{"id":17072,"date":"2012-02-22T02:39:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T08:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=17072"},"modified":"2012-02-22T02:52:49","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T08:52:49","slug":"dc-classics-com-s-t-r-i-p-e-week-golden-age-atom-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=17072","title":{"rendered":"DC Classics.Com S.T.R.I.P.E. Week
Golden Age Atom Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>S.T.R.I.P.E. Week has me taking another trip down memory lane today with a look at the Golden Age Atom! He\u2019s not my favorite Justice Society of America member, but as a JSA Fan that\u2019s been waiting forever for a good Al Pratt figure, I\u2019m happy to report this one doesn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n

This is the type of review that needs to start off with a story. No I won’t bore you by talking about my youth spent reading amazing JLA\/JSA team-up stories in digest form again. I’m going to flash forward to a decade ago when I was a much more avid DC Direct Collector. <\/p>\n

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DC Direct kicked their JSA off right away with a decent repaint of the Vertigo Sandman (think Mystery Theatre, not the Endless one) in Golden Age colors in 1998. By 2000, they had added GA versions of Hawkman, Dr. Fate, the Spectre, Green Lantern, and the Flash to their JSA roster. Hourman would be out the following year (along with a majority of the later members). If you’re keeping score, that’s 7 of the 8 founding members of the JSA released in the first two years of DC Direct’s offerings. It would then take DC Direct five more years<\/em><\/strong> to get to the last founding member, the Golden Age Atom, and when they did… well, I couldn’t even buy it<\/a>. <\/p>\n

To DC Direct’s credit, they did release both of the Atom’s costumes (in a single-carded 2pk, no less), but the figures were… lacking. Even looking at them in that picture, I still have to laugh at how awful they are (it’s odd too because my shelves feature other, much more amazing work from that very same sculptor). Anyway, waiting five years for the last founding member was bad enough, but to get those monstrosities<\/em> when it finally arrived? My hopes of a little plastic JSA were dashed hard across the rocks.<\/p>\n

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Five years later (again), JSA Collectors are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. Sure, we’re still waiting on Johnny Thunder and Thunderbolt, the original Red Tornado, and some others, but Jay Garrick is just a couple months away while DCUC19 delivered us the GA Sandman<\/a>, Hawkman, and the Atom! <\/p>\n

The Atom is a curious addition to the JSA ranks. The other seven members either possessed super powers or were aided by mysticism or technology. The Atom was just a short dude (clocking in at 5′ 1″) that trained hard and learned to pack a wallop. <\/p>\n

Al Pratt was introduced in All-American Comics<\/em> #19 (Green Lantern’s title) by Bill O’ Connell and Ben Flinton. We first meet Al when he’s trying to get a date with Mary James, a girl that appears to be out of his league. The pair is mugged and Al is unable to do anything about it, costing Mary her purse and jewelry and Al any chance of scoring that date. Undaunted, Al found himself a trainer and became a proficient enough boxer\/bodybuilder that he could pull off a superhero act. When Mary was kidnapped some months later, Al was ready to protect her, this time in the guise of the Atom (he’s short, see? Atoms are small? Get it?)<\/p>\n

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Hey, not everyone with ‘Atom’ in their name can be an atomic hero, okay? (I’m still kicking myself for not getting a Captain Atom pic before handing these guys off to Vault). <\/p>\n

Anyway, the key thing about the Atom is that he needs to be shorter than the other figures. Mattel did at least put some effort into this particular aspect of the character. It may be good enough for some, but it won’t be for others. It pretty much depends on where you fall on accuracy versus aesthetics. No matter where that is, we can all agree that he’s not small enough<\/em> even though Mattel did produce some new shortened calves to reduce the figure’s height. The reason I’m not all that upset about it is because he did come out shorter than the other JSAers. And, honestly, I think if he were properly scaled, that’d be a tad over 5″, he’d look downright out of scale. Check out this first pic<\/a> from the Young Justice Robin review. That’s about how short Al would have to be to be accurate. Some may disagree, but I wouldn’t be happy if he were that short. <\/p>\n

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Other than the new shortened calves, the Atom features a new middle torso, gauntlets, and a new head sculpt. The Atom’s costume is essentially an old wrestling outfit so the handful of new pieces is sufficient to get the job done. The new head sculpt is appropriately light on features, but the 4H did a great job of capturing some of the Atom’s attitude all the same. The buckles are nicely sculpted right down to the tension in the fabric around them, though that kind of detail starts making me want to ask for a new upper torso with similar sculpted detail, but I digress. The new pieces work great and when combined with the reused cape and the thicker upper torso, Atom is looking pretty badass on my JSA shelf. So I don’t find myself caring that he can ride all the rides at Six Flags all that much. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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The articulation is standard for the line. The neck articulation is a ball-joint, but has limited up and down rage. The figure features the usual complement: ball-joints at the shoulders, swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs, hinges in the elbows, knees, and ankles, the ab crunch, and the 4H hips. Nothing too much of note here other than my continued whining about the lack of rocker ankles. <\/p>\n

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The paintwork was almost exemplarity here, but I did get a couple of odd spots on the chest. Overlooking those, the silver on the buckles is great, the wash\/detail on the “leather” parts of the costume looks sharp and makes for a really nice looking figure. The only color aberration here is the decision to mold the upper legs brown and paint them to match the flesh molded calf piece. The two parts of the knee aren’t even close to matching. I’d prefer the whole thing to be molded flesh and paint or to be molded in the secondary color and both painted flesh, either way would look better than this, but it’s a small nitpick on the figure. <\/p>\n

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Atom included no accessories which is fine by me, but I do lament that this figure wasn’t included in a wave that had variants. I skipped over it before to save it for this very paragraph, but the Atom is a figure that screams out for a variant. While the Atom initially didn’t have any powers, he did gain some later in his career. The Atom fought the reluctant, radioactive villain known as Cyclotron (which has nothing to do with the Super Powers Cyclotron) and, as a result, gained super-strength & endurance, invulnerability to radiation, and the ability to throw an atomic punch (ouch!). <\/p>\n

Once he gained those powers, Al redesigned his costume to feature some elements of Cylcotron’s (who had previously given his life in an attempt to stop the Ultra-Humanite once-and-for-all). Mattel could’ve easily produced a variant with a new head, gauntlets, and deco changes, but this figure came in a year where the variant concept was pretty much dropped (unless you’re Hal Jordan<\/a>). Just a shame really, I’m not sure I want the second Atom costume in the subscription, but I wish Mattel would get to it somewhere. <\/p>\n

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Overall, this is a simple figure, but I’m so glad to finally have it. The new pieces and paintwork really did their job and made for a great figure. Yes, he’s over an inch too tall for the sake of accuracy, but I don’t think he’d look right if he had been made that short. I might’ve liked to see him closer to 5.75″, but I’m just not going to quibble over fractions of inch. Plus, this figure is such a vast improvement over those awful DC Direct figures that any Atom fan should be at least half-satisfied. We just need to get the later costume and we’ll be all set. <\/p>\n

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For more DC reviews, check out our
\n DC Universe Classics Collector’s Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S.T.R.I.P.E. Week has me taking another trip down memory lane today with a look at the Golden Age Atom! He\u2019s not my favorite Justice Society of America member, but as a JSA Fan that\u2019s been waiting forever for a good Al Pratt figure, I\u2019m happy to report this one doesn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[6,34,10],"tags":[280,15,665,1049,1277,259,20,957],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-4rm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17034,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=17034","url_meta":{"origin":17072,"position":0},"title":"DC Classics.Com S.T.R.I.P.E. WeekStargirl Review","date":"February 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"S.T.R.I.P.E. Week rolls on, but today I\u2019m jumping ahead, oh\u2026 a few decades to a young member of the modern JSA. One of the things I enjoyed most about the late 90s DC offerings was the return of the Justice Society of America and its newest member Courtney Whitmore, a.k.a.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17021,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=17021","url_meta":{"origin":17072,"position":1},"title":"DC Classics.Com S.T.R.I.P.E. WeekGolden Age Sandman Review","date":"February 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"While I enjoyed DCUC18, I\u2019m still of the mindset that DCUC19, with its JSA theme, was a bastion of greatness in an otherwise dull year for DC Classics. Sandwiched between a wave of Geoff Johns\u2019 Rainbow Deputies and Brightest Day figures, the classic characters featured here were a 2011 bright\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17160,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=17160","url_meta":{"origin":17072,"position":2},"title":"DC Classics.com S.T.R.I.P.E. Week Hawkman Review","date":"February 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"S.T.R.I.P.E. Week is nearing its conclusion with my review of the last regular figure in the JSA themed wave, the Golden Age version of Hawkman.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been waiting a long time for this particular figure, and he actually turned out pretty well for what's mostly redeco. Carter Hall was an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/hawk6.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17114,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=17114","url_meta":{"origin":17072,"position":3},"title":"DC Classics.Com S.T.R.I.P.E. Week S.T.R.I.P.E. Review","date":"February 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"As everyone (hopefully) expected, we\u2019re wrapping up our S.T.R.I.P.E. Week with a look at the big guy. STRIPE & \u2018comic accuracy\u2019 don\u2019t belong anywhere near each other in a sentence, but Mattel and the Four Horsemen pulled off a feat, a fantastically inaccurate figure that\u2019s fantastic at the same time.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17102,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=17102","url_meta":{"origin":17072,"position":4},"title":"DC Classics.com S.T.R.I.P.E. Week Kobra (Lord Naga) Review","date":"February 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I get the last couple normal figure reviews before S.T.R.I.P.E., so I thought I\u2019d kick off today with a look at one of the more interesting villains from the old DC Universe.\u00a0 It may say Lord Naga on his box, but he\u2019s better known as Kobra. I wanted to talk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/kobr6.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1463,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=1463","url_meta":{"origin":17072,"position":5},"title":"Mr. Rant asks “Where’s the JSA?”","date":"September 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As I stare at my shelf of about 100 DCUC figures and think about the ones that are confirmed for the next few waves, I try and figure out what rhyme or reason Mattel is using to decide on who they are going to make and when. Although Martian Manhunter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toys"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17072"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17072"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17099,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17072\/revisions\/17099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}