DC K.O.: Superman vs Captain Atom #1 Uses a Fight as Character Study (Review)

DC K.O. has been driving excitement in the DC mainline of books as the Absolute books conquer everything else. December is Fight Month, giving readers the “tournament” part of the tournament arc. There have been some complaints about DC K.O., vis-a-vis the tournament itself, so it’s important that Fight Month works out. DC K.O.: Superman vs Captain Atom #1 is the first round, a grudge match between two characters that have long had something of a grudge (basically, the military always plays the Captain Atom card to deal with Superman whenever they feel like going after the Kryptonian). This issue is a lot of fun, giving readers the kind of action they crave while also showing both characters for who they are.

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DC K.O. is full of powerful beings, so starting out with a fight between Superman and Captain Atom shows just how wild things can be. The book is written by Superman writer Josh Williamson, so you would expect the Man of Steel to be the focus, but instead, we get Nathanial Adam giving us the narration at first. It’s an interesting look into a character that we don’t get to spend too much time with; when was the last time anyone actually cared about Captain Atom?

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Pros	Cons
The issue has the trappings of a fighting game, which is cool	Predictable; you know who is going to win from the opening page
Does a good job of showing the difference between the two heroes	We’re reminded yet again that Superman and the tournament don’t mix
Well-paced and action packed

Williamson does a great job of taking readers into Atom’s head for the fight, using his actions against Supergirl in DC K.O. #2 to give the fight a little more edge from the beginning. DC K.O. is basically a Superman event, and the writers have shown how the tournament and who the hero is aren’t mixing; if you’re tired of that already, well, this issue has more of it. Superman doesn’t want to be ruthless, Atom does, blah blah blah. It’s a major part of the story, but we don’t need to be reminded of it every time he appears in a segment of this tale.

That’s basically my only complaint with the writing. Williamson contrasts the difference between the heroes well; the issue is very well paced, never getting boring, and there are some cool moments that you could only get from a battle between these two heroes. Williamson gives the story the trappings of a fighting game — for example, each of them gets to pick a character skin before each round — and that extends to the end of the fights as well, although more about that when we get to the art. All in all, I find that the issue’s script did everything that it needed to. This isn’t just a fight issue; it’s an issue about why the loser of the battle didn’t deserve to win in the first place (I’m not going to tell you who wins, but I’m sure you’ve already figured it out), about the differences between the two heroes, and it works.

DC K.O.: Superman vs Captain Atom #1 Looks Sensational

Any comic where the focus is going to be on action needs some tremendous art, and this issue does deliver. Williamson gets to team with his former Green Arrow artist Sean Izaakse. There’s nothing that’s going to knock your socks off in this book, but it all works. Izaakse’s style works well for this kind of action-based comic, and we don’t get any sketchy pages or panels. The action looks very good, and I love the artist’s renditions of the various versions of the characters. Captain Atom’s final form is a little disappointing, but it’s fine.

I think the thing I loved the most about the art is the KO pages. I talked earlier about the book using the trappings of fighting games in fun ways, and the pages where someone gets knocked out are the perfect example of this. The background of the panel, which usually takes up most of a two-page spread of panels, is a massive “KO” with the fighters usually in the middle. It feels like something out of Street Fighter, and you can hear a voice yell out, “K.O.!!!” It fits the story so well, and reminds readers of just how much fun this story can and should be. Sure, fate of the universe and all that, but this is also a big, dumb, fun story about heroes and villains fighting each other. It’s supposed to be a little ridiculous.

So far, DC K.O. has had some pretty great tie-ins, but Fight Month was always going to be make-or-break time. It’s the meat and potatoes of the tournament, and it needed to be something cool. Luckily, DC K.O.: Superman vs Captain Atom #1 supplies that. Its ending is predictable, but Williamson and Izaakse do a tremendous job of making the story compelling despite the fact that you’ll guess who’s winning before the comic starts. The fight is cool, and I LOVE the KO pages. This issue was able to take a somewhat boring match-up (we’ve seen this fight several times over the decades, and it’s usually the definition of fine when it happens) and make it exciting, allowing it to work in the context of DC K.O.

DC K.O.: Superman vs Captain Atom #1 is on sale now.

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