The Fall and Rise of Captain Atom #2 Review and *SPOILERS*

Time Is Not On Captain Atom's Side

Written By: Cary Bates, Greg Weisman

Art By: Will Conrad, Ivan Nunes, Saida Temofonte

Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: February 1, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Poor Captain Atom just can't catch a break.  Not only did he have to suffer by exploding in the previous issue and being sent back to 1994, but he also had to endure all the time travel shit from his New 52 continuity.......... maybe.  Yeah, it's a little fuzzy about what all went down with Captain Atom previous to this mini, but all I can tell you is that our hero's suffering isn't over yet.  So yeah, we've got ourselves a time travel story on our hands and even though I love time travel stories, there's so much opportunity to screw up the continuity because of it that it scares the hell out of me that this is what we're dealing with.  Hopefully Cary Bates and Greg Weisman broke out the white board and made sure that everything worked out in the end because I really want to enjoy this story and I don't need the Continuity Kid inside of me yelling at shit while I'm paging through this series.  Let's jump into this issue and see how well Nathaniel Adam is dealing with the 90's now that he's perfectly human again and the world is devoid of superheroes.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with us seeing that Captain Atom has been living in the past as a regular old boring human being for the past eighteen months............ Well, maybe boring isn't the correct description because on New Years Eve, he goes and sees someone being mugged and intervenes, getting himself hurt in the process.  Yeah, it's no fun being mortal, but this assault did give our hero the chance to meet his future wife Takara Sato, who was his physician when he wound up in the hospital and while I'm happy that Nathan, now under the assumed name of Vince Mallory is able to escape his past.......... by going into the past and actually come out of it happy himself, he spends what seems like all of his time obsessed with the theories of time travel and what affects he might have on the future by being stuck in the past.

Nathan does keep up with theories like the butterfly effect, paradoxes and pre-destiny by going to a Professor and pretending that he's simply writing a book about a time traveler and explaining what he's gone through to the Prof in the guise of fiction, but the concepts thrown at him seem to control his life to a degree because while he does marry Takara and even saves Perry White from death, he's still concerned whether what he's doing is simply pre-destiny or time fixing the things he's doing to stop the paradoxes before it finally fucks him over as a way to preserve itself.

In the end, everything comes to ahead when years later Nathan goes back to the Professor, who after a few stock tips now believes that Nathan is actually a time traveler because over the past few weeks he's been experiencing pieces of himself starting to glow and he's afraid that he's becoming Captain Atom again.  The Prof explains that he really has nothing to fear because as his time dictates, there was no Captain Atom in the year 2000, which they're in now.  On the way home from this meeting though, Nathan is caught up in a carjacking attempt, where he's shot and begins turning back into his superhero persona........... but like the Prof said, there was no Captain Atom in that year and with that, time protects itself by hurling Nathan into the future, our present, where he's left in what looks like the place he originally blew back into time.......... On top of all that, to add to the drama of the situation, during Nathan and the Professor's meeting, his wife left him a voicemail, telling him that they were pregnant.  So yeah, Captain Atom is about to learn that he has a teenager out there somewhere.

That's it for this issue of Captain Atom and even though we simply went through the years of Captain Atom being human again during the 90's without any explanation about what happened to him in the previous issue, I have to say that I found myself loving the care that was taken during this issue to discuss Nathan's effects on the timeline with him being an anomaly to the past.  Yeah, it became an obsession with our character, but with what was going on it made sense and I even love that our hero was predestined to travel back to the 90's so that he could save Perry White so that he could become the important man we all know him to be.  It was just an entertaining read and while some might find it as a lull to the story, it really gets things going in the drama department by making Captain Atom a father and then hurdling him back to our present and having him deal with whatever the outcome of him being gone during that time is.......... Hell, with his powers emerging by the end of his jaunt to the past and Takara getting pregnant during that time, I really can't wait to see what's up with Cap's kid.  The art was really enjoyable in this issue too and I find myself really interested in what this mini will bring going forward.

Bits and Pieces:

While there isn't a lot of action taking place in this issue, what it gives us instead is a great look at time travel and how the effects of trying to alter the past might affect the future....... or how time itself will make sure that that shit doesn't happen.  It was a fun and interesting read, with great art all the way through that gets me really interested in seeing where this mini is going.  

8/10