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I skimmed it.

It was… honestly… terrible. I miss the wacky fun.

Yeah, it was really awful. They really should have ended it or put it on haitus when Gail Simone couldn’t write it any more.

The meeting of Ray and Ryan should have been so much fun, too. What a waste.

I loved this book…at first. I really wanted to see more Ryan Choi as the adventurous academic in sci-fi situations. It was a great angle for him and not really covered by any other hero.

Sigh.

can’t say i ever liked this book, but this sounds lame lame lame

i really wanted to like ryan choi too

Sort of sums up the DC universe at the moment doesn’t it. No idea of what the heck it wants to be at all but it has somehow latched onto the idea that ‘dark’ will make any story better.

Well, I tried the first two issues and the book started lame, so I guess this gives it a certain kind so symmetry.

I got the the first trade and honestly, it was a total mess.
I’m surprised the series lasted as long as it did.

Well, IIRC, Remender isn’t much of a fan of superheroes anyway, is he? At least that’s the impression I get after reading “The End League”.

I didn’t like this ending either. In my parallel world, the book was cancelled at the end of Simone’s run.

I tried the first two Remender issues, and hated them. I understand they were trying to boost sales with a new direction, but still, way to torpedo everything I liked about the book.

The worst part, though, is all the whiny aging-Silver-Agers who were pissing and moaning about Ray not being in the book in the first place are probably taking this as DC vindicating their position.

There was a all-new Atom book?!?
Aw darn, I missed it, bugger all.

Maybe next time.

Cronin sez: “Wow, that’s a pretty bad way to end a comic book series.”

————————————-

Over in her forum here, even Gail Simone (who gave the Atom series up to Remender about half a year ago) seemed a bit lukewarm on it herself–although I think she was going mostly on what people were posting and hadn’t read it herself yet.

Really, killing Panda was bad enough. But basically he got tortured by “fate” (okay, the writer) pretty badly first before that happened, all for the sake of some vague “it really sucks to be the best Pal of a superhero” lesson.

And there was ZERO reason I could see for unpinning this Atom’s origin. It didn’t enhance the character, it didn’t add a new dimension. It didn’t “fix” anything that needed to be fixed. It was just… lame.

I agree with FGJ, that first arc made no sense at all. I think that every once in a while, Gail’s enthusiasm kind of crowds out the clarity of the plot, something I noticed with Welcome to Tranquility, her Superman run and Wonder Woman… so basically almost everything she’s written in the past couple of years. The pacing just ends up kind of… off, like it’s set to some kind of manic beat.

Thinking on it, wasn’t it based on concepts from Morrison?
He and Simone are very different writers, and I feel this may not have meshed.
The fact there were Puritan and cowboy sections of the city should’ve been played up earlier on in the book and given a sense of total oddness in the world, instead it was barely mentioned, even when it was a plot point.

Honestly, I loved all of Simone’s run. That things like the cowboys and puritans were dealt with so casually seemed to me to be part of the point- that the weirdness has become mundane.

But even the main character who was new to the city didn’t even raise an eyebrow at it… just felt like a really odd tack on to me.

[…] Thoughts on the last issue of the All New Atom […]

I agree with FGJ and others. I know Simone has a huge fanbase thanks to YABS and her online presence, but I just really can’t get into her writing. The humor is just so cutesy, precious and has such a self-satisfied tone. And throw in that this book so felt like a Morrison concept being written by a writer with totally wrong sensibilities and it just got that much worse. Under Simone’s pen the wackiness just seemed so forced and self-conscious while the humor as usual was so cutesy and precious while the pacing was just inconsistent and the narration captions were, like all DC books, really overwritten.

There was a really good Roger Stern issue in there.

Loved the book when Gail was writing it - especially after Mike Norton took over the art chores, though I do think the Byrne issues had some of the guy’s best work in years - but dropped it after not enjoying the first Remender issue at all. Looks like I made the right decision. Sheesh.

For the record: Gail has stated that Morrison’s ideas for this one were actually pretty limited. Morrison had the idea of the character of Panda and Ryan being asian and that was it. The idea of a strange town with warped physics, the rest of the Lighter Than Air Society, Head, etc. had all originated with Simone as part of a pitch she did for another character and title. When she was offered this she just adapted her ideas to The Atom.

And there was sooo much FUN in the title with her. Admittedly, maybe the first story arc was a little weird with it’s time jumping and stuff like that but things settled down after that and probably the best aspect of it was the idea of Ryan dating Giganta. I mean, come on, a hero who shrinks dating a villainess who grows — it was both comedy gold and actually quite sweet at the same time.

I really enjoyed this book when I first picked it up near the middle of its run but it eventually got super lame. I like the character a lot and I hope he is picked up somewhere else.

Not only all of the problems Brian et al. mentioned, we don’t even get an explanation as to Ryan’s “fake” belt! Just “trust me, it’s horrible and needs to be destroyed.” I really, REALLY hated this final arc, which is a shame because for the first 20 issues it was the DC book to which I most looked forward; I think I was really sold when M’Nagalah showed up at the drive-in to complain that the cheesy special effects in the movie looked nothing like him. Regardless, I think Ryan’s a great character; here’s hoping he takes up Wonder Woman’s offer now and joins the JLA.

Not bloody likely, Zach; all of this looks like DC’s way of sweeping Ryan under the carpet to make way for Ray’s return in the pages of James Robinson’s Justice League.

I do hope someone picks up the character and runs with him, but I’m not counting on it.

Under Simone’s pen the wackiness just seemed so forced and self-conscious while the humor as usual was so cutesy and precious while the pacing was just inconsistent and the narration captions were, like all DC books, really overwritten.

So now DC’s narration captions are over written as opposed to the perfect amount of words that DC uses?
Seriously?

I’ve got to say though, I don’t actually mind Simone’s style, I just haven’t actually liked any of the books I’ve read of hers - possibly character or plot wise.

So now DC’s narration captions are over written as opposed to the perfect amount of words that DC uses?
Seriously?

FGJ,

I know it sounds ridiculous to say, and I don’t know why it’s the case, but honestly Didio’s DC has worse narration captions than Marvel. They often go for this purple noir prose that just comes off as a really bad Frank Miller imitation or just overexplains everything. This is the case even when it’s a writer who works for both companies. For example David Lapham’s narration captions for Daredevil Punisher are much more effective and helpful to the story than the ones he did in his 12 part Batman story, which were overwritten and cheesy as hell. And both were written around the same time. And almost on cue as if to vindicate me, look at the recent post Brian did from the latest Batgirl book that has Batman, Nightwing and Robin doing the worst narration exposition I’ve ever read in a comic. Marvel has some people who like doing narration captions too, like Brubaker and Bendis, but they are WAAAAAAAAY better at it. With the exception of Loeb of course, but he’s a special case.