The Atom #2

The cover of this second solo outing for DC's "world's smallest super-hero" delivers an immediately arresting image: the Atom, tiny in his blue-and-red costume, thrashes helplessly in a sink full of swirling water while an enormous hand dangles a drain stopper just out of reach — a brilliantly simple image that makes the everyday feel genuinely threatening. Gil Kane's pencils and Murphy Anderson's inks give the scene a crisp, dynamic energy that perfectly captures the scale-shifting charm at the heart of the character. With Gardner Fox scripting "The Oddest Man on Earth!" and the promise that disaster strikes every time the Atom meets this mysterious figure, issue #2 makes a confident, imaginative case for why DC gave Ray Palmer his own magazine.