Hidden Gems: Secret Origins #29

I largely ignored this series the first time around. That was dumb. I guess I thought it was merely the rehashing of origins, and I would have claimed at the time to know just about everything there was to know about the pre-Crisis DCU. Little did I know that there are actually jam packed with solid stories and add plenty of new layers to most origin stories. This one is no exception. The Atom story is fine. It tries to make sense of all of the nuttiness to which Ray Palmer had been subjected during the 80s. It's for Atom completists only (I belong to that group). Much better is the Mr. America/Americommando story by Roy Thomas. Thomas shows the evolution of the character and it really serves to inform James Robinson's Golden Age miniseries. It is a nice little piece in that puzzle. The real gem hidden deep in this book, however, is a 3 page Red (Ma Hunkel) Tornado story, written and illustrated by Sheldon Mayer. As far as I can determine, this was the last work done by Mayer for DC so it certainly represents the end of an era.