Showcase Presents The Atom; Volume One

The format is approximately 6.5 inches by 10.125 inches. 526, [2] pages. Illustrations. Decorative cover. Writer Gardner Fox takes the Miniature Marvel on thirty-five tales involving mystery, science and time travel, getting some help from friends like Hawkman, Snapper Car -- and Edgar Alan Poe! Ivy University professor and scientist Ray Palmer discovers a mysterious meteorite giving him the ability to shrink his body to microscopic size! Fashioning a uniform from fibers taken from the meteorite, Dr. Palmer learned to control not only his size but also his mass, emerging as a mighty champion of justice and enemy of all evil -- as the hero called the Atom! The Tiny Titan defends Ivy Town against the villainy of such foes as Chronos the Time-Bandit, the Thinker, the Panther, the Bug-Eyed Bandit and many others. Gardner Francis Cooper Fox (May 20, 1911 December 24, 1986) was an American writer known for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Fox was also a science fiction author and wrote many novels and short stories. Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes Barbara Gordon, the original Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Doctor Fate, Zatanna and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed several of those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!". The Atom is a name shared by five superheroes appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The second Atom was the Silver Age Atom, Ray Palmer, who first appeared in 1961. This is one of their Showcase Presents Library of Classics series. The Atom introduced during the Silver Age of comic books in Showcase #34 (1961) is physicist and university professor Raymond Palmer, Ph.D. (He was named for real-life science fiction writer Raymond A. Palmer, who was himself quite short.) After stumbling onto a mass of white dwarf star matter that had fallen to Earth, he fashioned a lens which allowed him to shrink down to subatomic size. Originally, his size and molecular density abilities derived from the white dwarf star material of his costume, controlled by mechanisms in his belt, and later by controls in the palms of his gloves. Much later, he gained the innate equivalent powers within his own body. After the events of Identity Crisis, Ray shrank himself to microscopic size and disappeared. Finding him became a major theme of the Countdown year-long series and crossover event. DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for Detective Comics, a comic book series first published in 1937. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, the first comic under the DC banner being published in 1937. The majority of its published stories are set in the fictional DC Universe and feature numerous culturally iconic heroic characters, such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Atom and the Flash; as well as famous fictional teams, including the Justice League, the Teen Titans, the Suicide Squad, and the Legion of Superheroes. The universe contains an assortment of well-known supervillains, such as Lex Luthor, the Joker, Darkseid, and the antihero Catwoman. The company has published non-DC Universe-related material, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Fables, and many other titles, under the alternative imprint Vertigo and DC Black Label. First printing thus [Stated] [Showcase #34-36, The Atom #1-5].…