Vocation: hero Domain: DC Universe Active: 2015 – Affiliations: Justice League AKA: –

 “I am going to die here, and they’ll probably just vacuum up my corpse!“

The title of Atom has been held by three different heroes in the DC universe. Most of the time references to the Atom are talking about Ray Palmer. Older generations know him from the Super Friends and post-millennials know him from the CW. As the Atom he battled evil from the Silver Age through the Modern Age (and beyond if Frank Miller has anything to say about it).

You would think he would be more than almost-recognizable after all this time, but to be fair he is basically a Shrinker, which is one of the least respected archetypes. To his credit he is one of the best known Shrinkers in all of comic bookdom (take that! Doll-Man and Mini-Midget!). The modern CW version can also grow technically, though rarely does. Not doing it makes you much less useful but keeps you more in line with your naming scheme.

Modern fans probably know the character as Ryan Koi, who is Ray Palmer’s literal and metaphorical successor and so is superficially the same character. The Golden Age Atom was unrelated to either of the later models and faded out of consciousness along with the fashion of going out in public without your pants on.