So, I was just over at the DC Comics web-site checking out their previews of the books coming out this week. The hype for Titans #30 promises that "...Ray Palmer guest-stars as he continues his investigation into Ryan Choi's murder." Ryan Choi, you may remember, became "The All-New Atom" after Ray Palmer , the Silver Age bearer of that name, disappeared at the end of Identity Crisis.
A while ago, I came across an interesting post by Chris Sims in which he notes that what he calls "regressive storytelling", that is the practice at DC of abandoning newer versions of characters such as Firestorm and the Atom in favor of the "classic", mostly Silver Age, version, has made the DC Universe less racially diverse. After all, most Silver Age heroes were white men.
Now, in the case of the Atom, not only has DC brought back the white guy, but then they go and kill off the new kid to boot?
Racial issues aside, there are about a dozen Flashes (an exaggeration), over seven thousand Green Lanterns (not an exaggeration), and two Batmans (or is it Batmen?), so why does there have to be only one Atom?
Ha! Easy answer, Ray! The world's not big enough for more than one Atom!
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