Trevor Scott

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

At the end of Identity Crisis, Atom Ray Palmer vanished-- and given what had happened to him, it's hard to complain. The All New Atom follows the adventures of Ryan Choi, a young Ph.D. from Hong Kong who takes Palmer's place at Ivy University, Ivy Town, as a professor of nuclear physics. Choi was a correspondent of the Atom from a young age, and of course doesn't just take Palmer's place in the laboratory/classroom, but show more soon finds himself stepping into the role of the Atom.

The basic premise of this book is excellent. As an academic, I like that the book is not only set in a college town, but uses that-- Choi's best friend is another professor, and Choi is supported technologically by a group of professors who get together to play poker and complain about things. The Dean is a key character in the book. (That said, apparently the Dean of this university hires professors without campus visits!) I especially like the idea that years of wacky happenings have totally rewritten the laws of physics within Ivy Town.

Also there are some good academic jokes, such as when Ryan tells the villain of this volume, "There's a war going on. If magic wins, they'll end science forever. You can't want that, right?" and the other guy replies, "Oh, well, to be honest, I don't much about that. See, I'm actually a philosophy major."

Plus John Byrne pencils most of the book, and you can almost never beat Byrne on a superhero book. Clear storytelling, good facial expressions, bold action. I also liked Simone's device of placing quotations (mostly from scientists, real and fictional) juxtaposed with the dialogue, a nice comics-dependent device.

Unfortunately, the book's actually story remained too muddled for me to get into it. What exactly was at stake in the weird war between cancer and tiny people? What did the Dean and a serial killer have to do with it all? Why was there all of a sudden a threat to the President that was resolved just as quickly? Why would the Dean call in the father of a professor he's worried about-- and how on Earth could the father of a professor make him go home? I just never really got the relationships between a lot of what was going on throughout most of the book, making for a confusing and disappointing reading experience. Hopefully future volumes deliver on the strong premise of this series.

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I wanted to like this book much more than I actually did. I thought the opening premise was ballsy, and had so much potential. Then in issue 2...

...they go to the trouble of making an established character gay, and immediately kill off his love interest, effectively neutering him.

The reimaginings of the Green and the Rot were interesting, but suffer from superhero over-exaggeration. Seriously, tone it down a notch? Not everything has to be cataclysmic to be entertaining.

Normally I enjoy show more James Robinson's writing, and I thought Nicola Scott's art was fantastic. But I'm not sold on this series, and I'm not sure I'll continue reading. show less

Very intriguing reboot of the Earth-2 characters with some great shifts/changes to 70 year old characters. My biggest question was why the cover so prominently places DC's Big Three when they're all gone from the story after 20 pages. Still, with some reservations, I highly recommend this work from this promising start.

Very intriguing reboot of the Earth-2 characters with some great shifts/changes to 70 year old characters. My biggest question was why the cover so prominently places DC's Big Three when they're all gone from the story after 20 pages. Still, with some reservations, I highly recommend this work from this promising start.