My husband and I both love The Atom. It was one of the comics he used to woo into comic book reading. My (our) question is, did you have any other storylines planned out for Ryan Choi, Head, and Panda?

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I loved writing the Atom, love Ryan Choi. I've always liked the IDEA of the Atom, and I like Ray Palmer, but I wanted to see an Atom that really touched the weird science vibe, someone youthful and fun, with superior acrobatic skills.

The book was great fun, and sold better than DC expected, but there were eventually other projects that beckoned and they wanted to turn it into less of a light-hearted book and I just didn't have any interest in that. The book always had dark elements, but Ryan was created to be a positive, joyous character and I didn't want to ruin that.

Fortunately, he's back. It's an interesting story…they did that hellaciously awful story where they killed Ryan, which I hated, I admit it, I thought it was awful. But it turns out a lot of people at DC and in the fanbase LIKED him. Some important people, like Dan DiDio, who liked Ryan a lot.

More importantly, in a way, the people doing the DC animated shows also liked Ryan, and when they used the Atom, they wanted Ryan. I think that that made a difference…I think it's part of why he's back, he got a good response in the animated shows.

It was nice to have an Asian lead who wasn't about martial arts, didn't fit the normal stereotypes. I loved the character, loved his setting…it was just great fun.

I had a couple aha moments about the character, actually. My son speaks Japanese and helps when Japanese exchange students come over from Japan from our town's sister city. And he told them I write comics, they asked what kind…I said Wonder Woman. None of them recognized that name at all. But they knew Ryan Choi, from the cartoons. That said something.

And when I was in Singapore (not trying to lump all Asians together here, by the way…obviously, these are very, very different cultures and countries), several people came up and actually cried because of Ryan's death. It meant something to them that an Asian had a fun, lead role in a superhero book at DC.

So I think bringing him back is lovely, he made an impact.

As for future stories, I had lots. I really wanted to do some time travel stuff with him, since that was a big part of the Ray Palmer series. I would have loved to have him meet some of the DC monsters. He's a great POV character since his background is so different.

Thank you for the kind words, I miss that guy, too!