Power In Their Hands — Reviewing ‘Justice League: The Atom Project’ #1

Amanda Waller might be in prison, but the effects of her attempted coup are still wreaking havoc across the planet. Amazo’s stolen powers did not all go back to their original owners, gaining levels while falling into inexperienced hands.

Good thing the Justice League is back so that Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi can be on the case in Justice League: The Atom Project #1. A new series from Ryan Parrott, John Ridley, Mike Perkins, Adriano Lucas, and Wes Abbott.

While both heroes known as the Atom are in the series, it’s the third main character that really gives the focus to the series title. One Nathaniel Adam — the explosive hero known as Captain Atom — takes an intriguing place in the premise. In the recent past, he was someone who lost his powers agreeing to stand at the center of the Atom’s experiment to reawaken meta genes. In the present, though, he’s a man on the run from his former friends seemingly absconding with a myriad of powers and little known about his reasons.

Parrott and Ridley do a solid job of setting up the stakes, introducing the various players, and leaving us with enough of an intriguing mystery to come back. Ray and Ryan’s different views on how to approach the various newly-powered folks, and even Nathaniel, is a nice touch. Both characters might share a power set and name, but they are unique individuals. Of course they have different views, born of their different generations, racial groups, and just overall life experiences and personalities.

Not revealing who these mystery voices watching everything are is for the best. Doing so would have made too many revelations in one issue. Good to have something new to drop as the story continues.

A baked-in roughness is a trademark of Perkins artwork, and it fits this series smoothly. All of the characters depictions feel unique and emotionally fitting. Their energy flows through the page as the action has all the right kinetic momentum across the page. How Perkins mixes lushness and sparseness into the same issue, sometimes the same space, is quite nice. It showcases a keen eye for knowing when details are paramount and when they are not as necessary because our focus is fully on the subjects.

Vibrant, heroic color palettes are what I usually think of with Lucas, chiefly because of his time on books like Nightwing & Titans. There are still bites of that within this series, but the way that he delivers them has changed. More saturated colors that embody the rougher edge of the artwork are clear. An almost paint-like quality is felt at times which really fits with the book’s visual tone.

I always appreciate seeing Abbott’s name on a book for lettering. Character voices are always clear and have enough in them to really highlight personality and emotion. Enough visual quirks come into play to give things a distinct feeling and fun. There is a point where some caption boxes fill the pages, and it’s clear from the back and forth that it’s two figures talking to one another. I do wish, though, that the red of the boxes was different or something was added to give each talker their own clear space. Just a minor quibble though.

Justice League: The Atom Project #1 is now available from DC Comics.