Alright, surprising no one, a girl with a website in 2025 is unhappy with the current information environment online. Shocker, I know. It's super frustrating trying to talk to people about things like comic books and finding out most or all of their knowledge on the topic comes from YouTube Shorts recaps. Like, they never say it, but you can tell, and when pressed they'll struggle to name a comic they've, I'm sorry, actually read. I hate doing that. I hate asking someone to "name three songs" but I truly cannot have a conversation with someone based on shallow plot recaps of whichever comic will get clicks. It feels like the death of free thought among comic book readers, as this leads to an evironment where the same few books circle the drain forever relitigated and repeating in an incestuous oroborus of nothing statements decaying with every copy. And most of those books aren't even that interesting!
So, to do my part to counteract this (and hopefully vent some of my frustrations) I want to tell you about some comic books I like and why I like them. As usualy I'll be focusing on impressions and light analysis with a little bit of plot summary to make it make sense–please actually read anything I talk about here that strikes your fancy, I promise you won't be lost without a million other issue's worth of context, and if you by some chance are, give those other issues a look too. In my experience it's the only way to find the comics you'll love most.
[-------------------------------------------------------------]Sword Of The Atom (1983)
Written by Jan Strnad with pencils and inks by Gil Kane and colors by Tom Ziuko
Cards on the table, this is one of my favorite comics ever. The writing is such a standout for this era. At a time when other big two books were growing out of the Bronze Age and into what would become the post-Watchmen Dark Age, the emotional storytelling here feels like something out of present-day. DC was on a really big kick in the early 80's of humanizing a lot of their classic Silver Age characters, and I think what they did with Atom here is brilliant. Back in the day, Ray Palmer had a running bit of proposing to his girlfriend, Jean Loring, and getting turned down as Jean wants to focus on her legal career before settling down. This is a thread tracing back to the Atom's first appearance and origin as a character in 1961's Showcase No. 34, and this would not be the last time it would be pulled on. Put a pin in that, because eventually, in 1966's Atom No. 26, after over 50 appearances as a solo hero and a mainstay of the Justice League. Even her accepting his proposal was a result of tensions, as she rushed in out of fear Ray would be consumed with his work as revealed in a few almost throwaway lines. It's really amazing what Jan Strnad was able to do with such fleeting charactarization. As great as they are at workmanlike weekly plots, a lot of those silver age DC writers did not put much emphasis on long-term character building.
The soap opera-esque conflict this becomes in Sword Of The Atom is unironically one of its best aspects. It's simple, yes; but many of the most devastating things to happen to us personally are. That's part of the comfort of it. We take all these stupid standard punches to the jaw, and we're the millionth in line with a queue out the door behind us. Ray finds Jean cheating on him with a paralegal in her car, and its so cliche he kicks himself for not guessing. I really feel for him; I've been there and I think what he does with that kind of grief is a goshdamn inspiration. On the other hand, Jean's worst fears finally came true. She is stuck in a dead-end relationship with someone who gives more of themself to their chosen field of study than to their partner. It must really suck to be Jean Loring right then. I can only imagine how she feels, the specific kind of unfulfillment at least. More than any other comic, or indeed any other piece of narrative art as such, it reminds me of Alexisonfire's albums "Watch Out!" and Crisis. Those records are riddled with the same kinds of listless yearning Jean feels, and the same kind of till-I-die dedication Ray is consumed by.
The "meat" of the book is a lot less interesting to me in its specifics. Ray takes a plane to South America to hunt for a dwarf star fragment he can upgrade his suit with, upsets some local drug lords, and ends up permanently shrunken in a fairly generic sword and sorcery microworld inhabited by tiny aliens who crashlanded in the Amazon rainforest. It is a superhero comic, after all, so just roll with that. Ray almost immediately finds a place in this tiny society, continuing his hero work despite the trauma of betrayal. He is unafraid to display compassion for the literal and figurative "little guy" in this new world, not only because he's in the same boat with them as an outsider but because that's the kind of character he is.
It'd been simmering throughout his solo book especially, but Ray Palmer is the kind of guy to approach new situations with an open mind and more care and empathy than I think he recognizes in himself. This is probably the first of many times I'm going to tear up writing this post. Superheroes mean so much to me as people. In this specific case, Ray Palmer is emotionally unintelligent and incredibly empathetic. He feels a lot, so much it all gets stuck turning into words and actions and flowing from him. He hurts the people around him and himself sometimes but never changes his strength of heart even as it is a vulnerability to get hurt again. In retaining his emotionality, Ray makes the smart play, too. So often characters like this have to discard some aspect of who they are to be heroes; given that, it's brilliant dramatic irony that even as the evidence would point to Ray needing to prune and focus his affections, he does the opposite. He keeps on loving the world and the he shares it with. This storyline would be recalled in Blackest Night, when Ray took up the power of the Indigo Lantern Corps, powered by compassion, and wore a uniform heavily resembling his costume here.