COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Atom and Hawkman 45 Universal
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Grade:
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9.8
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Page Quality:
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WHITE
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Certification #:
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4278356012
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Owner:
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Mississippi Mudcats
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Issue #45 from October 1969 is the final issue of this title and is considered a Silver Semi-Key. In the story, Jean sees the face of a killer she had unsuccessfully defended on everyone she meets, and goes berserk. Ray Palmer to help her, and discovers that his Alpha Energy machine is radiating unusually. He locks Jean in a room, while he investigates the source as Atom. In doing so, he encounters a tiny armored warrior, and has his arm coated in silver, as well as being irradiated by another Alpha-Ray machine. His only choice is to become large again, whereupon he finds that Jean is gone. Ray calls Carter Hall for help, and they find the armor is the same as that found in Death Valley, apparently left by aliens, so they travel there and find identical alpha emissions. Atom figures that Jean is being held in a sub-atomic world there, and, using his lens-sizer (seen in Hawkman #9), shrinks Hawkman to sub-atomic size. They land on the radiation's source planet, where they are immediately attacked by robot birds piloted by a crazed Jean, and both are knocked out. They learn they are captives of the Jimberen, an ancient alien race which fled to this sub-atomic size to escape a plague on Earth. Recently woken from suspended animation, they now seek a new queen descended from their original Earth-born queen — Jean Loring— and drove her mad to remove woe and care from her mind. Atom and Hawkman are strapped in explosive harnesses and made slaves, until they fake a fall in the mountains, and escape. Freeing themselves, they find Jean, and Ray restores them to normal size. However, Jean is still insane. It’s a bit of strange unresolved ending for a last issue.
Our WP 9.8 is the single highest graded copy in the census. We acquired the book from a friend and fellow collector in July 2023.*
2024 Update: Another case of grade inflation to report as in the space of a year we went from none to two 9.8s in the Census. We briefly owned both issues, but sold the second one to finance other purchases.
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