This going to sounds cruel (because it is), but when I look at the recently announced cancellations, I find myself wondering why Captain Atom isn’t on it.

I’m not a hardcore Captain Atom fan by any stretch. But I like the character. Or rather, I liked the Pre-DCnU Captain Atom. Because this version is a combination of godly powerful and dull as dishwater.

It’s not like Krul isn’t trying. Every issue, I see glimpses of something cool just under the surface. But it’s getting lost in a non-stop “woe-is-me” internal monologue. But just as off-putting is the fact that (as a fellow iFanboy reviewer put it some time ago) this Cap is more Firestorm than, well, the CURRENT Firestorm. This series feels like its just spinning its wheels, trying to be deeper than it is in exploring Cap’s sense of lost identity.

The art has been a pleasant surprise for me though. I say that as someone who hasn’t really liked Freddie Williams II before. But he does a really nice job here with considerable help from the softer palette of Jose Villarrubia.

(I still hate the little “energy toupee” though. HATE it. It’s like Charlie Brown Atom.)

I’ve given Captain Atom five issues and I may just round it off to a sixth. But if that sixth issue doesn’t propel things forward in some dramatic fashion, I won’t wait for DC to cancel it; I’ll drop it myself.