Superman Analogue: Atoman
56This guy... this fucking guy... this. fucking.guy. FUCK THIS GUY! No, seriously, Atoman is awful and a predator who uses his role as a #supermananlogue as cover to allow him access to assault children. I mean, it's a good story, but fuck him. Anyway, enjoy Case's rant.
Original Thread: https://twitter.com/CaseAiken/status/1075440814371803136
Original Text: Today, I'm going to be a little more somber. I shared a @VanityFair article yesterday about abuses that went on between students and faculty at my high school. So I'm going to talk about Atoman from #Top10 by Alan Moore (So much Moore, I know. Sorry, not sorry.)
Atoman is a minor character in Top 10, but that's the nature of the book. Top 10 was a police procedural set in a city exclusively populated by super beings. Thus the cab drivers were retired super heroes, the street gangs were kaiju, and even golden agers had side hustles
The side hustle for Atoman and his team of Justice League rip offs was a child sex ring.
Now, the group was regarded as a prominent group of retired super heroes, elder statesmen of the industry. The whole plot only came out incidentally because one of their members went through phases where she would murder people to feed. The investigation brought this to light
It also brought their lawyers out. The team circled their wagons and went into panic mode as they tried to do a full cover up. Eventually, it all falls apart and things go south, but its an interesting parallel to real stories...
For one thing, the Supergirl analogue acted as a willing participant, bringing children into their clutches. People who read the recent stories about Allison Mack (Chloe from Smallville) should be getting deja vu.
But it's the same story we see again and again, where a group that sees themselves as privileged and elite take legal action against anyone who provides outside scrutiny. Deciding that a good offensive is a good defense.
And yeah, this one was prompted by a story that hits VERY close to home for me. I was struggling not to cry in my office while thinking about the ramifications, whether true or false, of much of the article. But we see this all the damn time from bad people with power.
Ultimately, the character is cornered and takes the easy way out with a Kryptonite analogue. Also a familiar story. I think what interests me about this one is how they took this symbol of hope and made him dirty and banal.
Images:
All images from the first volume of Top Ten by Wildstorm/DC. Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon
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