!?
But Chronos gets the upper hand by using a “time-telling candle”, which is naturally too fast for Atom to avoid. Not too fast to comment on it, though!
Pop quiz! You’re a supervillain who has just defeated a superhero who you suspect could expose your secret identity.
What do you do?
A) Shoot him
B) Take off his mask and shoot him
C) Take off his mask and take a picture to blackmail him
D) Fake an injury to make him confess he was the one to hit you
Chronos… you didn’t need to do ANY of this!!! You already had Atom at your mercy RIGHT THERE!!!
Seriously!!! If all you wanted to do was render the Atom unconscious to trap him, HE WAS ALREADY UNCONSCIOUS!!!
But I guess the problem was that he was regular size at the end of their first encounter so he couldn’t trap him inside a watch to make him, well, watch.
However, once he opens he vault he finds Ray Palmer inside.
Chronos is arrested, and he can’t reveal the secret identity of the Atom since he’s still trapped inside the watch… as far as he knows, anyway.
Still doesn’t explain why Ray Palmer was inside the vault or knew when Chronos would strike.
And so we end with Chronos ending up in jail and the Atom making the umpteenth attempt to get married.
Well… that was a waste of time.
Historical significance: 7/10
As far as the Atom goes it could even be higher, since Chronos pretty much becomes his archenemy. But he won’t be particularly important to the rest of the DC Universe until he discovers time travel, and even then he’s not that big of a deal.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
For the Silver Age there is SOME effort to stay realistic… if you ignore the invisible costume made of white dwarf material.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
It’s a fun read, but the plot makes little sense if you think about it for more than five seconds.
How close is this to the modern character?: 8/10
He’s not using time travel yet, but his love for time-theme gimmicks and puns is already there (the latter is not very noticeable, since everyone did it back them).
It’s incredibly hard to take Chronos seriously when he’s just using time-themed gadgets.
He would get a much-needed boost to his credibility once he discovers time travel… but only so much. He’s still incredibly corny.
Gil Kane supposedly based the looks on Chronos’ civilian identity on Nixon. You can definitely see that, especially in the FAR superior costume when he ditches the mask.
Post-Crisis he would eventually die and leave his time technology to Walker Gabriel, who would become the second Chronos and starring in a twelve-issue miniseries, where he could either be aa hero or a villain depending on the situation.
He even got to participate in the “DC One Million” event. That’s my only experience on the character, but from what I gather the miseries is generally considered very good.
Time travel being what it is, and especially given DC’s love for reboots, it’s no surprise that Chronos is alive and well today.
There was even a Lady Chronos, enemy of the second Atom, Ryan Choi. I think the classic look actually looks decent here! Maybe it’s thanks to the exposed hair.
