YMMV / The Atom

• Audience-Alienating Era: See the DCU page on the topic.
• Cant Unhear It: It's hard not to imagine Ryan Choi not voiced by Matthew Yang King or Eric Bauza.
• Common Knowledge: It's widely believed that Grant Morrison created Ryan Choi and Gail Simone developed him, as the character's first two stories included the note "Based on ideas and concepts developed by Grant Morrison", which later disappeared. However, Gail Simone has clarified that Ryan Choi is entirely her creation, as she didn't read Morrison's story ideas.
• Funny Moments: The strange family asks what the giant monsters attacking the town are. A random goth girl nearby overhears and identifies them, launching into a long speech about the history of the movie and studio they come from and her own evaluation of the special effects before finally adding, "Of course, the films have almost never been seen since the sixties—so only a total geek loser would even know who they are."
  • Even better, Ryan promptly recognizes them and is ecstatic, calling them his favorites.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Pre-Identity Crisis Jean Loring's relationship with Ray, which includes two mental breakdowns. Ray's idea of revealing his secret identity to her is to do so the day before their wedding night, while also admitting he's been secretly helping her career in the hopes she'd marry him afterward. Jean calls him out on this and runs off, but the next day her 'bridesmaids' (who are actually all superheroines, a fact Jean is also in the dark on) put on the pressure that Jean should forgive Ray anyhow, even as Jean points out the severe lack of trust Ray's actions show.
• Values Dissonance: The degree to which Al Pratt was bullied about his short stature in The Golden Age of Comic Books is a little less understandable these days. In The Silver Age of Comic Books, Jean Loring's refusal to marry Ray Palmer until she'd gotten a good start on her career was intended to be an unusual romantic obstacle at the time of publication but makes her a rather normal career woman in today's terms. (Of course, the stated reason Jean wants to have a career first is because she anticipates that she'll quit to Stay in the Kitchen once she's actually married.)
• The Woobie: Palmer, after Jean cheating on him in the 80s, his adopted compatriots from Sword of the Atom being murdered by the US government in Power of the Atom, and everything that happened in Identity Crisis (2004).
  • Ryan Choi after he was dragged through an entire issue of being murdered by a group of C-List villains led by Deathstroke all to show how dangerous they were, and then later having his body delivered to Dwarfstar in a matchbox.

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