Captain Atom #12

Let me guess the plot: Captain Atom has an existential crisis while the world nears destruction.

Last issue was some kind of commentary on wish fulfillment. Be careful what you wish for and all that what not. And it was all Captain Atom's fault because he's just not smart. He wants a normal life so that he can be with Ranita. So he creates a normal version of himself. But his mind is not linked to that person. It's a completely new person entirely. Unless J.T. Krul changed his mind about that because it was never stated outright, so he's free to do anything he wants I guess. But it makes sense if that's what happened. Because then Captain Atom went back to the lab to pout in silence while his subconscious mind began fulfilling the wishes of everyone else in the lab. But all of those wishes went badly too because Captain Atom is a fucking asshole.

As I begin reading this issue, J.T. Krul have a philosophical discussion. Krul begins thusly:

My response is: "Oh fuck me!"

My first year of college, I took a course at Portland State University called "The Philosophy of Science." I thought it would be interesting. I like science! I like philosophy! Jolly good then! Philosophically, I figured I'd love this class. The first day of class, the professor and one single student argued the nature of reality for nearly the entire class. At one point, the student said, "How do I know that what I see out the window actually exists outside the window?" I was thinking, "Jump the fuck out of it and find out, asshole." I dropped the course after attending that single class. Philosophy isn't merely spiraling down deeper and deeper into "what is reality?" or "what can I believe?" Those questions are important and part of it but if you're going to spend all of your time debating experience instead of enjoying experiences, you might have missed the point of life. If you really wanted to know what lie outside that window, go find out. But if you jump out the window and end up lying on the ground with two broken legs but still find yourself wondering, "Is this pain real or just a manifestation of electronic signals shooting off in the right place in my brain creating the illusion of pain?", then you might have a philosophical problem. I mean, a problem with philosophy, like an addiction, and not an existential quandary about the true nature of reality. Or, I guess, both! Philosophy pun for the win!

Back to Captain Atom, the fictitious character wondering about the true nature of reality (boy, would he be surprised that he's just ink on paper! (or do the images created by that ink on paper exist objectively since it's only being interpreted by my eye and brain in tandem with each other?)): he's just sitting in his globe of green fluid and jizz pouting and masturbating away. No, seriously! Look at that picture! I think I just figured it out. Maybe he still has a link of some kind to the Nathaniel he created, kind of like a spy camera in the back of the brain. So he's watching the date and watching them kiss from his ocean of lotion. And he's masturbating to the images. Each time he has an orgasm, he's fulfilling the wish of another person inside the lab. But then he loses the link to that wish as he falls away from the peak of pleasure and the wish deteriorates and becomes sour.

I think I like that explanation. Perhaps I should just put the comic book away and believe that's how Captain Atom ended! Sitting lonely in a sphere and masturbating cursed wishes on everyone! Stop reading now if you also want to believe this! You sicko perv.

Oh wait! Page Two supports my theory as well!

After having ignored her cell phone all night because she wasn't sure if it was real or not, Ranita finally accepts it as an actual object in her space and answers it. Scott Alexander Alexander Scott "Scotander" Scott Alexander Alexander Scott Scott Alexander has left a bunch of voice mails and texts for her. It's a good thing this comic has been cancelled or Scott Alexander's name was going to eventually consume entire blog posts because I can't stop making it longer and longer! He was trying to find Ranita because they're having problems at the lab. Except that doesn't actually make sense, does it? What can she do to help? Oh! That's right. She can flirt with Captain Atom and get him to stop pulling this shit!

The lab worker, Ben, that suddenly found his old box of toys that exploded into flames when he opened it has been running around the lab on fire. The other workers try to put him out but he thinks about his past when he burned down the family home as a child because he was angry that his father took away his toys and Ben erupts into flames again. He's become one of those trick candles unfunny assholes put on your cake on your birthday. "Ha ha! You couldn't blow out your candles!" "Ha ha, you don't get any of my cake, bitch." That might be the exact exchange between me and my mom on my eighth birthday. Or it might be a complete lie. Reality! Objective! Subjective!

While Ben is running around the lab catching everything on fire, Captain Atom is flying through space in Dr. Megala's mind. And it causes the universe to crack open and candy to fall out because there's an actual page in this comic that I find interesting!

I like the idea of the Big Bang taking place inside an already established Universe because how would we know otherwise? But then the moment is ruined by Dr. Megala's reaction. Up until now, the Dr. Megala that has been written would think this was fascinating and not horrible. But I guess he has to react this way to fit the theme of the issue.

Ranita and Nate arrive at the Continuum to help out because Dr. Scott Scott Scott Alexander Alex Scott Xander Scotty Scott Alexander Scott Scott SCOOOOOOTTTTTTT texted "I tilled you so!" and "Captain Adam is running emery boards!" Which brings us to another philosophical reality question: what is the nature of reality when autocorrect has its fingers in everything you type? How do we know that your mother didn't actually want you to bring five dildos back from the store? Maybe your friend didn't make it to the party because his car really did run out of ass. And how do you know that the chimera didn't spank the martian's monkey in the middle of the llama's lymphatic train? Yeah! Chew on that one!

Hmm, I was getting to some point in that last paragraph but I took a right turn at Albuquerque. Oh yeah. It was that Krul does provide a panel with the proof that this human Nate really is completely separate from Captain Atom.

Proof that Captain Atom is the stupidest piece of shit in the universe. "I'm totally crushing on this chick. I know! I'll make an autonomous being that looks and acts the way I used to look and fuck her with it!" New being goes off with woman. Captain Atom watches jealously and sits and stews and wonders if he's kissing his woman. Except for the part where the guy creates another lifeform, this is like every single day in junior high for me!

Normal Nate runs into the lab and confronts Captain Atom. He wants to be angry. He wants to know why he ruined this for himself. But that's the problem with creating clones. They aren't you!

Nerd alert: This whole cloning thing was a huge problem for me when I played Auto Duel on the Apple IIe. In the game, you could create a clone of yourself at a shop so that if you died, the clone would activate and you'd continue the game. It was basically the save game file but it disturbed me that the clone wasn't really you. The actual you died. Just because there is another body out there with all of your memories, it doesn't mean you still didn't die. The universe ended for you and it doesn't matter that another being is walking around thinking it's you! Sure, for the clone, every thing is grand! It thinks it is you. All of its friends think it's you. But what do you care? Your consciousness winked out when the bandits machine gunned your gas tank and blew your body all over Route 285.

This same thing comes up with the work scientists are doing on teleportation. A Nova program was recently detailing how they're teleporting particles by using entanglement. They were showing how two particles are entangled then pulled apart across a large distance. Then a third particle is introduced to the first particle. Another particle is introduced to the second particle. Then the third particle is destroyed as its information is transferred to the fourth particle. Voila! Teleportation!

Well, not exactly. Information may have been teleported and that's good for some things. But then they speculated that this is how human teleportation might work and I nearly shit my pants. They showed how a booth would be set up in the same way, sending the information from New York to Paris. You'd enter a booth in New York, get scanned, disintegrate, and then you'd appear in the booth in Paris. I just thought, "That's not a teleportation booth! That's a suicide booth!" One very theoretical scientist said something like, "Sure it's you. It's all the same information." Then another guy whose name I wish I could remember said, "I wouldn't get in it!"

So, you know, that's what's going on here. Although now that Nate has arrived to stop Captain Atom, it looks like they're going to merge. So that may have been the point all along. Captain Atom was recording the experience and memory of human contact on this other Nate so that he could absorb him later and have the memories for himself.

This also supports my masturbation theory!

In the end, Captain Atom misses the point and moves to Mars the moon. But you can't blame him for missing the point. He's not very smart. I mean, even the smart people in this comic miss the point. Like that part where Dr. Megala should have said, "It's fascinating!" because that's what Dr. Megala would have done. They all miss the point. I should probably try to explain it.

When Captain Atom fixes everything, he says, "I tried to give them what they wanted, but they seemed determined to get what they felt they deserved." Later, just before moving to the moon, he says, "Maybe that was my big mistake. Living in my own fantasy. Ignoring my new reality since the day of the accident." So he decides what he deserves is to be apart from everyone by moving to the moon. But he just pointed out that the fantasies didn't work because the fantasies couldn't work. They failed because the people couldn't allow themselves to have what they wanted. And now he's doing the same thing. He's not allowing himself to have what he wants. And yet he's been discussing subjective and objective reality this whole time. Dude. Stop pouting and removing yourself further and further from other people. If that's what you want, be near people. Maybe meet a nice Firestorm with which you can have intimate relations. Keep trying. I guess the moral of Captain Atom is "Fuck it! I give up!"

Captain Atom #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. Both because it's finally over and because this issue does what the rest of the series has been trying to say really, really poorly.

There were two moments during this entire 12 issue run that I think would have made for great Captain Atom stories but ended up just being big misses by the creative team. I think the beginning of Issue Three when he's dealing with survivor's guilt and getting a little religious and/or schizophrenic could have made for a fascinating take on this character. He went through big trauma perhaps he should act like a trauma victim! That could have been wonderful. And now at the end, this issue could have been the first issue of the entire series! It's like this issue did everything in one shot that the rest of the series has been fumbling and stuttering and not knowing how to say. But the problem is I don't think the creative team realizes Captain Atom missed the point of his whole experience. If they did realize it and this was an early issue, Captain Atom could have grown into a really interesting tragic character. But instead it just comes across as "I quit!" and a retelling of Watchman's Jon removing himself to Mars. Too bad.