Captain Atom #2

Captain Atom's impression of this issue.

There really is no story here. Not in the first two issues. It looks like the 'storytellers' (yes, that's how they're credited. 'writer/artist storytellers') JT Krul and Freddie Williams II are building a slow plot about a rat that ingests other creatures into it so that it becomes this rat/demon/bum amalgam! It's the least exciting build-up to a Villain of the Month I've ever seen! Plus it ends with this timely gem for next issue:




Captain Atom, like Flash, narrates the comic book as if he's telling the story to an audience. That trope is getting a bit annoying. If the narration were supposed to be thought bubbles, the tone would be different. It might make some kind of sense. The writer is setting up a narrative voice which is different than an internal monologue. But he's using the narration as the character's thoughts for the current panels. So when Captain Atom think-narrates:

CA: The trace elements were far more challenging--chlorine, potassium, sulfur.

It reads like a hybrid of narration to the reader to understand what is happening as Captain Atom reforms but it's also in Cap's voice for what he's thinking as he currently reforms. I could probably live with this approach and not complain or be bothered. But when the next narration box says this:

CA: Yeah, we got a little sulfur sloshing around inside our bodies. Go figure.

it tries my patience. Who the fuck are you talking to, Captain Atom?!

Now, I'm pretty sure I've done the same thing in Dwarf Lover. At least in the beginning when the story was being narrated by Kohk Korunch. But you do learn later that this is all shit he's kept in a journal.

Maybe what we have here is Captain Atom's diary. He probably settles down at the end of the day in some lead lined containment field and writes down the thoughts of his day. But I think what we really have here is a writer, sorry, storyteller who honed his craft on movies with omniscient narrators who were also characters in the film who were telling the tale of the film with the knowledge that they were speaking to an audience.

Or a narrator who is writing what we're currently seeing.

I might not be bothered with any of this crap if I was just reading the comics one after another. But since I'm spending at least 3 bucks per comic, I need to get more entertainment out of them than a quick five minute read. Thus this blog.

Okay, I'm still only on page two of Captain Atom #2 but I've got more complaining to do about it! Captain Atom seems to need to concentrate on putting himself together. He says, "I hated biology. But after my accident, I didn't have much of a choice, had to learn the basics if I wanted to stay in form, stay being me."

So apparently he needs to know exactly how the human body works to maintain the human body shape (minus his penis and testicles). But after the accident, without any of this knowledge, he was able to reform himself and come back looking like a man and not a jar of peanut butter. So I suspect he doesn't actually need to know that information. Maybe he only needs to know it if he wants to eat something and then have a nice, satisfying bowel movement.

But if he has to continually concentrate or he'll lose form, does he sleep? Instead of morning erections, would he wake up with morning transmogrifications?

As I said, there really isn't much of a plot yet. It seems we're just learning about Captain Atom and his powers. While in New York, we find that he can pick up wi-fi of some sort or another.


The tweets are hurting his head.

I'm not sure what the ticker is in the upper left corner. It seems to be moving upwards, days, hours, so forth. The 6574 behind the ticker could be years although I don't know enough about Captain Atom to know why the number would be so high. Also, at one point in the first issue, they fucked up and the ticker went backwards by a couple of hours. Unless the storytellers will invent a reason for it later to make it seem like it wasn't a mistake.

So Captain Atom can reassemble molecules. He can lose form but still is able to reform even after totally losing cohesion. He can pick up all the world's communications.

Captain Atom picks up a signal from a boy with brain cancer and sets off to heal the boy. One Fantastic Journey later and Captain Atom succeeds:



He follows up the healing thought with "...instead of being destructive." Which is odd since the majority of his first issue was about stopping destruction. Sure, it wasn't healing. So the image works fine. Without the stupid conclusion of being destructive.

So in a very boring first two issues, we learn a little bit about Captain Atom. Mostly I learned that I wouldn't continue reading this comic although I already knew I never would have purchased it anyway.

But lucky for Captain Atom, I'm going to keep buying all 52 of DC's New 52 for the time being. My comic book store offers 25% off if you have them pull 51+ issues for you! So I'll just accept that 1/4 of the comics I'm buying (13!) are freebies and not worry about how crappy they are!

Maybe Issue #3 will be more exciting!