Bonding Time
Written By: Cary Bates, Greg Weisman
Art By: Will Conrad, Ivan Nunes, Saida Temofonte
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: May 3, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Even though I wasn't the biggest fan of last issue because of how it seemed to turn a more personal Captain Atom story right back into a superhero/super villain brawl, I'm still interested in this series and interested in seeing if it has a bigger purpose than to simply reintroduce people to Captain Atom....... You know, we have all this Rebirth mystery surrounding us in the DCU right now and having Captain Atom being a part of that seems kind of like a good idea when the possibility of having Doctor Manhattan show up and maybe being a villain is what the word on the street is right now. So yeah, we have Captain Atom spending his off time getting information about the son he never knew he had before he was ripped out of the 90's and while he's letting his quantum energies fly, we saw him accidentally create a new villain for himself in the form of Max Thrane, a convict on death row, who was affected by Captain Atom's quantum meltdown five years ago during his execution. Now Thrane has Captain Atom like powers and after seeing the villain whoop our hero's ass in the previous issue, I just hope that he's able to take him down fast so that we can get back to some father/son time. Let's jump into this issue and check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with General Eiling trying to put a decent spin on the Max Thrane fiasco that went down in the previous issue, but Captain Atom doesn't have anytime for what the press thinks about him because he's trying to reconnect with his son and when he finds out that his boy Genji has applied for the JROTC program at his school, Nathaniel finds his opening. Posing under his new alias Colonel Cameron Scott, Nathaniel gets some one on one time with Genji as he takes him to an Air Force Base and even takes him on a F-16 ride...... which seems highly unlikely, but hey, I don't know shit about what goes down in the military so I guess I'll go with it. Too bad that after having such a nice day that Nathaniel gets Genji to open up to him about his father because it turns out that the boy hates the man he never knew and pretty much, even if he's still alive, he's dead to Genji. So yeah, Nathaniel immediately decides that he's giving up on the boy and we move on to our superhero like story.
Since the press found out about Max Thane's tussle with Captain Atom, they've given him the name Ultramax and Ultramax isn't wasting anytime now that he's out of prison in trying to find out who set him up in the first place that got his ass on death row. It seems that Max was a hit man and one of his last clients apparently went to the FBI with enough evidence on him to setup a sting operation that ended with Max killing a cop and ending up on death row. So now it's time to go through those clients and show them the power he has now........... and that's the biggest problem with this issue. We go through three clients that Ultramax kills, but every time we do we have to hear about why he's doing it again and eventually have to hear it from General Eiling, who makes the connections of the deaths even though the police and press have not......... more on that later.
In the end, Nathaniel drops Genji off at his Aunt's house and across the way he notices something glinting in the window and when he goes to investigate, he finds surveillance being done on his boy........ which makes him rage the fuck out and eventually he makes his way back to General Eiling about this. Too bad that Ultramax shows up before Captain Atom could confront the General about this and get some real answers because the two fight and ultimately Captain Atom makes Ultramax look like a chump because he's able to use his powers better than the new baddie and when we leave this issue Captain Atom seems to have forgotten all about General Eiling watching his boy.......... which is odd, but not as odd as Captain Atom apologizing to the General for putting him in danger, which we find out is all bullshit because we find out that Eiling is the last of Ultramax's former clients that could have turned him in. Betcha he got Captain Atom's wife killed.
That's it for this issue of Captain Atom and even though I was complaining in the previous issue about getting away from the more personal type of story that I thought were getting and making it into more of a standard superhero tale, here it works better and actually seems to be tying the two aspects of this story together, which really interests me. The biggest problem with this issue....... You know, besides for Nathaniel hearing that his son thinks he's a shitheel and our hero deciding that maybe being a dad isn't really for him is how we kept having to hear about what Ultramax was doing over and over again. It just wouldn't stop and I know you need to keep it going so that you can make that General Eiling connection at the end, but it was too over the top and felt like it just padded out the issue. The art in this issue was great and I find myself back on the Captain Atom hype train as we head on to our final issue of the series.
Bits and Pieces:
I found myself enjoying the superhero/super villain aspect of this story more than I did in the previous issue and I'm happy for that because I want to love this mini and thankfully, it seems that this series is combining the more personal Captain Atom tale that I was into previously with this superhero spin, where hopefully it all comes together to give me a big ol' smile on my face by the time this series is over. The art in this issue was great and I'm back on the Captain Atom hype train.
7/10
I'll stick it out til the end of the series because i've come this far. What the series really makes me want to do is revisit and reread the 80s series and Invasion! and Armageddon and maybe JLE when Cap was in his superheyday. Thanks for the review!
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