Brightest Day: the Atom Special #1 - DC

The back-up story in Adventure Comics . . in upcoming issues, is going to be about the Atom. Specifically, Ray Palmer. From the looks of things in Titans, it appears that Ryan Choi is dead. So, this issue serves to bring all the people who don't know much about the Atom up to speed on his history and origin. Kind of. It also serves to introduce us to his father, brother, and uncle . . all of whom we've never really heard of before. His brother Danny definitely seemed like he was his father's son. But Ray never followed thier interest in sports or physical activities. He's been a book-worm right from the beginning. Ray actually seemed more like his dad's younger brother, David. He was more intellectual, like Raymond. But he was also a mystery because he didn't visit ofter, and Ray's dad rarely talked about him. Anyways, all of these memories pop up because someone has broken into Ray's lab and trashed the place. They've taken his journals, and apparently some of his earliest prototypes of his shrinking belt. The belt, mostly, could be a big problem in the wrong hands. But Ray's also worried about some of the theoretical ideas he had written in the journals. Which all leads into the stories, I'm sure, that'll be coming up in the Adventure Comics series. We've always known a bit about Ray, and Jean, but this is probably the most we've learned about his past in years. I'm interested to see where this story is going to go. Jeff Lemire and Mahmud Asrar handle the create chores both in this book and in the upcoming Adventure stories. I thought it was interesting that there were a couple of panels in this book where Mahmud's style seemed familiar to that of Kevin Nowlan's. Not all the way through, but . . occasionally. Anyways, it was a good book for someone not familiar with the character. And it's also a good prologue for the upcoming stories. The cover was by Gary Frank and Brad Anderson.