Captain Atom #6

Now the Luck Dragon has become a fuzzy Cyclops!

And J.T. Krul is no Grant Morrison! Hell, he's not even a Keith Giffen!

That's how Captain Atom #6 begins. Captain Atom telling nobody that he's no Superman. Narration Boxing [the weird modern day amalgam of Thought Bubbles and Omniscient Narration] fucks up comic books. Not just because it's a weird way to narrate a story, having the main character speak outside of the moment as if he's addressing an audience. But because it allows the writer to write a comic as a first person narrative. It dumbs the comic down in a way that even the over use of thought bubbles couldn't do. One thing is certain: the more Narration Boxing a comic book character does, the worse the writer tends to be. I'm sure there's a mathematical formula to prove this somewhere.
Captain Atom has just encountered the Diner Monster/Luck Dragon/Fuzzy Cyclops which is what got him on the topic of his not being Superman. But not only that, he's "getting something straight" which implies he's explaining to someone other than himself. Perhaps he is. He's some kind of weird quantum creature now. Perhaps he's sitting somewhere telling the story at the exact same moment he's encountering this beast for the first time!

He goes through a list of all the major characters and where they stand with him so that the readers can all catch up. And then he finally gets back on topic which is that he, Captain Atom, more closely resembles this monster than Superman. And that's why Narration Boxing is for lazy writers. Because this story could be a powerful story revolving around that premise. Tell the story and let the reader make that aha realization. But instead, on page one, J.T. Krul tells us the idea for his story. Either he's so proud of his story idea he thought he'd explain it immediately or else he thinks comic book readers are so dumb that they'd never get it.
 
Even Rob Liefeld was able to tell a story about how Hawk and Dove have a lot to learn as partners when they encountered Batman and Robin without blurting the point out in a Narration Box. Rob Liefeld! Come on, J.T. Krul! You're the worst!

As you can see, if a writer writes a bad comic for a substantial number of issues, he shall be declared a horrible writer until he can prove me wrong. And he shall also be declared an idiot and a moron and a jerk-face. So there.

Page two and three are more of the same.

Captain Atom has a good memory for rat faces. He must because he wasn't Captain Atom when he first met the rat so I'm not going to believe he remembers it on some kind of molecular level.

And here Captain Atom begins to recount the history of the rat the way an omniscient narrator would except Captain Atom isn't omniscient and shouldn't know anything about the little rat's history.

Sorry for the blurry scan. It's, um, arty!

Do I sense Captain Atom's version of Krypto originating here?! That would be awesome. So J.T. Krul won't do it.

They created Electryo the Quantum Rat!

In a heartbeat, dumb dumb! They're military!

With all of this Narration Boxing going on, I probably won't have to scan any actual artwork! Who needs art to tell this story? Someone should invent a medium for telling stories that doesn't need an artist!

"Yeah, sir! I can't tell if it's a military installation or an orphanage! But I know I can damn well hit it!"

The way J.T. Krul has dealt with the military, I can only imagine that G.I. Combat is going to be full of cliché stories and ham-fisted morality tales. I'm so glad I spent $3.99 on it! SO EXCITED!

One last attack on J.T. Krul then I'll just get on with the story: here we see Krul use Nimrod in the popular sense brought on by Bugs Bunny's sarcastic use of the Biblical Nimrod while Grant Morrison actually used Nimrod in its original sense, as that of a great hunter. Just, you know, saying. I bet Krul doesn't even know it's origins as an insult.

Captain Atom tries to get the military to stop blasting away at Electryo (TM me!) because it's just absorbing the energy and becoming more powerful. This panics the pilots because he's speaking Pacifist at them. They bail out of their jet in confusion and the other pilot's jet gets eaten by Electryo.
I wonder if this whole town smells like Quantum Rat Piss. That's a heavy duty smell! I had a rat named Randy in high school. Boy could he work up a stink! But damn was he cute.

Only two comics have used the term 'mad-on': Birds of Prey and this one. Look how low they are in the Rankings.

General Eiling gives Captain Atom five minutes to stop the creature on his own after Atom saves the pilots. After that, Eiling is going to level the county with his payload!

Yes. If Electryo had been a Rabbit, the military would have been, "Awww! He's soooo adorwable! Let's keep him even though he keeps devouring everyone and growing new body parts and destroying the countryside! SO CYUTE!"

Captain Atom decides that this rat doesn't deserve this. He got the short end just like Captain Atom. The military used him and threw him away, the poor thing! Captain Atom reasons with the rat and tells him that absorbing energy will only get it killed and that it's hurting people and that the military is going to destroy the country side if it doesn't stop eating.

Yeah, it's a rat, you dumb son of a bitch! The experiments gave it quantum powers not rational thought!

Captain Atom ends up absorbing the rat. Or dissipating it. Or changing it into oxygen. Who knows? He disappears it and saves the day. He heads back to the Continuum (his laboratory headquarters) and he and his wheelchair bound mentor put Ranita's hand back together using Cap's powers and his Megala's knowledge. Everything is better except for the part where Ranita could never love him because he's a freak that ruins everything he touches. But Captain Atom is content with his place in the world. He finally feels he fits in.

And then Krul ends with the Earth blowing up twenty years from now on April 1st.

April Fools!

No, seriously, am I supposed to care about this for some reason? The Earth being destroyed in twenty years? Is this supposed to set up Captain Atom's next story line where he needs to prevent this? I hate when current plots are motivated by visions of the future, so this is dumb. Television show Heroes dumb.

Captain Atom Issue #6 Rating: No change. Captain Atom still has two more issues to regain the bottom spot in the New 52, so no hurry to displace Grifter just yet!