Justice League: The Atom Project

Justice League: The Atom Project #1-6

by Ryan Parrott, John Ridley, Mike Perkins (Artist)

Expanding the world of DC's hit Justice League Unlimited, these three heroes have one mission: control the chaos before it controls the world!

In the wake of DC's blockbuster storyline Absolute Power, the superpowers of planet Earth are in chaos...and it's up to the newly re-formed Justice League to restore order to that chaos.

Enter Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi, together the size-changing heroes called the Atom and the core of the science team on the Justice League's Watchtower. These brilliant minds have crafted the world's first superpower reallocation and backup system, code-named the Atom Project.

But not everyone wants their powers back, and the volatile hero Captain Atom is hell-bent on preventing his missing atomic abilities from ever being found.

Join Oscar-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, The Other History of the DC Universe), writer Ryan Parrott (co-creator of Rogue Sun), and The Bat-Man: First Knight artist Mike Perkins down the rabbit hole of an intense spy thriller that will bring seismic change to the DC Universe!

This volume collects Justice League: The Atom Project #1-6.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2025

Reviews

[Bill Riggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically a tie-in to the larger DC crossover events. Interesting but nothing special.

[Eva B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cool potential for a team (especially if they added Atom-Smasher for some brute force) but Ryan was the only character who felt distinct and Ray was an ass the whole time.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

[Frédéric · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

A series directly linked to the new editorial line and current events at DC Comics, which is not very interesting if you haven't followed Absolute Power and aren't into JLA Unlimited.

It's pretty well written, even if the Army's attempt to appropriate some of Captain Atom's powers is a classic trope that's not so timeless. But the action is well executed with good use of flashbacks.

On the other hand, I'm not very familiar with the characters, and I come away with the impression that Ray Palmer is a level 4 asshole. Is that always the case?

Good, expressive artwork by Mike Perkins, even though I've seen him do better.

[Laila Cozar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que de la etapa All in y en general de los cómics que he leído últimamente es de lo que más me ha gustado. No he tenido mucho acercamiento con los Atoms (además, con quien más familiarizada estoy es con Ray), con Capitán Atom y con Atom Smasher pese a que sale levemente. Me ha gustado la premisa, como se porta Nathaniel, me gustaban mucho esas voces en off que no sabías de dónde venían. Por otro lado, ver a la Doctora Light y a todos currando en La Atalaya para solucionar los problemas generados a raíz de Absolute Power ha sido algo que me ha gustado bastante.
Quizá me ha flojeado un poco el final aunque no creo que tenga que haber una super trama larga de unos enemigos o villanos que se extienda. Si no como lo han planteado: hay un problema muy gordo, uno de los personajes más inteligentes (junto a otros) está viendo la forma de solucionarlo y esto lleva a ver como se desesperan y salen a la luz sus problemas más internos, su necesidad de solucionarlo, el como alguien se puede desquiciar y llegar a dañar a gente a la quiere y aprecia. Y por otro lado la aparición de viejos traumas.

El dibujo acompaña bastante a la historia. No es un dibujo tan limpio como suelen serlo hoy en día, es sucio, incluso diría que bebe de décadas como los 70-80. Con bastante realismo. No conocía a Mike Perkins pero estaré atenta a otras obras suyas. Especialmente si son tramas más oscuras.

En general creo que es un buen cómic con una trama secundaria a un evento que trajo muchos problemas a muchísimos personajes. Y sí, creo que está bien ver cómo les ha afectado a todos y deben enfrentarse a ello.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

O escritor de Power Rangers, Ryan Parrot, juntamente com o roteirista John Ridley, trouxe uma das minisséries que eu mais estava esperando para ler: O Projeto Átomo, que conta também com os desenhos de Mike Perkins, que sempre acerta na arte. Na premissa da série, Ryan Choy, Ray Palmer e o Capitão Átomo, Nathaniel Adam, têm como missão restaurar os poderes perdidos dos metahumanos após os atos de Amanda Waller em Poder Absoluto. Mas nem tudo é alegria e arco-íris nessa missão. A instabilidade dos poderes do Capitão Átomo e uma ameaça dos militares estadunidenses de interferirem nas questões da Liga da Justiça serão um problema para os heróis atômicos. Eu gostei muito do que li, trazendo uma nova serventia para três personagens pouco visados que estavam na deriva do Universo DC Comics. Agora é entender como suas aventuras vão continuar a se espalhar pelas demais revistas da editora, porque eu gostaria de ver mais.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never thought I would be giving a Ridley project this few stars. I don't know where the problem lies. With Ridley, co-writer Parrott or meddling by DC editorial.

This mini-series ties back into the most recent DC event and somehow Captain Atom has absorbed, and can return powers stolen from one meta human to another (and for a limited time non meta humans). The problem is Captain Atom is being treated as an asset by the U.S. military and the Justice League., not a human being.

The whole meta human as an asset being used by the so called good guys has potential. It is just that the writers failed to make Captain Atom either interesting or likeable as a human being.
So, the rest of the story's aspect just fall apart all around him.

[RubiGiráldez RubiGiráldez · Rating 3 out of 5]

En el panorama post ABSOLUTE POWER y DC ALL IN, se han dado varias propuestas que tratan de abarcar la compleja situación superheroíca de este universo de la ficción DCita, entre la incógnita de esa última amenaza de Darkseid que supuestamente ha significado en el final de ese Dios Maligno, pero cuya terrible energía sigue presente en el universo. Y, por supuesto, el tema de todos esos poderes y superhabilidades que las unidades Amazo del "golpe de estado" de Amanda Waller retornaron pero no en todos las casos a sus respectivos dueños. Así, la miniserie del retorno de Renee Montoya como The Question, resultaba en un mayor vistazo a cómo la nueva Atalaya se convertía en una micro ciudad que necesita de una figura de autoridad que evite problemas. Los Investigadores de lo Desconocido se encargan del tema de la energía Omega que parece actuar de formas tan inesperadas como formar parte de estos propios personajes, lo que les hace ver como potenciales amenazas a ojos de Mr. Terrific... Y finalmente, tenemos este Atom Project, enlazado al asunto de los poderes desperdigados y equívocos. Lo cual lo parece plantear de entrada como la propuesta más esencial de estas miniseries post ALL IN...

Aunque sí que esta cuestión que afecta a la comunidad superheroíca DCita es lo que conecta esta miniserie. los guionistas John Radley y Ryan Parrott parecen verse superados por sus personajes troncales. Los dos investigadores unidos a la capacidad de minimizarse a puros átomos. Cuyo intelecto suele ir antes que sus super habilidades. Pero en este Atom Project se escudan en otra presencia hermanada a los nombres de superhéroe como es el Capitán Atomo. Un personaje que recientemente está viviendo un revival conectándolo con su más reconocido trasunto de Watchmen: el Dr. Manhattan. Aquí, este Nathaniel no alcanza esas cotas oscuras y terribles a su naturaleza casi deifica como en el Black Label de Jenny Sparks o el reciente versus con Superman en DC KO. Pero sí que se incide en su génesis como desesperada cobaya humana de pruebas para el entramado militar estadounidense que ahora vuelve a apretarle la correa, al mostrar una curiosa habilidad de replicar superpoderes y poder enlazarlos a cualquier individuo. Si bien Nathaniel siempre se ha sentido un soldado, no asumirá un rol como prácticamente un arma viviente. Esto es lo que impulsa esta miniserie en la que los doctores Palmer y Choi tratan de seguir el paso al Capitán Átomo olvidando por mucho su rol como investigadores del asunto de los superpoderes desperdigados. Claro, la trama revelará que el Capitán Atomo sea un "Deus Ex Machina" para este tema. Pero por lo pronto, esto hace que esta miniserie no se distancie tanto como debería de la enésima producción comiquera de "super pijameo" que hasta debe enlazar con la primera gran amenaza de la narrativa troncal en la cabecera de Justice League Unlimited.

Resulta harto curiosa la elección de dibujante de Mike Perkins. Quien fuerza unos curiosos límites de las situaciones y escenas más ligadas al thriller en la historia y demuestra que si los autores hubiesen querido. Hubiese defendido una propuesta más dialéctica y derivada en la pretendida investigación y sentido del Proyecto Átomo.

[Wesley B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclaimer: I have not read Absolute Power so I went into this not knowing all that had happened before. I read mostly trades now and had picked up this and Justice League Unlimited vol 1 at the same time.
I started JLU first but I realized that the Atom Project storyline occurs in the background/parallel to this larger story so I stopped JLU to read it.
And....I liked it! Captain Atom is one of my all time favorites and I was happy to see him in a role where he wasn't just a background character. I also really like the "Atoms"; both Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi. Seeing them interact and the dichotomy of how their characters interact and handle situations was good. I feel like DC, more than any other publisher, really gets legacy characters; it's cool to see several characters have the same name but keep individual personalities (like the Flashes, Green Lanterns, etc.) I felt like Ryan Parrott did a good job here and he handles team dynamics pretty well (I liked his Power Ranger series back in the day).
My biggest complaint was how they managed to simultaneously nerf Captain Atom and yet make him more powerful than ever. This is a character, that, in my own opinion, should always be in contention for being one of the most powerful heroes in the DC or even Marvel pantheon. I mean, he was the original identify of the villain Monarch (before it was changed last minute) and the character Dr. Manhattan is based off of him. And now with his new ability of being able to absorb and replenish metagene powers? What a beast!
But then watching him get knocked out by a haymaker thrown by one of the Atoms kinda ruined that for me lol. Or maybe the Atoms have changed and are more physically powerful than I realized. Anyway, minor grumble.
If I had been rating this off of just this story alone, I probably would have dropped it to 3 stars, although the creative team does an admirable job of keeping this a streamlined story, and you don't necessarily HAVE to read anything else to enjoy what's going on here.
The four stars is more because I am reading this in conjunction with JLU volume 1 and I enjoy the world-building groundwork that's being laid here.

[Ya Boi Be Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based off of Justice League Unlimited I was expecting something more comical instead of an attempt at thriller intrigue with cape. I do enjoy that DC has been trying this with the JL spinoffs in All-In with The Question being similar with its noir cape storyline. The idea of both “The Atom"s experimenting on Captain Atom to help build the process of returning lost powers leading to Captain Atom running off with multiple powers and being man-hunted is certainly unique. But I think the execution wasn't the greatest. But the second half did pick up as we see more of the past and the story moves away from the manhunt and more onto the government espionage and their uses for Captain Atom as well as Inferno's inclusion near the end.
I think the characterization is pretty weak. By the end Captain Atom has a nicely fleshed out arc about his struggles with wanting to help and dealing with how others want to use his newfound ability to bestow powers. But the two “The Atom's” are left pretty much flat throughout. I don't really know these three different versions of The Atom and it doesn't do much to make you understand them besides their basic dynamic off of each other. Like, I know who's talking and vaguely what they're like but I can't imagine these characters in another setting as the writer did little to expand on them past what they do and talk with each other here.
Not a fan of the art. The art by Mike Perkins is hit or miss when it comes to faces with some panels working. Otherwise it just looks poor. But the real draw is their ability to show Captain Atom's atomic explosive powers which were done well. Similarly the colorist Adriano Lucas seems to have made an interesting visual decision. You know the effect you can do on photo editors / art programs that reduce a piece into only X colors? It seems to be used here a lot especially on backgrounds. I find that sort of art has to have the color choices chosen specifically otherwise you get awkward color changes. I do think they were edited but it still too often looks splotchy or badly colored when instead it's a look I just don't think was handled the best here. But again, come Captain Atom's powers it looked great.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

being tied directly into 'Justice League Unlimited' is a help and a hinderance...

After Amanda Waller was defeated and her power stealing Amazo robots were sent packing, The Atoms went to work trying to figure out why metahuman powers were bonding to random people and ...not going back to their OG holders. One of the ones with missing powers? Captain Atom.



Turns out that Captain Atom (with The Atoms tinkering?) is not only repowered, but he's able to absorb, enhance, and completely remove metahuman abilities. Ethics be damned, they let the US gov't pull rank and say, 'once a soldier, always a soldier'with plans on using him to enhance whole regiments of the US military.

Oh, and Inferno is watching (this won't make ANY sense unless you're reading/read 'We Are Yesterday', the Batman/Superman: World's Finest' and 'Justice League Unlimited'). If you like mysterious shenanigans that aren't explained...there's a great villain cameo in there for YOU.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since some of the superpowers Amanda Waller stole during Absolute Power didn't go back to the people that were meant to have them, Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi start the Atom Project, to try and find a way to put them back in their rightful places.

Unfortunately, they get entirely sidetracked by Captain Atom and the US Military, so they spend six issues fucking about instead.

This wasn't what I expected it to be, nor really what I wanted. Captain Atom's opinion on what he should be doing changes on a dime, and Ray Palmer falls into the trap of not listening to everyone despite them talking sense to him just for the drama, until things end-but-not-really. The dramatic Inferno reveal doesn't work if you've already read Justice League Unlimited.

Even Mike Perkins' artwork, which is usually excellent, feels too dark for what's going on here. It's good technically, but it's either very thickly inked, or very blockily coloured, which is a shame.

Disappointing, unfortunately.

[Jaime Guzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book ties in with events of Absolute Power which I haven't read.
From my understanding, many superheroes and super villains lost their powers and somehow got transferred to unwilling bystanders.
Captain Atom seems to be the only one who can absorb these powers and transfer them back to their owners or to anyone he chooses.
The military wants Captain Atom to be their weapon and to have him transfer these powers to their soldiers and make them an elite super powered military force.
The Atoms, Ray Palmer & Ryan Choi, are the two scientists that are assisting Captain Atom with control of his powers.
Being used as a guinea pig by the Atoms along with being used as a tool for the military has taken its toll and Captain Atom has had enough.
The book is well drawn by Mike Perkins (when did he leave Marvel?) and the story was about average.

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think this is the 3rd All In book I have read, and I am pretty sure I am All Out now.
The art was not very good.
Atom Ray Palmer is an asshole who treats Captain Atom like a caged test subject who has no say-so in how he or any of the other subjects are treated. Atom Ryan Choi is the 'good cop' who occasionally speaks up for the Captain and the others, but never actually does anything. The Air Force general is an Asshole who channels every military cliche ever written. None of the other superheroes can be bothered to show up for this urgently important project.
I expect more maturity from Captain Atom, more professionalism from Ray Palmer, and less blustering from the military in a superhero world.
It is impressive that the Air Force has a satellite weapon that can hit a moving target without hitting the opponent he is actively wrestling with.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, this one was tough. I love Mike Perkins's work, and his cinematic realism helped me stay in the action story when the writing let me down. It's a shame, Ryan Parrott has done wonderful stuff in the Massiveverse and John Ridley wrote Secret Weapons, the best book Valiant ever published. But this was a collection of scenes that claimed to be about finding the misplaced superpowers from the end of Absolute Power, and instead it felt like an incomplete shuffle of screenshots from a couple of science Wikipedia pages, and I eventually just had to pretend it was written in hieroglyphs and let the pictures tell me enough to make my own story up.

[Norman Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collects Justice League: The Atom Project #1-6.
This tie-in to the conclusion of the recent Absolute Power crossover event has some interesting ideas and the artwork by Mike Perkins is good (a stylized photo-realism). It suffers from being more of a plot filling exercise, especially if the reader isn't familiar with the current and recent events in the DC universe, than a real story with real characters. What characterization there is is mostly over-the-top stereotypes (the project-driven scientist, the success-at-all-costs general, etc.), and no one really comes off looking good.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.
In the post-Absolute Power DCU, some have lost their powers and both Atoms (Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi) have taken it upon themselves to investigate it and try to fix it. This six part story not only involves a lot surrounding Captain Atom (a DC character I don't know lots about) but also serves as another intro into the reimmergence of the Legion of Doom (I'm reading "We Are Yesterday" next).
Overall, not a bad story, but not as essential as I thought it was going to be.
Recommend, but skippable if you aren't big fans of the 3 main characters.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spins out of Absolute Power and Justice League Unlimited so read those first. Even on its own though, this sucks. All 3 Atoms are tools. So is the military. It all feels forced to provide the angle they wanted. The gist is that Captain Atom can no absorb and give powers to others after Absolute Power. So because of that everyone needs to bicker and fight. This also runs in conjunction with the first arc of Justice League Unlimited. It doesn't help that Mike Perkins art isn't great here. It feels lumpy with the darkness turned up to the max with the coloring. I honestly don't really get why this exists. It's all kind of pointless.

[Mohan Vemulapalli · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Justice League: The Atom Project" is a convoluted, confusing and ultimately unimaginative book with an absolutely silly premise and turgid artwork that manages to suck all of the joy and wonder out of three of D.C's more interesting B-list characters. This book is recommended for masochists, the illiterate and extreme completionists only.

[Dean · Rating 1 out of 5]

didn't particularly like the writing nor the art.

[Hades Grayson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[Daniel Butcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5.

Not a fan of the art.

The story is somewhat predictable and I have a hard time relating to anyone but Ryan.

[Paul W. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay, interesting art but the story wasn't compelling enough, despite some world class writers. I wanted more out of the title.

[Terminus · Rating 4 out of 5]

ich hätte es chronologisch anders angeordnet aber ansonsten hats mir sehr gefallen

[Amoruso Helms-Smart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty confusing at first if you're not familiar with the Atom family (get it?) but overall a good comic. I just wish they would stop cutting back between the present and past and made it a linear

[Will Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Atoms are using Captain Atom to try and redistribute the powers from Absolute Power back to their rightful owners and conspiracies and bad military stuff happens.

[Keegan Schueler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Solid one off for the current Justice league run and it doesn’t add a lot but still is solid story.

[Erik J · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not my favourite read, this was actually fairly decent. I always enjoy when Captain Atom gets the spotlight.

Overall - 4/5

[Dr. T Loves Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this as a collected edition, and it feels like there are pieces missing - which, as it's a collection, shouldn't be possible. Part of it is the jumping-around-in-the-timeline structure, which doesn't seem to be serving any purpose. Some of it is that this series treats Ray Palmer and Captain Atom pretty shabbily - they were never my favorite characters, so I'm not deeply fluent in them, so their characterization here may be completely consistent with their earlier incarnations; but they are deeply unlikable here.