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The Eponymous Hero
Al Pratt
Albert "Al" Pratt
First Appearance: All-American Comics #19 (October, 1940)
"A joke is a joke...but getting me into a jam with a professor is another thing! Those new students need a lesson in manners!"
Standing only five feet one inch tall, 1940s college student turned research scientist Al Pratt was constantly picked on until he took up bodybuilding, boxing and wrestling, so he developed some self-esteem. Donning a costume and calling himself The Atom, he fought crime with nothing but his fists and raw grit and became a founding member of the Justice Society of America. Later, after absorbing nuclear energy from his enemy Cyclotron, he gained super-strength and an "atomic punch". Al retired in the '50s, came out of retirement in The Silver Age of Comic Books, and, tragically, was murdered by Extant in Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!. He is survived by his son, Damage, and godson, Atom-Smasher.
- The Artifact: An interesting case. When created in 1940, the atom bomb was still a twinkle in Oppenheimer's eye, so "atom" was a common insult for shrimpy people like Al started out as, his successes were symbolic triumphs of the little guy over people who overlooked him. That changed after the bomb dropped, and subsequent events would give him an "atomic punch".
- Badass Normal: Originally he was a bare-handed crime fighter with unbelievable strength.
- Empowered Badass Normal: At first he gained resistance to radiation due to a dying villain, later he gained full atomic physical abilities when he was caught in the fallout of an explosion.
- Bash Brothers: With Wildcat and Hourman.
- Charles Atlas Super Power: At the very beginning of his heroic exploits, he was this very trope personified.
- Disappeared Dad: To Damage. During Blackest Night, his Black Lantern version claims he knew Damage was his son, and abandoned him, but given Black Lanterns are pre-programmed to do whatever it takes to get emotions out of folk, this can be taken with a grain of salt.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: After a year of incredibly intensive training at the hands of an expert, Al was startled when he instinctively flipped a guy who was pushing him around over his shoulder, and later when trying to open a jammed door tears the doorknob right out of it. He get a handle on himself pretty quickly, though.
- Hand Blast: The Atom focuses his radioactive energy into his fists adding destructive force to his punches.
- Have a Gay Old Time: When he was brought back for the Silver Age, Al Pratt could travel between universes by way of an "atomic vibrator." Mounted on his belt, no less.
- Height Angst: Pratt was only five feet and one inch tall, constantly being taunted for his size. Even after a boxing coach helps him become stronger, Pratt continues to get teased at his college over his size.
- I Just Want to Be Special:
- As a young college student, the 5'1" Pratt had spent his life suffering the mockery of his peers and feeling inadequate as a result. The capper when he and his girlfriend Mary were mugged by an large unarmed man who managed to easily intimidate and manhandle poor Al with ease, allowing the thug to get away with their money and jewelry. Mary, disgusted that Al hadn't even tried to stand up to the guy, dumped him on the spot. Dejectedly, he was walking home when a drifter came up and asked for a meal. Al kindly agreed, and bent the man's ear, talking about his lifelong woes and recent trouble. The drifter, Joe Morgan, had once been a famed fight trainer but was down on his luck. Joe, grateful for Al's kindness and inspired by his story, offered to train him into someone who couldn't be pushed around anymore. The two spent a year of physical exercise and fight training at the Pratt family farm, and Al ended up even stronger and more skilled than Joe had been expecting.
- After training into a Badass Normal, though, he still often felt that, in the presence of such heavyweights as Green Lantern or the Flash, he wasn't worth much of anything. Even when comparing himself to other Badass Normals, he could still find something to envy, such as Mr. Terrific being able to run faster than him, or Wildcat being a better fighter. The man had an inferiority complex. However, after soaking up some radiation from the Supervillain Cyclotron in 1941, he finally gained Super-Strength from this event years later, in 1945. He was naturally quite thrilled upon this revelation, and yet, he was never quite satisfied...
- Karmic Jackpot: Buy a bowl of soup for a guy, get trained into a superhero.
- Killed Off for Real: He was killed by Extant during Zero Hour, and while his teammates on the Justice Society eventually returned, he never has, not even with all the Crisis events that have reset the universe.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Al and his wife Mary, who worked at a company called Symbolix, spent their whole marriage even into late middle age attempting to have a child. Al and the rest of the JSA got spirited to a pocket dimension and were forced into an endless battle to keep the forces of Ragnarok from escaping and ravaging our Earth. By the time he got back, Mary's bosses at Symbolix told him that the woman he had been in love with for literally decades had died in an accident along with the unborn baby they had been hoping to meet for almost as long. But actually, Symbolix was a front corporation for Vandal Savage who had kidnapped Mary and experimented on the fetus she carried, infusing it with the DNA of every single JSA member and every other superhero they could get. When the baby was born, Savage personally suffocated Mary to death, and Symbolix spent some time infusing the infant with bits of DNA from every modern superhero they were able to and the baby was placed with a married couple of scientists and named Grant Emerson, later becoming known as the superhero Damage. Also, it would later turn out that Mr. Emerson had been molesting little Grant pretty much as soon as he got his mitts on the poor kid. Al Pratt's ghost probably shakes his head and sighs wearily whenever he hears someone say they want to be a superhero.
- Legacy Character: He's spawned several, but his Silver Age namesake, Ray "the Atom" Palmer, was the only one with no connection to him. They did become friends, though.
- Lightning Bruiser:
- As a Badass Normal he was putting his life on the line every time he acted in a superheroic role, with nothing to help him but his incredible physical training. This means he had to get ahead of even the people with actual powers or die in any number of horrible ways.
- When he got his powers, they came in the form of raising his baselines so all of the results of all his crazy physical training enhanced him from peak human to superhuman.
- Like a Son to Me: After the villain known as Cyclotron was killed, Al took his young daughter into his care and later became godfather to her son, Albert Julian Rothstein, aka Nuklon aka Atom Smasher. In light of the difficulty Al and his wife had conceiving their own child, little Terri and later Albert were basically a surrogate child and grandchild, a relationship which carried on into adulthood.
- Older Than They Look:
- Due to only being 5'1" at age twenty, people tended to push him around like a kid. That changed.
- Thanks to weird time junk, Al ended up being somewhere around eighty-something chronologically and around maybe fifty physically at worst, which thanks to his lifetime of physical training and a boost from our old friend Radiation-Induced Superpowers meant he could keep doin' his thang in the modern age (with a somewhat more conventional costume). Until...
- Pintsized Powerhouse: The Gimmick of choice and the basis of his name; the Atom is a small but mighty force.
- Primary-Color Champion: Something that differentiates him the most from his successors is that his costume had blue, yellow and red.
- Radiation-Induced Superpowers: He absorbed energy from a nuclear-powered supervillain, which somehow allowed him to survive an atomic bomb blast, after which he gained superhuman physical abilities, particularly strength.
- Rapid Aging: At one point in the 1940s, the JSA and some of their loved ones were exposed to a massive amount of time energy that left them all aging so gracefully that they could still be active superheroes over sixty years later. That is, until the Zero Hour event, in which Extant stole pretty much all that time energy for himself. Al aged forty years in a second, his now-eighty-odd-years-old body perishing immediately from the strain, and unlike some of his compatriots, hasn't come back. So far.
- Recurring Element: Bad guys underestimate him for his size thinking they can steamroll him, only to end up thrashed with ease. Keep in mind the target audience was depression-era kids.
- Retcon: The story about gaining super-strength from Cyclotron came about in the '80s to explain why he inexplicably had it in his Silver Age appearances when he was non-powered in The Golden Age of Comic Books.
- Whole Costume Reference: Terry chose to honor Cyclotron's sacrifice by changing the Atom costume to one similar.
- Wrestler in All of Us: His main and most well known Signature Move was a Reverse chokehold, then spinned around to toss the baddie.
Ray Palmer
Raymond "Ray" Palmer
First Appearance: Showcase #34 (October, 1961)
" Now that I am able to turn myself into a human Atom — who knows what strange and wonderful things may happen?"
The shrinking hero originating during The Silver Age of Comic Books. Ray Palmer is a scientist, superhero and longtime Justice League member who devised a means of miniaturization through dwarf star matter technology.
- Badass Bookworm: A university professor and researcher who is also a superhero and member of the Justice League.
- Bash Brothers: With Hawkman.
- Blessed with Suck: The "White-dwarf converter" has the strange particularity to work perfectly fine with inorganic tissue. Any other can explode with a force equivalent to the affected organism total atomic mass, hence the suit.
- Determinator: Ray Palmer works on problems with single-minded pursuit.
- Didn't Think This Through: Knowing Jean already had suffered two mental breakdowns from Atom-related incidents in the past, Ray only chose to tell her his secret identity the night before their wedding, in the most over-the-top manner imaginable without any warning or preamble, and that he'd been helping her career so she'd marry him. Jean not unreasonably didn't take this well and ran off into the night. Ray's only response? Self-pity.
- Dressed in Layers: Palmer's costume inverts the trope: he wears his costume over his usual clothes, but it is stretched so thin around him that it is invisible. It only becomes visible when Palmer shrinks significantly.
- Fights Like a Normal: Even without his shrinking technology, Ray still knows judo and is an effective fighter.
- Gadgeteer Genius: He did invent the Bio-Belt after all.
- Handwave: One arc of JLA (1997) has Ray explain to Kyle Rayner that the reason they can see things like photons when shrunken is because human senses adapt into something that allows them to still perceive their environment without going insane. The same effect is how they're still breathing even though it's no longer oxygen they're inhaling. He says not to think about it too hard.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Turned out shrinking and control of his mass are surprisingly effective villain fighting tools.
- Heroes Love Dogs : During a brief period he was assisted by "Jupiter", his faithful Cocker spaniel Ray at times employed as steed.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Ray Palmer and Hawkman (both Katar Hol and the retconned version of Carter Hall) are often portrayed this way. They even shared Ray's comic for a while in the late 1960s.
- In Name Only: Atom's reimagining in the Silver Age. The mantle went from a short physicist moonshining as a Badass Normal street-fighter to a physicist who could shrink by using the power of white dwarf star.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Ray invented a belt and suit that allow him to shrink to a sub-atomic size.
- Morality Chain: One of the few people modern day Hawkman is consistently nice to.
- Nice Guy: The only member of the Indigo Tribe (as short as his tenure was) to be recruited BECAUSE of his compassion whereas the norm is to forcibly recruit someone utterly devoid of compassion and force them to feel it.
- Old Shame: He does not have any fondness for his time with the Teen Titans, and openly sided against them during the Technis Imperative.
- Primary-Color Champion: His suit is blue and red.
- Retired Badass: He's gone back and forth, but seems to retire more often than other Silver Age JLA-ers.
- Science Hero: His day job is as a physics professor at the Ivy Town college.
- Sizeshifter: Smaller than normal only.
- The Smart Guy: He's the go-to guy for technobabble in The DCU.
- Telephone Teleport: The Atom could shrink himself down to a size where he could travel along phone lines, propelled by soundwaves. However, he found out the hard way that phoning using satellite hookups results in a very rough ride for him.
- Token Good Teammate: His brief tenure as a member of the Indigo Tribe in Blackest Night made him this as the rest of the group was revealed to be a bunch of sociopaths forced to undergo Heel–Face Brainwashing to learn compassion, whereas he was chosen because he already had it.
Adam Cray
Adam Cray
First Appearance: Suicide Squad #44 (August, 1990)
Originally a short lived villainous legacy character who served on Task Force X.
- Cosmic Retcon: He was revived in Rebirth as a seemingly powerless roommate of Ryan Choi.
- Killed Off for Real: He was killed by Blacksnake, and wouldn't return until Rebirth rebooted the universe.
- Legacy Character: A less heroic legacy Atom to Ray.
- Rich Bitch: He was son of a powerful senator.
Ryan Choi
Ryan Lun Choi
First Appearance: Brave New World' #1 (August, 2006)
"I think I'm failing the 'hero' test. Because when the hero meets the monster for the first time... I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to have problems controlling their bladder."
The second shrinking hero to use the name. Ryan Choi was a gifted student of Ray Palmer at Ivy University, and eventually took up the mantle of the Atom in his mentor's absence.
- Affirmative-Action Legacy: Choi is the first Atom to be a person of color.
- All Asians Know Martial Arts: Ryan and his friends took martial arts training as kids, although Ryan was not particularly good at it and didn't particularly care. As a teenager, after he is bullied by Alvin and his friends, he returns to it and becomes quite good at it.
- Asian and Nerdy: Ryan is Cantonese and quite nerdy, especially as a kid. He idolized the inventor of the rocket over his friends' martial arts heroes, was bullied constantly into doing homework for Alvin and his friends, and corresponded with Ray Palmer and possibly other scientists in place of having many genuine friends his age.
- Asian Drivers: Ryan never learned how to drive before coming to America in the Pre-Flashpoint continuity.
- Badass Bookworm:
- Chick Magnet: Upon arriving in Ivy Town, he is promptly hit on by both a student and his coworker, Dr. Zuel.Ryan (internal monologue): I swear I'm not doing this on purpose! I've somehow mistakenly landed in Sex Town, U.S.A.!
- Clothes Make the Superman: Ryan's shrinking abilities are not innate and are instead part of his suit's abilities.
- Dating Catwoman: An odd case, as while Ryan Choi is dating a supervillain, he's not dating one of his villains.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Ryan created a "Rocket pen" to propel himself whenever is required.
- Has a Type: Appears to prefer redheads. His primary love interest is Fiery Redhead Giganta.Ryan (internal monologue): Everyone deserves a second chance! Especially redheads!
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Shrinking and changing your weight.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Ryan uses a belt and suit that allow him to shrink to a microscopic size.
- Missing Mom: Pre-Flashpoint, Ryan's mother died shortly before he became the Atom; post-Flashpoint, she's still alive.
- Mission Control: Ryan's role for Ray in the Rebirth one-shot before taking up the mantle himself.
- Naturalized Name: Rebirth has 'Lun' as Choi's original name and 'Ryan' as his naturalized one.
- Nerd Glasses: Rebirth-era Ryan wears chunky black plastic glasses to help with his nearsightedness.
- Ret-Canon: Ryan's Rebirth Atom suit being Powered Armor is imported from Legends of Tomorrow, where Ray's ATOM suit is Powered Armor.
- Secret-Keeper: In Rebirth continuity, Ryan was the first person Ray told about being the Atom.
- Square-Cube Law: Explained away by the "miraculous" effects of white-dwarf star matter. It's implied in Choi's series that his predecessor's frequent violation of this law of physics is why Ivytown went a bit... kooky.
- Swallowed Whole: Let's say that his first date with Giganta didn't go so well. To be fair, she was being controlled by a cancer god at the time.
- Telephone Teleport: An ability he surpassed his mentor in. He would leave a metronome ticking at his end of a land-line to provide propulsion. By Rebirth, Choi had started surfing on WiFi signals.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Choi had a relationship with Giganta.
- Token Minority: Choi was seen as this at first by some. The fact that they killed him off as soon as his series ended doesn't help. That said, they did bring him back subsequently, in cartoons and comics.
- Villainous Crush: Giganta had a crush on him in the Pre-Flashpoint continuity. He reciprocates it.
- Weirdness Magnet: Dean Mayland of Ivy University claims that the Atom (both Ray and Ryan incarnations) is one, and that they spread this to the town. Ryan seems to have accepted it.Ryan: I now think of normality as a village other people visit.
Love Interests
Mary James-Pratt
First Appearance: All-American Comics #19 (October, 1940)
Al Pratt's college girlfriend and eventual wife. She and Al had a son named Grant together who was adopted by the Emerson family and eventually became the costumed hero Damage.
Jean Loring
First Appearance: Showcase #34 (October, 1961)
"Maybe your subconscious is telling you it's time to turn your back on the Atom and the risks of his microscopic world!"
Ray Palmer's ex-wife. Jean is best known for accidentally killing Sue Dibny in a deranged attempt to force heroes to get closer to their loved ones, and hiring Captain Boomerang to kill Tim Drake's father as part of her plan to frame Boomerang for the death.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: During Identity Crisis (2004) artist Rags Morales based Jean's appearance on Lesley Ann Warren.
- Demonic Possession: As part of Alex Luthor's schemes, she was made the next host for Eclipso. Part of the problem with fighting him (her?) is some of the heroes want to try and save Jean. Also, it becomes a little unclear if Eclipso's just using her memories, or if Jean is willingly going along with things.
- It's All About Me: Ray would have gotten back together with her in a second if she had simply asked, but since she initiated the divorce it would make her look "weak." This caused her to hatch her plan in Identity Crisis.
- Kick the Dog: Her first act on her turn to insanity? Killing Sue Dibny, and then incinerating her. Black Lantern Sue pointed out that for all Jean's protestations, she brought a flamethrower and knew damn well what that would do.
- Killed Off for Real: During Countdown. It took until 2023 for her to get revived, via cosmic retcon.
- Limited Social Circle: No friends outside of work who weren't superheroes (and at the time of her wedding, who hadn't even told Jean this fact).
- Locked Out of the Loop: Her bridesmaids were Diana Prince, Dinah Lance and Linda Danvers, or Wonder Woman, Black Canary and Supergirl. She didn't know this.
- More than Mind Control: In 2023's Justice Society, she explains her time as Eclipso as being like this. It's not that she's entirely controlled by the entity, but it's giving air to her worst thoughts and impulses.
- Nervous Wreck: Jean had two nervous breakdowns over the course of the 60s and 70s, which was another reason Ray was hesitant to tell her his secret identity. His method of doing so, on the night before their wedding, just panicked Jean even more.
- There Are No Therapists: A history of mental illness even before Identity Crisis came along, and when that happened everyone just bunged her in Arkham Asylum and expected this to help.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: She wasn't exactly nice in the Silver Age, though with the justification that she simply preferred to put career over Ray in the extremely sexist 60s, but later on she'd cheat on Ray. Then came Identity Crisis. Even Sanity Slippage can only cover so much.
- Yandere: Jean kills Sue in order to manufacture a threat against superheroes loved ones to force Ray to come back to her. When she kills Sue instead she doubles down, fakes an attack on herself and hires Captain Boomerang to kill Jack Drake.
Doris Zeul
First Appearance: Wonder Woman Vol, 2 #126 (October, 1997)
" Don't take this the wrong way, but I often get the urge to crush you in my grip. With affection, though. Like a fatal hug. Endearing and enduring, at once. Feel your bones turn to powder just a little bit. Yum."
Ryan Choi's girlfriend. Also known as the supervillain Giganta.
- See Giganta on the Wonder Woman: Villains character sheet for tropes.
The Rogues Gallery
Belthera
First Appearance: Countdown #36 (August, 2007)
Queen Belthera was the ruler of a realm located within the Nanoverse known as the Sorcerer's World.
- Evil Sorcerer: A Sorcerous Overlord and would-be Multiversal Conqueror.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Absolute monarch of Sorcerer's World.
- Lady of Black Magic: A very regal Sorcerous Overlord.
- Mind Control: Belthera used her magic to take control of Bob the Monitor.
- Multiversal Conqueror: She imprisoned Donna and Jason while declaring her intent to take control of the Multiverse.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Her outfit is mostly black and red and she has the intention of taking over the Multiverse.
- Sorcerous Overlord: Ruler of Sorcerer's World.
- White Hair, Black Heart: Her hair is silver and she's the evil ruler of Sorcerer's World.
Blacksnake
First Appearance: Power of the Atom #14 (July, 1989)
Blacksnake is an operative of the CIA, and one of the members shrunken by Ray Palmer in vengeance.
- Animal Themed Super Being: Of the 'animal alias' variety.
- He Knows Too Much: Blacksnake intended to trade information on the Cabal, but was killed by Metamorpheus to ensure his silence.
- Sinister Shades: Almost never seen without his sunglasses.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His real name is not revealed.
- Weapon Specialization: Carries a bullwhip as a personal weapon.
Bug-Eyed Bandit
First Appearance: The Atom #26 (August, 1966)
"Only because of its programming was my banged-up insect able to return to me...From the bug’s condition, it’s obvious the Robot-Atom is a more sophisticated machine than my insect—and this I find intolerable."
Combining the scientific fields of entomology and microelectronics allowed this Bertram Larvan to direct a criminal robotic swarm.
- Adaptational Badass: He's given size-shifting powers in Batman: The Brave and The Bold, making him slightly less of a joke.
- Beard of Evil: He at least has the classical villainous goatee.
- Breakout Villain: Despite his status as a Joke Character, Bug-Eyed Bandit is a surprisingly consistent foe of The Atom.
- Drone Deployer: The Bug-Eyed Bandit was proficient in the field of robotics and micro-circuitry and used this talent to create a horde of small robotic insects.
- Joke Character: He's been this for decades, both within the DC universe and in the real world.
- Legacy Character: Bertram's unnamed son took up the identity a few times prior to the New 52.
- Motive Decay: Bertram's original intention was to patent his insectoid robot designs and license them for peaceful uses in fields like agriculture and rescue work, thus making himself rich. Since he was an outsider with radical ideas, no one would fund his experiments until he had a working prototype, but he couldn't build a prototype without funding. So he resorted to theft to get enough money to build his first robot, and being then broke, used that robot to steal more money to build another robot, rinse and repeat. The instant gratification of this cycle made him put off his original plans, and after the Atom defeated the Bug-Eyed Bandit the first time, his motivation shifted to primarily getting revenge on the Atom for past defeats.
- Robot Master: The Bug-Eyed Bandit was proficient in the field of robotics and micro-circuitry and used this talent to create a horde of small robotic insects.
- Secondary Color Nemesis: Not really a Nemesis, but his main outfit is purple and wears green-tinted goggles.
Chronos
First Appearance:' The Atom #3 (November, 1962)
" If it takes another decade of planning, I will see you destroyed... your spirit broken. I'll make you wish you were dead... but it will be a long time before I let you die. A very long time."
David Clinton discovered the secrets of time travel. As the criminal Chronos, he became a time thief.
- Arch-Enemy: The closest thing to a nemesis the Atom has.
- Deal with the Devil: He sold his soul to Neron for time-related Metahuman powers in the 1990s, which ended when he got sucked into time itself.
- Fashion-Victim Villain: His original costume is this trope personified.
- Legacy Character: Walker Gabriel became the new Chronos — and a hero, to boot — for a short time before the original returned.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: He fought Blue Beetle during the late eighties before returning to the Atom.
Cyclotron
First Appearance: Action Comics #21 (February, 1940)
Cyclotron was an atomic scientist in the 1930s and 1940s kidnapped by the villainous Ultra-Humanite, who sought to make use of the scientist's expertise with atomic energy. He was subjected to the Humanite's experiments and exposed to radiation which granted him superhuman abilities.
- Forced into Evil: The Ultra-Humanite kidnapped him and deceived him into believing that his own experiments had exposed his daughter to radiation which had left her lethally ill. Terry allowed the Humanite to perform agonizing experiments upon him and fought the All-Star Squadron because UH said he could cure her, but ultimately couldn't bear to let the Humanite continue his schemes and sacrificed his life to stop him.
- Hand Blast: Could fire blasts of atomic energy from his hands.
- Having a Blast: Cyclotron can release all his energies in a powerful explosion, with similar power of a WWII-era atomic bomb.
- Heroic Sacrifice: He performed a Heel–Face Turn against the Ultra-Humanite and sacrificed himself via blowing himself up, taking out the Ultra-Humanite in the process.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: It was his radiation that gave the original Atom superpowers.
- Power Nullifier: Can sap an opponent's strength by touching them.
- Radiation-Induced Superpowers: Gained his powers from exposure to radiation.
- Small Role, Big Impact: His time as Cyclotron may have been short, but without him both Atom-Smasher and Al Pratt would have never got their powers.
- Tragic Villain: See Forced into Evil. Also, Terry's daughter Terri was fine, Humanite just tricked him.
- Transmutation: Cyclotron once transmuted a rope into a more fragile substance.
Dwarfstar
First Appearance: The All-New Atom #2 (October, 2006)
Sylbert Rundine was a student and serial killer who stalked the dormitories of Ivy University. He acquired a Bio-Belt similar to the one worn by college professor Ryan Choi and became the super-villain Dwarfstar.
- Evil Counterpart: Dwarfstar is a shrinking villain who acted as Ryan Choi's archenemy and had the same source to his power.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Played with. Coming from a more heroic character, his quips would probably be funny. Coming from him though...
- Serial Killer: With a gimmick of writing a poem for each and every one of his victims (though some have to share). Main targets get more elaborate and thought-through ones, while incidental or targets-of-opportunity get a quick improvised piece.
- Sizeshifter: He's got his own belt.
- Smug Snake: He has a very high opinion of himself, and no one else.
Eclipso
Humbug
First Appearance: Power of the Atom #10 (March, 1989)
"Well we do thell cookieth to regular folkth — and pellets to gerbils like you!"
Humbug was an artificial being created by the thoughts of members of Gestalt. A chaotic sub-program spontaneously grew within Gestalt, drawing from or somehow instigating dark, terrible thoughts within the members of the Gestalt mind-link. The members of the Gestalt link isolated the chaotic artificial intelligence and built it a body, presumably to keep it out of their minds. This creature came to be known as Humbug, and its creators soon found themselves completely unable to control it.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Humbug is the product of an AI computer system called Gestalt. A chaotic sub-program spontaneously grew within Gestalt, drawing from all of the dark thoughts of Gestalt. Gestalt isolated the rogue program and placed it within an artificial body. this became the creature known as Humbug.
- Bald of Evil: All of Humbug's artificial bodies are Caucasian males with bald heads.
- Body Backup Drive: Humbug is able to remotely transfer its consciousness between its artificial bodies.
- The Disembodied: Humbug is a program that transfers itself between its various artificial bodies.
- The Noseless: Humbug's artificial bodies have no noses.
- Prophet Eyes: Humbug's artificial bodies have pupil-less eyes.
- Robotic Psychopath: Is an unpredictable, thrill-seeking, psychotic.
- Rubber Man: Humbug's artificial bodies can inflate, deflate, deform and stretch.
- Super-Strength: Humbug's artificial bodies are strong enough to bend metal bars.
- Trick Bomb: The sunglasses-and-fake-nose he wears to look like a normal person is actually a disguised bomb.
Lady Chronos
First Appearance: The All-New Atom #9 (May, 2007)
"Ryan, I have brought you here to offer you a place at my side. Ugliness awaits you...Unless I would prefer you not endure."
Formerly Ryan Choi (Atom)'s girlfriend, Jia eventually hooked up with Chronos and became known as Lady Chronos.
- Distaff Counterpart: As indicated by her name, she's the female version of Chronos.
- Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: She murdered her husband, pretended to be innocent to get Ryan on her side, then threatened to destroy the entirety of Ivy Town just so she could ruin his reputation as a hero. Yeah, she sure sounds like a good-natured, rational civilian.
- Shovel Strike: Murdered her abusive husband by smashing in his head with a shovel.
Sting
First Appearance: Power of the Atom #17 (October, 1989)
Wearing a yellow insect-suit and using the Bug-Eyed Bandit's techniques of building micro-weapons in the form of robotic insects, the villain called the Sting was a menace to the Atom before he was shrunk down to six inches tall. Sting joined the equally shrunken rogue CIA agents known as the Micro Squad, but never felt that he fit in as a member. The Atom offered Sting a chance to redeem himself by allowing the hero to take to take his place and infiltrate the team. Sting agreed, after which he was restored to full height and entered the Witness Protection Program. He later returned to villainy and joined Alexander Luthor's Secret Society of Super Villains.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Began as a villain, redeemed himself for a time and entered the Witness Protection Program, only to return to villainy by joining Alexander Luthor's Secret Society of Super Villains.
- Robot Master: Created micro-weapons in the form of robotic insects.
Strobe
First Appearance: Power of the Atom #3 (October, 1988)
"Strobe...S-T-R-O-B-E...like the light! Remember that name! I'm the guy who just beat the Atom...see? Hey! Where'd he go?"
Strobe is a criminal, who stole an experimental suit of Power Armor.
- Blinded by the Light: Strobe's Power Armor can release blinding bursts of light.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Strobe's real name wasn't revealed.
- Power Armor
Western Animation:
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold note
- DC Animated Universe
- Justice League: Gods and Monsters note
- Young Justice (2010) note
Live-Action Film:
Live-Action TV Series:
- Arrowverse: Mick Rory / Chronos
- Arrowverse: Future Characters note
- Arrowverse: Star City - Citizens note
- Arrowverse: The Rogues note
- Arrowverse: Metahumans note
Video Games:
- Injustice
- LEGO Batman note
