“Ride a Deadly Grenade”
Writers: Dave Gibbons; Mark Waid
Artists: Pat Olliffe & Livesay(art), Tom McCraw(c); Dan Jurgens(p), Jon Bogdonove(i), Tom Smith(c)
Publisher: DC
Except for half of the Batman spotlight, I have really been enjoying these Julius Schwartz tributes. It does not make up for the despicable treatment of Mr. Schwartz's characters in overpriced, overhyped crap like Identity Crisis, but DC Comics Presents is a lot of fun.
Dave Gibbons' script for the first short based on a classic cover that still grips the reader is a little chatty, but his pseudoscience seems to make sense just like the older tales of weight manipulation and physics that ignore annoying inconsistencies like Planck's Constant. The point is that he makes Atom cool again.
Pat Oliffe provides some really quick, sketchy work that's still better than most of the bad proportion, bad scale and bad panel layouts readily available on the racks. I’m not exactly sure what Livesay does on the book, but he does it well, and Tom McCraw’s colors are subdued and lack harsh lighting flourishes.
Mark Waid on the second tale recalls an old Batman and Robin story: "The Man Who Wrote the Joker's Jokes!" Julius Schwartz just may have written that. It's about the right time period. In any case, the story is a lot of fun and makes an excellent use of the Atom's powers.
Dan Jurgens and Jon Bogdonove have done better work, but yes, again even their rush jobs are still ten times better than what's considered comic book art.
Two good solid stories with good solid artwork used to be for what DC was known. I have no complaints.
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