Convergence: The Atom #2 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Tom Peyer
Art By: Steve Yeowell, Andy Owens, Hi-Fi
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 6, 2015

Huh?

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

When we started this Convergence adventure last month, the Atom's tie-in to this event had to be one of the worst I read, which was really disappointing because I wanted to see if The Atom would be able to hold his own book again, or if he'd be relegated to "side character" like he's been through the majority of the New 52.......... except for Futures End that is, he was a bad ass Five Years From Now.  What I discovered after reading the last issue was....... Honestly I don't know what I discovered because the issue was ridiculous and if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to explain to them what happened, there would be cherry pie painting the walls.  So yeah, last issue was a mess, but hopefully we get something here that we can sink our teeth into and allow us to make some sense out of The Atom's making his hand grow in a world without powers and how Ryan Choi was able to talk to him and appear at the end of the issue........... cause he's dead you see.  Let's check it out and hope for the best.

Explain It!:

Okay, let me just start this out by saying, as much as I thought the last issue was weird as hell, this one takes the cake.  Maybe it's because I'm not a comic book physicist, or maybe it's because I'm a stickler for continuity and telling a decent story, but for as much as I can suspend my disbelief, this issue just throws too much nonsense at me for even my comic book fan boy-ed brain to take.  First off, even though we saw Ray Palmer pretty handily dispatch Barracuda last issue, here we see that he's back in action and trying to take the world's smallest superhero down............. but that's not all.  As we saw in the cliffhanger from the last issue, it looked like Ryan Choi is back alive and we got the impression that he was stuck in a shrunken state when the dome appeared....... making him the voice in Ray Palmer's head...... You know, driving him crazy and such.  Well, that's kind of what we get here.  Now, Ryan Choi was killed by Deathstroke, which led to Ray trying to seek justice from Slade in the last issue, but somehow he survived by willing himself into the dimension that holds Ray and Ryan's mass when they shrink down.......... So he's kind of like a ghost that can talk to Ray because they share the connection of this dimension............... but somehow, Ryan's able to will the remaining mass that he has in the dimension to go to Ray's right hand, allowing it to grow.............. Yeah, I don't know beyond what I told you, but it seems like a lot to swallow.

It's strange though, even though Barracuda is back up and fighting like I said, he takes a lot of breaks from trying to kill Ray so Ray can talk to someone Barracuda can't see....... so we can have our contrived explanation about all the nonsense we witnessed in the last issue.  If all that doesn't take the "what the hell am I reading" cake, we also get Ray (again stopping the fight) feeling terrible for Ryan being stuck in a dimension for a year, while he got to continue living his life.......... What does that mean........ Why it means that Ray rushes Barracuda, getting his enlarged hand chopped off and Ryan willing his consciousness into it.......... making it bigger and bigger.......... until it stops being a hand and forms Ryan's body..............What the shit am I reading?  So with his new "handy" body, Ryan takes Ray's shrinking belt and does his job by taking out Barracuda once and for all............ and then Ray wakes up in a hospital, where everyone is grateful for him winning his battle and getting them one step closer to Thunderdome salvation.  Except Ray didn't win, Ryan did and everybody thinks he's crazy as hell when he starts shouting "Where's Ryan!".  

In the end, after I assume the hospital sedated Ray, Deathstroke comes a calling to finally put an end to his and The Atom's feud, but before he can give him a..............death stroke, Ryan comes jumping out of the belt and knocks Deathstroke out and as a way to have some justice for himself, Ryan becomes pretty freaking devious......... Ray and Ryan take the shrinking belt and use it to somehow change Deathstroke's hands tiny, while growing Ray's missing hand back.............. Again, what the shit am I reading?  Also, I don't think I've seen anything as creepy as "tiny hands" Deathstroke in a long long time.  As we close the pages to this very odd story, Ryan and Ray look towards the future because they can't foresee a Pre-Flashpoint Gotham not existing........... and I guess they speak for a lot of fans too.

That's it for Convergence: The Atom and I have no idea what the writer was going for with these two issues.  It was off the wall madness that someone tried to wrangle into a coherent story......... and failed.  This was just terrible and maybe it's because I don't know all the ins and outs about how Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi's powers work and maybe a more learn-ed Atom fan will get some of the things thrown at us here, but I doubt it.  I can't recommend this issue to anyone and I'm sorry for anyone that thought they'd like to know what The Atom's been up to during Convergence.  

Bits and Pieces:

I really thought that there was no way to top how bad the last issue of this tie-in was, but somehow this issue managed and went beyond how bad I thought this would be.  There are no real words to explain this issue.......... It's just........... It's bad.  I guess after this little run, The Atom will go back into time out until he learns to play well with the readers.

1/10