Justice League of America: The Original Atom Returns

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Justice League of America #12, by Steve Orlando and Ivan Reis, on sale now.

When Justice League of America: Rebirth #1 was published earlier this year, the comic ended with four teasers for storylines on the horizon. For long-time DC Comics fans, it was the fourth panel that was almost certainly the most intriguing. Justice League of America: Rebirth picked up the story of the Atoms where DC Universe Rebirth #1, the one-shot kicking off the publisher's current Rebirth era, had left off. Ryan Choi was once more the new Atom, a student of Ray Palmer's who can't find his missing mentor, with only an enigmatic video as a hint. But now, all that is about to change.

Finding An Atom in a Metaphorical Haystack

Of course, this isn't the first time Ray Palmer has gone missing. The most famous incident or Palmer disappearing from the world he and his fellow Justice Leaguers defended was Jan Strnad and Gil Kane's Sword of the Atom, which had him shrink down into the miniature realm of the Morlaidhans within South America and abandon his role as a superhero. That ultimately led into a storyline that unfolded in the pages of Suicide Squad, where Ray Palmer appeared to be killed in an explosion, with a new masked Atom joining the Squad soon after.

But while early speculation was that it involved Ray Palmer in disguise, the reality was more insidious. Ray Palmer had been targeted by a group of CIA agents who had wiped out the Morlaidhans to try and spur Palmer's return and working alongside him. Palmer had shrunk the agents down to six inches tall by way of revenge. Renaming themselves the Micro/Squad, the agents set the explosion for Palmer, but he survived and convinced a man named Adam Cray to become the new Atom to draw out the Micro/Squad. By the time the dust settled, both Adam Cray and the Micro/Squad were dead, and Ray Palmer had returned to active duty. It seems no matter how hard the Atom tries to vanish, eventually, he'll return... which leads us to current events as history is poised to potentially repeat itself.

Following on from the previous issue's cliffhanger, Justice League of America #12 has Ryan Choi, Batman, Lobo and Frost heading into the Microverse thanks to a signal form someone purporting to be Palmer. Batman deliberately splits the team, leaving Vixen, Black Canary and the Ray on Earth to continue to investigate the open cases from the previous eleven issues. It's an interesting tactic, but even more so when you consider that Vixen's powers in mimicking animals and the Ray's control over light both could have been out of commission in the different realm of the Microverse. With Black Canary having leadership skills under her belt, her presence on Earth with the others makes a great deal of strategic strength. Steve Orlando also continues to build on his depiction of Lobo as more than just a brutish biker; his understanding of alien technology is enough to help Ryan complete the "shrinkship," a vehicle that allows the team to successfully cross the Microverse's quantum boundary that would otherwise keep outsiders from entering.

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Next Stop - Ray Palmer and the Microverse

What may intrigue fans of the DC Universe uberplot the most is Ryan Choi's description of the Microverse. We knew from DC Universe Rebirth #1 that Palmer had, "detected a disruption deep within the temporal nanostructure of the time line." That disruption had led him to the Microverse, from which Palmer has yet to return. Here, though, Ryan goes into slightly more detail. DC's Microverse is more than just a sub-atomic universe; it's the foundation of all reality. As Ryan explains, "if [the Microverse] is disrupted, if the foundation crumbles, everything above could go with it. Everything." With the teases over the last year that the reset of the DC Comics timeline at the end of Flashpoint are part of a larger, more insidious plan (and as largely hinted but not 100% confirmed, possibly at the hands of Dr. Manhattan), it's hard to not look at the disturbances in the Microverse as part of that danger looming over (or rather, under) the entire DC Universe.

So what lies in wait now? We know Palmer tried to warn Choi about someone that would appear upon entering "the first world of the Microverse," but the warning was cut off in mid-sentence. Here, Choi and company find their ship shot down as soon they enter the Microverse, barely managing to land in one piece. They're then almost immediately attacked by strange, armored aliens amidst an oddly-colored alien landscape, even as Choi's tracking of Palmer's bio-belt kicks in.

For a new universe, it's hardly welcoming to visitors. One of the residents of the Microverse states to both our heroes and the readers, "You think that you and these intruders can stop the decay? This universe is broken beyond repair. We're all dead already. The Null hastens the end, so we may be born again..." It's hard to not see that as a nod to the previous times (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, and Flashpoint) that the DC Universe has been partially or completely reset. Whatever Palmer came to investigate, it's progressed a great deal.

We're also warned by Choi that the Microverse is a dangerous place, even for an Atom. "Between powering the ship and shinking this far," Choi tells his team, "we're way beyond my bio-belt's design specs. Any more unusual shrinking could rupture its white dwarf core." Could it be that the Null is nothing short of one of the two bio-belts used by the Atoms, and that Palmer's arrival was the real danger at hand?

Whatever it is, the adventure has just begun. The final page finds artist Ivan Reis recreate his teaser panel from Justice League of America: Rebirth #1 as a full-page spread. Could this cloaked figure in fact be Ray Palmer? Or is it someone who's taken Palmer's uniform and bio-belt? Only time will tell... but in a story that began with warnings about disturbances within the timeline, time may be the one thing that the Justice League of America does not have on its side. Needless to say, this is just the beginning for revelations to come.