Your Happenstance panel for today:

Ah, but it's a big panel, a page and a half from The Atom Special #1, "Shrinking from the Past" Written by Tom Peyer, art by Steve Dillon, of Preacher and Punisher fame.

Ray Palmer isn't doing well: his old friend Professor Hyatt has a ticking clock face stuck to his own face, the usual suspect Chronos is comatose, and Ray himself is tripping something fierce. He's been having visions of those he's lost: Laethwen, his tiny alien girlfriend; Adam Cray, his replacement that was killed in Suicide Squad; and his own father. Oh, and as a bonus, Ray keeps seeing his wife Jean Loring at the moment he first saw her cheat on him. The Atom's just about ready to give up and check out of society...when his friend Norm walks in and sees the visions too. Kind of tough to gaslight someone when there's witnesses, but I love the term "gaslight" as a verb.

Good stuff, even if it's lessened by the fact that years later, Ray finally would shrink himself out of our world, for a couple years after Identity Crisis.

The real world's intruded on blog time a bit this week, but we should be a bit more back on track next week. Might even get to see Watchmen and do my part to save future mature-themed comic book movies, as is apparently my sworn duty that I don't remember swearing to...