This is the fourth and likely the last of the All-New Atom trade paperback collections. While I have frustrations with the production values of this last volume, it’s important to note I really did enjoy the series on the whole--as well as the issues reprinted here.

Gail Simone is a solid writer who delivered fun stories, characters, and ideas throughout her 19-issue run on the title, and Mike Norton’s pencils gave the series the lighthearted style that Simone’s storytelling works best with.

In addition to Simone’s final three issues, this volume gives us Rick Remender and Pat Oliffe’s five issues that provide a great send off to the series with a more classic sci-fi adventure. Unfortunately, though, their arc was so polar-opposite to what came before that it doesn’t mesh well with Simone’s three issues at the front of this volume.

And then for some crazy reason they left out issue #19--so, wanting to read the entire series, I went out and found a copy of the uncollected issue, and I was left somewhat stunned by its lack of inclusion. Sure it was a fill-in issue by writer Keith Champagne, with Jerry Ordway on pencils, but it was a perfectly fine issue that didn’t deserve being left out of the last trade paperback volume. In fact, its omission makes the book flow much less effectively as the transition between issues 18 and 20 just didn’t work since the 19th issue addressed a certain plot point between the other two.

Gah.

Somebody dropped the ball when it came to managing this last trade, and the All-New Atom series deserved better.

Right after Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales’s Identity Crisis, I wanted to see Ray Palmer show up as the Atom to redeem himself--not actually stay hidden and watch somebody else take the mantle. However, Simone eventually warmed me to this Ryan Choi fella and his cast of off-beat supporting characters, opponents, and situations.

I had picked up a few issues of the new series in singles, but it wasn’t until I started buying the trades that I was won over. However, after reading Remender’s arc that concludes the series, I would have preferred having Remender as the writer from the beginning. I think the main reason the series didn’t catch on was due to its leaning towards being extremely silly and comedic.

The attempt to switch lanes as fast as DC did with Remender’s new direction was pretty much an admission that the book was too silly for its own good..Having the sidekick of the “All-New Atom” be a chubby, socially inept fanboy by the name of “Panda,” wasn’t exactly a hit with me at first. However, Simone did write the character well enough that I eventually grew to like Panda. Nevertheless, nothing suggested DC’s embarrassment more than Remender’s removing of Simone’s biggest plot line, and the supporting cast by the end of his story arc.

Like many of DC’s properties throughout the years, the promise of the character and the title are finally realized at the end of the series run--when the audience has, unfortunately, already abandoned the title. A bittersweet ending, but at least the series ended well.

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