LEGENDS OF TOMORROW: Previewing The Atom / Ray Palmer



The Atom, the great shrinking hero, the Ivy League professor, the billionaire and once thought dead CEO of Palmer Tech. In a recent episode of ARROW, a very Ray Palmer-friendly story and with the premiere of LEGENDS OF TOMORROW (LoT) quickly approaching, let’s take a special dive into the shrinking hero highlighting some special powers, people and events from The Atom's history. But so we don’t fall down a DC comics rabbit hole, let’s keep our Dwarf star particles focused on the Ray Palmer version of The Atom.

The Arrow-verse Ray Palmer already has many differences to what comic fans are used to. Although in my opinion, the differences of the TV Ray Palmer are for the better. Many fans have thrown around the “Iron-Man suit” comparisons to what we’ve seen so far, but the look goes hand-in-hand for the gritty realism based aspect ARROW goes for. The comics Ray Palmer gets his powers through the same Dwarf star matter and develops control over it through a belt with his costume. But doesn’t that sound similar to a box office winning ANT-MAN? The tech suit helps the TV version of Ray Palmer carve his own path and look. 

The Atom that we’ve seen so far has powers that are pretty similar to the comics, shrinking and all. Even though the laser blasts are new to the character, it really helps with the punch you in the face style we’ve seen on ARROW. Hopefully as time and the DC TV Universe grows we’ll come to see Ray Palmer's arsenal expand. If you’re unaware of his abilities in the comics, The Atom is one of the select few DC characters who can control 100-percent of himself when it comes to molecular powers. Besides a simple shrink, Atom can also shrink with the ability to traverse via phone lines and change his own mass to punch with concussive levels or fly with air currents. Although the latter two powers are negated with the help of the tech suit, seeing actor Brandon Routh fly between phone lines would make for some pretty visually entertaining TV. 

In terms of overall Atom storylines, and rouges galleries, not much has been seen so far. But with the ever expanding DC TV universe, LoT slowly creeping up on us and the multiverse now coming into play, one can only imagine what we’ll see of The Atom. Since much of the origin of The Atom is already in place, we probably won’t see the physicist at Pace University or the spelunking accident that created the character. But with the help of Earth-2 and the time traveling in LoT, audiences could hopefully see the first Atom, Al Pratt, or others who have worn the mantle like Ryan Choi and Adam Cray. 

Time traveling could also lead us to one of, The Atom's biggest foe, Chronos. Most likely altered to have a more realistic feel, Chronos is a petty criminal who is a master in time manipulation. He later masters time travel itself, something that would work perfectly for LoT. Speaking of LoT, our comics version of Ray Palmer finds a strong ally and sometimes stated best friend in Hawkman. There could be very interesting chemistry there with the quirky yet intelligent Brandon Routh’s take on the character and the upcoming reincarnated Carter Hall.

Fingers crossed we could also come to see some, if not hints of Atoms biggest comic story lines in LoT and other DC shows including Sword of Atom, a miniseries in which Ray Palmer abandons normal life and becomes a hero to a tribe of 6-inch aliens in South America and Power of The Atom, a story in which Ray develops a new suit controlled via his brainwaves (something that would be very cool to see with TV Atom) and develops his powers even further while going head to head against CIA operatives and Task Force X. 

Excited? Only time will tell what we see from Brandon Routh and The Atom... as long as he makes it through Season 1 of LEGENDS OF TOMORROW first!

Written by Mark Storey, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW Beat Writer