Doctor Raymond Carson "Ray" Palmer[1] (born 1981)[2], knighted Sir Raymond of the Palms, Defender of Camelot by Queen Guinevere in 507,[3] is a businessman and the former CEO of Palmer Technologies, previously known as Queen Consolidated. He is the son of David and Sandy Palmer and younger brother of Sydney Palmer, who in at least one version of the future is considered to be the father of the robotics industry. Ray is also the ex-fiancé of Kendra Saunders and the late Anna Loring, the ex-boyfriend/good friend of Felicity Smoak, a good friend of Cisco Ramon, the best friend of Nate Heywood, and romantic interest of Nora Darhk. Having designed a powerful exosuit, Ray began acting as a vigilante in Star City, calling himself The Atom. While testing out a new function of his exosuit, Ray accidentally caused an explosion which shrunk him to a miniature size; stuck in this state and unable to call for help, he was presumed dead. After six months, Ray managed to contact Felicity but was captured by Damien Darhk for his technology. However, thanks to the efforts of Team Arrow, Ray was rescued and would continue to aid them in their fight against H.I.V.E..
In early 2016, Ray was recruited by time-traveler Rip Hunter into the Legends on a mission to take down Vandal Savage. After Ray's A.T.O.M. suit was destroyed during a mission in Feudal Japan, Mick Rory gave him the Cold Gun. He nicknamed himself Colonel Cold, using both Leonard Snart's weaponry and goggles. After getting a new source of dwarf star alloy, Ray went back to his Atom identity.
He is currently possessed by a powerful demon, Neron, after accidentally interfering in Nora and John Constantine's efforts to subdue the demon.
Raymond Palmer was born to David and Sandy Palmer in 1981 in Ivy Town and had a twin brother, Sydney. Ray had a lonely childhood, though he got through it by immersing himself in Arthurian lore,[3] fancying himself as "Sir Galahad" and naming his personal playground in the woods after the legendary Camelot.[1] He was inspired to become an engineer and inventor after watching Star Wars as a child.[4] Ray and Sydney often fought over which video games to play as Sydney liked playing Tecmo Bowl while Ray preferred Legend of Zelda.[1]
Finding Gumball
Ray Palmer with his new alien friend.
In 1988, Ray had come across a time-displaced baby Dominator alien as he was hiding away from some bullies.[5] He befriended the alien and named it Gumball. Ray took Gumball home, fed him candy and watched movies with him. Soon, the situation drew the attention of the NSA, who wanted to capture Gumball to study him.
Original timeline: Ray tried to free his friend from the NSA, but the agents shot him before he could. Ray's body was left in the woods for the authorities to find days later, with enough damage done that it required dental identification. An article was written about him post-death by Ivy Town Times, although his family was too shaken to comment for it, and faculty at Ivy Town Middle School began working on a “Ray Palmer Memorial Garden", where they planned to grow Ray’s favorite snack.
Ray says goodbye to Gumball and returns him to his mother.
Current timeline: However, this event sent a ripple through time that drew in a strange group of people, unknowingly including his future self. Ray, with help from Zari Tomaz and his future self, rescued Gumball from the NSA agents. After they escape, Ray reunited Gumball with his mother, tearfully letting him go. Back home, Zari assured Ray that he did the right thing and that he would go on to find people that he fit in with, urging him to stay positive. Ray then went trick or treating as "The Atom", with his new adult friends standing by him against the teasing from his bullies.[1]
Adulthood
During his university years, Ray was a student of Professor Martin Stein in his "Quantum Theory" class. Despite being one of his best pupils, Stein failed to remember him when they reconnected later on in life.[6]
Sometime prior to the spring of 2014, Ray became engaged to Anna Loring. While in Starling City, both were caught in the crossfire of Slade Wilson's siege on the city. Ray attempted to fight Wilson's soldiers but was easily subdued, resulting in Anna's death. Heartbroken by this loss, Ray promised himself that he would never again lose someone he loved and would find a way to save his city from ever having to face a similar danger again.[7]
Take Over of Queen Consolidated
In late 2014, Ray visited a Tech Village in Starling City and met Felicity Smoak. He was curious as to why a woman of her intelligence would work at a Tech Village, dropping a hint that he knew of someone who was looking to hire a techie of her caliber. After she dismissed his proposal, he inquired about a satellite frequency communicator, which she automatically assumed he had no knowledge of. However, he proceeded to show his extensive technological knowledge of them, which prompted Felicity to suggest the forthcoming TX50 model. She also suggested using a remote administration tool. Following their encounter, Ray used the satellite frequency communicator to hack Queen Consolidated's servers to find raw data on the company's performance. Sometime later, he visited Queen Consolidated to bid for the company. He introduced himself to Oliver Queen and re-greeted Felicity. He proceeded on into the conference room, apologizing for being late. He mentioned taking his helicopter and parking it on their roof. After a moving speech from Oliver, Ray stood up to give his bid. As a screen came down, he noted how one of the board members had one of his smartwatches, which he was especially proud of. Heading back on track, Ray began talking about Queen Consolidated's performance figures shown on the screen, noting that the figures showed on screen (which he'd previously retrieved with the help of the satellite frequency communicator) were not big enough for Wall Street. He noted, however, that the low percentages were not Oliver's fault, but the city's fault on a whole. Ray went on to describe his hopes that when Queen Consolidated metaphorically "rose from the ashes," that it would take the city with it, naming this new version of the city "Star City." The board elected Ray to be the new CEO and he planned to rebrand the company into Palmer Technologies.[8]
A few days later, Palmer bought the holding company which owned all Tech Village stores. When Felicity discovered the news, Ray made an attempt to hire Felicity for an office job at Palmer Technologies, which Felicity angrily declined. Ray quickly realized that Felicity wasn't mad at him, realizing something was wrong. He tried to assure Felicity things would brighten up. At his Star City pledge, Ray announced he would give half of his net-worth to the benefit of Starling City to become Star City. The benefit was soon crash by Simon Lacroix, though Ray was left unharmed. Ray was later surprised when Felicity decided to accept his job offer.[9]
Ray personally hired Gerry Conway as an executive assistant for Felicity, whom he promoted to the new vice president of Palmer Technologies, and turned the former CEO's office into an office for her. Ray requested Felicity to obtain some Applied Sciences data from a file server which was destroyed by the previous CEO, claiming it was necessary for his plan to rebuild Queen Consolidated, as well as the city. After Felicity recovered the data, she asked if she could take time off to visit an old friend, who had recently woke from a coma. Ray granted her permission and as Felicity walked off, Ray looked through the blueprints of O.M.A.C..[10]
Later, Ray acquired the rights to a mine where he thought he would find dwarf star alloy and reacted by calling up schematics for a project he was working on, the A.T.O.M. Exosuit. He kissed Felicity which left him confused and he quickly left.[11]
He later explained to her Anna had been killed and he swore to not be with another woman again. He also told her he wanted to improve technology by shrinking it so that he could help humanity and that there would be no other assaults on the city. He told Felicity he wanted her help, unaware that she was in the same situation with Oliver.
Ray completes his A.T.O.M. Exosuit.
Ray had not been showing up for work, causing Felicity to get worried. Ray was found by Felicity working on his A.T.O.M. Exosuit. Before Ray is able to complete his suit, Felicity locked him out of the network. Ray was told to take a shower, eat, and take at least a five-hour nap, to which Ray agreed on. After his shower, Ray shared a kiss with Felicity. The two then had sex after. Ray sneaked out of bed, completed his Exosuit, and gave it a test drive.[12]
At John Diggle andLyla Michaels' wedding, Felicity brings Ray as her date. Ray ended up officiating John and Lyla's marriage when the priest couldn't make it, as he was a licensed minister. When the Arrow appears to go on a murdering spree, Ray voices his support to apprehend the vigilante. One night while flying, he sees the Arrow standing over murdered bodies in a warehouse and uses his facial recognition to discover that the Arrow is Oliver Queen. After revealing to Felicity the suit's completion and his knowledge on Oliver, Felicity tries telling him that Oliver's being framed, but Ray does not trust her, accusing her of letting her feelings for Oliver cloud her judgement. He tries showing the evidence to ADA Laurel Lance, but Laurel tells him that his testimony and evidence would not stand. Her defense and injury make Ray realize Laurel is the Black Canary and he decides to take matters into his own hands. Oliver shows up at Ray's office and tries to tell him that Felicity's telling the truth and he doesn't know what the city is up against, but he doesn't believe Oliver. He fakes a 911 call to get the Arrow and Arsenal to come to the top of a building where he's waiting for them. He flies in and unleashes electricity at the two. He also shows the Arrow that his suit cannot be damaged by his arrows. Arsenal starts to charge at him, but Atom blasts him with electricity, knocking him out. The Arrow fires a trick arrow at the Atom, but he flies away before it explodes. When he's not looking, Atom rapidly flies past Oliver, making him fall to the ground and disarming him. The Atom then prepares to defeat Arrow, but he notices a weak spot on his suit and throws a small flechette at it, causing the suit to stop working. The Arrow gets up and kicks Ray to the ground. He holds an arrow to him and prepares to execute him. However, Arrow proves Ray wrong by not killing him and tells Ray that he needs to prove himself to Felicity by trusting her. Ray apologizes to Felicity and still wants to work with her. The two kiss. During a meeting with Mayor Celia Castle and Captain Quentin Lance, Ray changes his mind and agrees with Laurel that the Arrow's being framed before watching Celia get killed by an Arrow impersonator.[13]
Ray saves Felicity from being shot by an arrow, but is shot himself. He is taken to the hospital where he's in critical condition. The doctors remove the arrow, but one doctor says that there's a blood clot in his brain. Ray could die during a surgery to remove the clot or if the clot moves. Ray then asks Felicity to retrieve his nano-tech, so that the nano-tech can completely destroy the clot. She does so and injects him with the nano-tech. Ray starts to die of side effects, but the side effects stop. The doctors then discover in a MRI of Ray's brain that the clot has disappeared. A fully recovered Ray thanks Felicity for saving his life and says he loves her.[14]
In order to improve A.T.O.M. exosuit, Ray and Felicity travel to Central City to seek assistance from S.T.A.R. Labs and Ray meets Barry Allen/The Flash. As Team Flash helps him improve the suit, Ray develops a friendly rapport with Cisco Ramon over their shared sense of humor, penchant for engineering, and tendency to name super-villains. When they see Eddie Thawne struggling with Iris West to keep Barry's secret, Felicity decides they should have a dinner with Iris, Eddie, and Barry. Ray buys out the restaurant for privacy, but the night quickly turns disastrous due to Iris' frustration with Eddie's secret and Barry having a hard time with Dr. Harrison Wells. When the disgruntled scientist Brie Larvan, a villain Team Flash is trying to catch, attacks Dr. Tina McGee, Ray suits up as the Atom and saves her by redirecting Brie's robotic bees into the water, managing to crash into Cisco and Caitilin Snow's van just as his suit runs out of power. Before leaving Ray is given Brie's last robotic bee they obtained and intends to study it.[15]
Back in Starling City, Oliver reluctantly asks for Ray's help in capturing a meta-human named Jake Simmons, Felicity and Oliver include him in the Team Arrow. In their first encounter, Ray loses the fight when it turns out Jake could absorb electrical blasts. Ray is criticized by Oliver and his friends for not taking it as seriously when he lacks the experience. Later, when Jake has Felicity hostage, Ray flies towards their location and uses a remote link to have Oliver control the suit, combining his technology with Oliver's experience. The link was successful at first until Simmons gained the upper hand and destroyed the remote link, leaving Ray helpless. Jake was about to kill him until Oliver gave Ray the encouragement he needed to beat Simmons. Ray held his hand over Simmons' eyes and reflected his eye blast back into his face and then proceeded to beat Jake to unconsciousness. Ray is later seen saying goodbye to Roy. Later Simmons was placed in The Pipeline at S.T.A.R. Labs by Cisco and Ray, where Ray nicknames him "Deathbolt." However, Cisco came to the realization that Simmons was in Opal City the night of the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion, which made them both wonder how Simmons obtained his powers.[16]
As Ray is working on his suit in his office, Felicity comes in looking sad, much to his concern. Felicity Ray's permission for both her and Oliver to use his private jet. When she tries to explain her reasons, Ray brings up the topic of her and Oliver, having seen them together after Roy left the city. Ray voices his belief that Felicity didn't return the sentiment when he confessed his love to her at the hospital because she is still in love with Oliver. Felicity admits he is right and tearfully apologizes. The couple break up, though Ray still allows Felicity and Oliver to use his private jet.[16]
As Ray is seen with his suit and Felicity enters he makes amends with her saying she is still a friend and he will always be there for you. Ray later secretly had Felicity sign some documents which transferred ownership of Palmer Technologies over to her. He later aided the team in Nanda Parbat after Felicity failed to stop the plane from taking off. Ray intercepted the plane in midair and attacked it with an energy blast. After he took a hit from a missile and the weapon damaged, he decided to fly straight through the plane. Both crash landed back in the battlefield. Ray was then taken prisoner along with the rest of the team and exposed to the Alpha Omega bio-weapon.[17]
Ray and the rest of the team survive the bio-weapon because Malcolm Merlyn secretly immunized them. The Flash arrives and rescues them from the League of Assassins. Ray and the team then return to Starling City. Ray and Felicity later save the city by containing the virus Ra's al Ghul unleashed on it. When Oliver and Felicity decide to leave Starling City, Felicity hopes that Ray will find a new VP and that she wants him to be happy. The next morning, Ray implants his nano-tech into his suit, while testing out a new discovery in its technology, which would allow it to miniaturize selected targets and reduce the scale of the suit itself. This causes the CEO's office of Palmer Technologies to explode, leaving Ray to be presumed dead.[18] Ray however, survived the explosion, albeit shrunken to the size of an atom. He sent several distress calls to Felicity, telling her that he's alive and needs help.[19]
Captured by H.I.V.E.
Six months later, Felicity was able to contact Ray and reveal that he had been captured. He was later revealed to have been captured by Damien Darhk and had recorded all his conversations with Felicity and tried to use that as leverage against him. Darhk wanted the A.T.O.M. suit but couldn't use it while it's small. He provided Felicity with a list of item to assemble into a device that would restore him to his normal size. Later, Team Arrow, with help from Curtis Holt, was able to break into the facility where he was being held and released him. Ray was later filled in on who Darhk was and told Felicity that until he decided to reveal himself she would still be in charge of Palmer Technologies.[20]
Felicity later asked for Ray's assistance in studying the DNA of a H.I.V.E.Ghost tooth, which was missing half of its genetic markers, to hopefully track down the organization's base of operations. As they worked, Felicity wondered why Ray wouldn't declare himself alive but he avoided the subject. Later when asked again, Ray admitted that despite the city being renamed in his honor, he felt ashamed of how little his life had achieved when the world believed him dead. With the city still riddled with corruption and Palmer Technologies struggling to bounce back from bankruptcy, Ray decided he needed to find a new purpose for his life. Later after analyzing the Ghost tooth, Ray realized H.I.V.E. was stationed at Wolfman Biologics. While Team Arrow was infiltrated the field base to locate John's brother, Andy Diggle, the Atom arrived in time to help Green Arrow and Black Canary.[21]
Helping Vixen
When Vixen and her sister Kuasa broke into a collector's home in Star City to retrieve the Water Totem of Zambesi to defeat General Benatu Eshu, Kuasa attempted to steal the Totem for herself, only to be stopped by Ray and Black Canary who Mari had contacted prior to the break-in, predicting her sister would try to betray her. Mari convinced her to work with them together to stop Eshu, save Detroit, and avenge their village and its people. Together the group confronted Eshu, however, Eshu managed to subdue both him and Laurel.
Aiding Rip Hunter
Ray and others are asked by Rip Hunter to join him on a mission to save the future.
In January 2016, Ray helped Oliver with a mission to stop several H.I.V.E. ghosts. After defeating them, he was intercepted by Rip Hunter. The former Time Master presented a proposal to form a team to take down Vandal Savage, a future dictator before he could rise to power. Rip promised Ray that he and the other potential members of the team would be remembered as legends. Ray returned to Oliver to seek his friend's advice, and ultimately accepted Rip's offer. Other members of Rip's team included Carter Hall, Kendra Saunders, Sara Lance, Leonard Snart, Mick Rory, his former professor Martin Stein, and Jefferson Jackson.[6]
First mission, 1975
Ray and the others arrived at the Waverider where Ray talked to Martin about being one of his students, which Martin didn't remember. Then, Rip brought them to St. Roch in 1975. Ray accompanied Rip to speak to Dr. Aldus Boardman to gather information on Savage. After Martin psychically sensed Jax’s distress, the team returned to the Waverider being attacked by Chronos. Martin and Ray made a run for the ship. Then Ray, now armed with his A.T.O.M. exosuit, and Firestorm provided cover for the others to get onboard the time ship. Hiding in the Temporal zone, the team learned of Rip’s status as a rogue Time Master and the murder of his family by Savage. While repairing his exosuit, Ray discussed with Sara, Leonard, and Mick about wanting to give his life purpose and they chose to stay on the team.[6]
Next, the team headed to Norway, where Savage was holding a black market auction of a nuclear bomb. Against Rip’s wishes, they went after Savage during the auction. However, Savage sensed the presence of Kendra and Carter, ordering the other attendees to kill them all. A huge fight broke out and Ray emerged from Martin’s pocket and joined the fight. However, the team failed to kidnap Savage, and Ray left a piece of his exosuit behind, altering history. Martin and Ray deduced that the exosuit’s alpha particles could be tracked with a device created by a younger Martin Stein in 1975. While the rest of the team tracked down the exosuit tech, Ray accompanied Leonard and Mick to steal the Amon Dagger from the mansion of a "Sasha Mahnovski". However, Ray tripped a fake alarm box, causing Leonard and himself to be captured. While trying to break out, Ray talked to Leonard about being an inventor versus being a criminal. Mahnovski, who was actually Vandal Savage, revealed he was the owner of the dagger. The team then came to rescue them. Ray helped the team hold off Savage’s forces while Kendra and Carter went after Savage. Unfortunately, Savage got the upper-hand, killing Carter and critically wounding Kendra, forcing the team to retreat. Back on the time ship, the team renewed their commitment to defeating Savage in memory of Carter.[22]
When the team touched down in Leipzig, Kendra’s condition worsened. Martin and Ray discovered fragments of the Amon Dagger in her bloodstream. Ray had a plan to shrink down in his A.T.O.M. suit to destroy the fragments. However, during a first attempt, Ray was only able to destroy one of the fragments before another smashed into him, causing him to panic and abort the procedure. He resented the fact that Martin didn’t remember him as one of his top students. Later, Martin confided to Ray that he acted like he didn’t remember Ray because he was jealous that as one of his students, Ray seemed more brilliant than he was. Ray then admitted to Martin that he panicked because the situation reminded him of how he wasn’t able to save his fiancée, Anna. Martin guided a newly-confident Ray through Kendra’s bloodstream and they managed to destroy all of the remaining dagger fragments. He then noted to Martin that he realized Martin lied about remembering him as a student, but Martin justified it by saying that Ray needed the push. After the rest of the team recovered Carter’s body from Savage, they held a funeral for Carter and Aldus.[23]
Cold War, 1986
Gideon tracked Savage’s next appearance in 1986, where they needed to steal a file from the Pentagon that would tell them Savage’s whereabouts. Ray and Leonard were disguised as janitors to steal a keycard from a Pentagon official. Firestorm tripped the alarm and Kendra went crazy causing a chaotic fight to break out but they succeeded in getting the file which located Savage in the Soviet Union. Chronos and the Soviet air force intercepted the Waverider causing it to crash land. Ray and Leonard went after Savage’s top scientist Valentina Vostok. Ray tried to talk to Valentina but she rejected him, but Leonard was able to. He stole her keycard leading them to Luskavic Labs. Martin, with Ray, Leonard, and Mick as the backup, infiltrated the lab discovering that Savage’s Operation Svarog was a program to create his own Firestorm. In a control room, Ray powered down the thermo-core but Valentina captured Leonard and threatened him unless Ray turned the core back on, which he did. Valentina’s forces then captured Ray, Martin, and Mick and imprisoned them at a Koshmar gulag.[24]
Ray and Mick arrived at Koshmar, where Ray attempted to look on the bright side of things. Ray got into a fight in the prison yard with Boris. When he woke up, he was angry at Mick for not standing with him in the yard. Then, Mikhail Arkadin retrieved the duo and started torturing them to get Martin to divulge the secrets of Firestorm. Ray started smart-mouthing Mikhail, taking most of the beating. When Leonard came to rescue Mick, Mick insisted on bringing Ray since the latter tried to protect him. After the successful rescue, Chronos ambushed the Waverider in the temporal zone, knocking them out of the time stream and stranding them in 2046.[25]
Lost in time
Arriving in Star City of 2046, the team is confronted by a hooded archer. Thinking it was Oliver, Ray and Sara tried to talk to him but the archer fired arrows at them, forcing them to retreat. Ray informed Rip that Palmer Technologies, now Smoak Technologies, were working on technology that could fix the Waverider. While Rip led a team to retrieve the tech, Ray stayed behind on the ship to make additional repairs. He worked with Kendra on the repairs and the two got to know each other. Martin attempted to dissuade Ray from romantically pursuing Kendra, but ended up giving him the very idea. Later, Ray helped Sara rescue Connor Hawke from Deathstroke. After the fight, Ray asked Kendra out, but she turned him down.[26]
Unable to track Savage due to obsolete time data, the crew was stranded. Gideon intercepted a distress signal from Captain Eve Baxter of the Acheron. Rip put Ray in charge of the ship while he led the away team. Rip was captured by time pirates and their leader, Jon Valor, demanded Ray surrender the Waverider. However, Rip used keywords to activate the Waverider's defenses. Ray piloted the Waverider in combat against Valor and the Acheron. After camouflaging the ship, Ray and Kendra discovered Leonard and Sara trapped in the bulkhead breach after trying to repair damage sustained from the Acheron. Ray configured his suit for space and went outside of the ship to repair the damage. After repairing the hull breach, he passed out and went into cardiac arrest. Kendra performed CPR and revived him. Soon after, Mick arrived on the Waverider, but the team found out that he sold them out to the time pirates. Mick and Valor's crewmen chased Ray, Kendra, Sara, and Leonard throughout the Waverider. They managed to fend off the pirates and subdued Mick. Afterwards, Kendra kissed Ray, surprising him. As a team, they decided to put down Mick for betraying them to the pirates.[27]
Trapped in the past
Ray is stranded with Kendra and Sara in 1958.
After receiving new timeline data from the Acheron, the data took the team to Harmony Falls, 1958. Ray and Kendra staked out the town by living in an empty home, posing as a married couple, which he enjoyed. Kendra and Ray then received a visit from neighbors Gail and Curtis Knox (Vandal Savage’s 1958 alias). Kendra opted to investigate Savage since he didn’t seem to recognize her. Kendra and Ray attended Knox’s house party. Kendra talked to Savage while Ray scoped out the house. He found a backroom where Savage was keeping the Amon Dagger. The next day, he stole it and escaped just as Savage returned home. The team devised a plan for Kendra to kill Savage with the dagger, which Ray was against. Ray was disguised as a hospital patient while Kendra attempted to kill Savage. However, Savage outsmarted them and released his manhawk experiments as Ray and Kendra escaped. While Ray, Kendra, and Sara were preparing to leave, Chronos attacked the Waverider forcing it to depart without them.[28]
Ray building a time beacon in 1958.
Now left to fend for themselves in 1958, Ray, Kendra, and Sara decided to leave Harmony Falls to avoid Savage's retaliation. They moved into an apartment together, but as the days passed by, Sara quickly came to the conclusion that the rest of their team must have been killed or else they would have returned to the exact moment the Waverider had left. After relaying her concern to Kendra, the two confronted Ray, who had been busying himself with building a time beacon to signal the rest of the team. Ray refused to give up the hope that they may yet be rescued, and Sara left on her own out of exasperation, despite the protests of her friends. She soon found herself returning to Nanda Parbat, and rejoined the League of Assassins under a new alias.
Ray and Kendra remained together, eventually settling down and building a new life for themselves. They continued to explore the romantic feelings that had sprung up between them and soon became involved as a couple. While Kendra became a librarian, Ray ended up starting a career as a college professor, and would later instruct such students as William Gates Sr., the father of Bill Gates. Though Ray eventually completed the time beacon in 1960, he had long since given up hope of being rescued and had come to love both Kendra and their new lives together. He soon bought an engagement ring, with the intention of proposing to Kendra in a park near their home.
Contrary to what Ray, Kendra, and Sara had come to believe about their teammates, however, all of them had survived their encounter with Chronos. After disabling the Waverider, the bounty hunter kidnapped Leonard Snart and escaped aboard the jump ship, leaving Rip, Martin, and Jax plummeting through time. When the team finally regained control over the ship, they detected the time beacon that Ray had built and arrived in 1960 just as Ray was about to propose. Kendra was overjoyed to be rescued and was eager to both rejoin the team and resume her old life, but Ray was hurt by what he perceived as a disregard of everything they had built together. He reluctantly gathered some of their belongings from their home and rejoined the team aboard the Waverider.
Together, the team traveled to Nanda Parbat in an effort to convince Sara to rejoin them. After two years with the League, however, Sara had once again become completely loyal to Ra's al Ghul and immediately turned over her former team to her master as soon as they arrived. With the team imprisoned and awaiting execution, Rip Hunter, who had studied the history of the League and its laws, requested a trial by combat. Kendra volunteered to fight for their freedom, much to Ray's dismay, and Ra's, in turn, elected Sara as his champion. Their duel was shortly interrupted, however, by Chronos, who had tracked the team to Nanda Parbat with the intention of finishing them off. Ra's freed his prisoners from their restraints and through the combined efforts of the team and the League, Chronos was subdued.
Leonard, having managed to escape the jump ship, arrived and revealed that the bounty hunter was actually Mick Rory; he had been found and conditioned by the Time Masters to be one of their operatives after Leonard had stranded him in the past. Ra's pardoned the team's death sentences for their help in defeating the intruder, and in addition, excused Sara from his service. The team, now whole again, was allowed to leave Nanda Parbat, and Mick was imprisoned aboard the Waverider. Finally given some reprieve, Kendra and Ray were able to discuss their relationship, and Ray confessed that he was afraid of losing Kendra after all they had been through. Kendra consoled him by telling him that for the first time in centuries, she was actually able to choose who she fell in love with and that she did not want to lose Ray, either. The couple reconciled and embraced, though not before Ray hid the engagement ring beneath his mattress.[29]
The Kasnia Conglomerate
With Mick in custody and the threat of Chronos neutralized, Rip Hunter took his team to the year 2147, where he hoped to stop Vandal's takeover of the Kasnia Conglomerate in an effort to slow down his rise to power. Upon arriving in the future, Ray learned that the Conglomerate employed robotic variations of his A.T.O.M. Exosuit in order to both keep the peace and subdue anyone found to be a violation of the law. Ray was appalled by this appropriation of his technology. While Rip and the other members of the team set out to kidnap Per Degaton, the young heir to the Conglomerate, Ray assumed the identity of a foreigner from Central City and was given a tour of the security facilities by Dr. Bryce. During the tour, Ray was startled to see an incarnation of his Exosuit on display alongside a bust of his brother, Sydney, who Bryce introduced as the founder of the robotics industry and her great-great-great-great grandfather. However, as Bryce referred to her ancestor as simply Dr. Palmer, Ray mistook the bust to be of his own image, and came to the incorrect conclusion that he must have had an illegitimate child in the 21st century in order for Bryce to have been born.
Though Ray wrestled with how to tell Kendra what he had learned, he eventually confided in her about his supposed child, and the couple reconciled some of the tension that had been plaguing their relationship since their return to the team. Vandal Savage meanwhile became aware of the presence of Rip and his team and advised Tor Degaton, Per's father, to assault the Waverider in an attempt to rescue the young heir. Unbeknownst to Vandal and Tor, Rip had taken Per outside of the Conglomerate aboard the jump ship, aiming to kill the boy before he could grow up and become a dictator; however, Rip found himself unable to murder a child, and so returned to the rest of the team with the intent of releasing Per back to his father. Rip and Per arrived in the midst of the battle with the Kasnian forces, while Ray attempted to disable the security robots. Ray was interrupted by Dr. Bryce while in the midst of shutting down the robots, and in convincing her to let him finish he revealed his true identity. Bryce, puzzled, explained that her ancestor was Sidney Palmer, after which Ray realized the mistake that he had made and that Bryce was in actuality his great-great-great-great-grandniece. Ray and the rest of the team were assured safe passage out of the Conglomerate in exchange for releasing Per, and together the group retreated back to the Waverider, with the knowledge that their actions in 2147 had in actuality sped up the events that they had been trying to prevent.[30]
The town of Salvation
After learning from a recently reformed Mick that the Time Masters had sent the Hunters after the members of his team, Rip decided to temporarily hide them within a time fragmentation that existed within the town of Salvation during 1871. Ray jumped at the chance to explore the Old West, as he had always loved Western films as a child. After donning era-appropriate clothing, Ray and the other members of the team (minus Rip himself) decided to explore the town, eventually ending up inside the local saloon. Martin and Leonard soon ended up in a skirmish with an outlaw over a game of cards; Leonard killed the man, causing the entire saloon to erupt in a barroom brawl. Jonah Hex, who had been observing the situation from his own table, eventually fired his weapon and quickly brought the fight to an end.
Outside the saloon, Hex questioned Ray and his teammates about what time period they were really from, and after the group learned of Hex's knowledge of time travel, they quickly took the bounty hunter aboard the Waverider to explain the events that had transpired to Rip. When Hex explained that their actions in the saloon would cause the deceased outlaw's gang, the Stillwaters, to raid Salvation in retaliation, Ray insisted on going with Hex to the local sheriff's office in order to assist in any way that he could. When Ray and Hex arrived, however, they found that the sheriff was abandoning his post. On his way out the door, the former sheriff stuck his badge in Ray's open hand, naming him the new sheriff of Salvation.
Ray, now determined to protect the town, met the Stillwater Gang at the entrance to Salvation when the outlaws returned for retribution. Ray had strategically placed Leonard with a rifle in an open window overlooking the road; when Ray refused to let the gang take whatever they wanted, Jeb Stillwater, the gang's leader, reached for his pistol, which Leonard immediately shot out of his hand. Ray proclaimed that he had sharpshooters surrounding the Stillwaters, and the gang begrudgingly rode off on their horses, temporarily defeated. Hex, knowing that the bandits would only return after Rip's team left Salvation, convinced Ray and the others to form a posse to ambush the Stillwater gang at their hideout. During the ensuing firefight, Ray and his allies captured Jeb Stillwater, though the gang managed to lasso and kidnap Jax as the group made their escape. In order to free Jax without releasing Stillwater, Rip chose to have a quick draw showdown at high noon with the gang's leader in the streets of Salvation. Rip easily dispatched of the outlaw, and Jax was released unharmed.
Sheriff Ray prepares to battle the Hunters.
After the bandits departed, however, the Hunters arrived in Salvation, and the standoff immediately devolved into a firefight between the mercenaries and Rip's team. With their combined powers and the assistance of Jonah Hex, the team managed to easily incapacitate them. Ray subsequently relinquished the title of sheriff and returned with his team to the Waverider.[31]
Omega Protocol
After the defeat of the Hunters, the Time Masters instructed one of their operatives, known as The Pilgrim, to initiate Omega Protocol. A punishment reserved for the worst of history's time-traveling criminals, Omega Protocol was a process in which the Pilgrim killed a past version of the offender, thus erasing their contemporary counterpart from existence. The Pilgrim began her assault on Rip Hunter's team, beginning with Mick Rory, who in her eyes was a traitor since he had left behind the title of Chronos. After failing to kill both Mick and Sara Lance, the Pilgrim attempted to kill Ray in 2014, in the time just prior to his becoming the Atom. Ray's past version was saved through the combined efforts of Rip Hunter and Firestorm, but the injuries he sustained during the fight were also inflicted on his future self.
In the midst of the battle, the contemporary Ray was rushed to the Waverider's infirmary due to his sudden wounds, where he finally proposed to Kendra with the knowledge that he may not survive. Kendra accepted, but after Ray's past self is rushed to the hospital, his contemporary counterpart recovered more quickly than expected, and she began to have doubts about their engagement. During the events of Salvation, Kendra had come into contact with one of her past lives, who had warned her that any relationship with a man other than Carter Hall only ended in tragedy. In addition, Kendra worried that she had only accepted Ray's proposal because of the life or death situation in which he had proposed. During a moment of reprieve from the Pilgrim's onslaught, Kendra sought advice from Sara and told her of her concerns, a conversation which Ray overheard.
After the rest of the team safely secured their past selves with Rip's adoptive mother, Ray confronted Kendra about what he had overheard, and she revealed to Ray the truth about what had happened in Salvation; she added that although she wanted to be with him, she believed as a result of what she had learned from her past life that they could not last together, a sentiment that Ray did not share. The Pilgrim, meanwhile, grew desperate and began kidnapping the team's friends and family, including Anna Loring. Through their combined powers and with the assistance of a young Rip Hunter, they overwhelmed her, reducing her body to a pile of ash. While Anna recovered from the ordeal in their quarters, Ray and Kendra discussed their own relationship in the corridor outside. Kendra revealed that following their confrontation with the Pilgrim, she had decided to choose her own future and that she wanted to be married to Ray. Overjoyed with the news, Ray embraced her in a passionate kiss.[32]
Duel with the Leviathan
The Atom fights the Leviathan.
Arriving in the year 2166 during the reign of Savage, Rip took Ray, Martin, and Jax to make contact with the resistance. Ray listened to Rip as he reminisced of his many attempts to save his wife and son. Ray and Rip went with the resistance to investigate an attack on one of their camps. Ray and Martin investigated a destroyed resistance camp and discovered Savage's superweapon was a giant robot named the Leviathan created by scientists of Savage. The Waverider sustained damage and was taken down by the robot. Rip was dejected and willing to just wait for the Leviathan's imminent attack. However, Ray convinced him to fight on saying that there was still a chance to save his family. The team then devised a new plan. Ray and Kendra kissed before going off to their respective battles against the Leviathan and Savage. Jax reconfigured Ray's suit so that it could become giant-sized. A giant Ray then battled with the Leviathan. After a fierce battle on the outskirts of London, Ray took a big swing to punch off the Leviathan's head and destroyed it.[33]
Losing Kendra
Using scans from Ray's exosuit during his battle, the team discovered that Savage's Leviathan robot was technologically at least a hundred years ahead of anything in 2166. Rip Hunter saw this as an opportunity to bring Savage before the Time Council for manipulating time. During the voyage to the Vanishing Point, Ray helped Kendra with getting Scythian to remember his past lives. However, after Scythian attacked and hurt Kendra, Ray went to Savage demanding him to free Scythian's mind. Savage compared himself to Ray since both them have loved Kendra but that Carter/Scythian had stood in the way their relationships with her. On his way back, Ray caught Kendra reciting Khufu's love poem to Scythian. He angrily walked away and told Kendra that he wasn't okay with being a placeholder for Carter and broke up with Kendra. He then went back to the brig. Savage tricked Ray into a fight, overpowering him and using his handprint to open the cell. Ray, Leonard, Mick, and Kendra battled Scythian and Savage. Savage incapacitated Ray but Kendra managed to awaken Scythian's powers and knocked out Savage. Later, Ray and Kendra talked; Ray concluded that even though their relationship was over, it showed that he was able to love again after Anna's death. After arriving at the Vanishing Point, soldiers working for the Time Masters boarded the timeship and captured the crew as they were in league with Savage the whole time.[34]
Defeating the Time Masters and Vandal Savage
In his jail cell, Ray could only watch as soldiers fetched Kendra from her cell and knocked her out with with a laser blast for attempting to escape. Later, Rip returned from his meeting with Zaman Druce and told them about the Oculus, the Time Masters' use of it to control their actions, and Ray's foreseen death. Martin and Rip were dejected about their situation, but Ray told them to have faith that Sara and Leonard would rescue them. Druce then came to the holding cell and ordered a soldier to kill them all. Leonard arrived, shot the soldier, and knocked out Druce, rescuing the captured team members. They regrouped in the Waverider where Ray suggested to destroy the Oculus to restore their free will. Ray and the team arrived outside the Oculus Wellspring and were promptly cornered by the Time Masters' soldiers. They were rescued by Jax's arrival from 2016 in the jump ship. They entered the Oculus chamber and Ray started disabling it. However, Rip realized that these events were the ones that Druce showed him that would lead to Ray's death. Ray accepted his fate, but Mick knocked him out and elected to sacrifice himself to save Ray, although Leonard would later sacrifice himself in Mick's place. Leonard eventually succeeded in destroying the Oculus and the Vanishing Point, sacrificing himself. Ray went to console Mick and they both agreed to finally stop Vandal Savage to avenge and honor Leonard.[35]
Rip returned the team to 2016, 5 months after they left and they went their separate ways. Ray tracked down Mick and joined in a robbery as the getaway driver. Ray suggested that Leonard wanted them to be partners and they both agreed to finish Rip's mission. Ray and Mick returned to the site in Star City where Rip dropped them off running into the other Legends who also wanted to finish the mission. Martin and Ray fabricated a time beacon successfully summoning the Waverider. The team discovered a note in Sgt. Rock's helmet with a note from Kendra to go to Saint-Lô, France, 1944. Gideon located Savage and the team fought him and located his time ship. They rescued Scythian but Kendra was recaptured during the escape. After Martin deduced Savage's plan, Ray and Mick went to 1958 to kill Savage and destroy the meteorite there. Ray fought off a manhawk while Mick fought and burned Savage to death. Ray then shrunk the meteorite into a minuscule size rendering it's explosion harmless. Ray and Mick rendezvoused with the rest of the team in 2021 and discovered Savage had been killed by Kendra. However, the team couldn't stop the third meteorite due to the radiation buildup so Rip elected to fly the Waverider with the meteorite into the sun. After the mission is over, Ray and Rip accompanied Mick to 2013 to visit an alive Leonard. In 2016, the team prepared to leave when a beaten up future Waverider crash landed with Rex Tyler telling them not to get on the Waverider.[36]
Protecting the timeline
During a mission to protect the King of France in 1637, Ray shrunk down to secretly monitor King Louis XIII. After saving the king, Gideon detected a time quake originating from New York City 1942, so the team readied itself to prevent New York from getting nuked by the Nazis. Ray found Sara in the library and offered his help to Sara in dealing with her grief over Laurel's death. Ray and Martin then looked over the timeline and found that the Allied forces still won the war but it lasted for over two more years than it originally did with millions of added casualties. They then saw that around the time of the bombing Albert Einstein had vanished and guessed they were connected. They then decided to find Einstein before the Nazis forced him to build them an atomic bomb. They arrived in New York and Ray followed Sara when she tried to go after Damien Darhk. He understood Sara's motivation but told her to hold out when they noticed that Darhk was meeting with Nazis and was supplying them Uranium for their atomic bomb. Later, Ray revealed Sara's side mission to the rest of the team. Sara argued back that without his suit, Ray was only a self-righteous rich guy. Ray brushed it off and told the team that his suit can track the radiation from Darhk's Uranium traces. They tracked Darhk to the Garrett Shipyard and engaged him and his Nazi allies. They rescued Mileva Maric, but Ray's suit could not neutralize the bomb's radiation so they retreated. After securing the Einsteins with the authorities, the team boarded the Waverider and went underwater to try and find the Nazi submarine before they used the bomb. It was ill-suited for underwater combat but Ray did manage to use the ship's weapons to cripple the submarine. However, it managed to fire the atomic bomb in a torpedo and Rip moved to stop it by using the Waverider to intercept it. To protect the team, he activated a last-ditch measure called the Time Scatter.[37]
Ray fights off a dinosaur while trapped in 70 million BC
Due to the time scatter, Ray was sent back in time to 70 million BC.[37] He spent and survived there for six months and got on the bad side of a female T-Rex he christened Gertrude when he stole one of her eggs to eat.[38] One day, he was pursued by Gertrude there until Nate Heywood and Mick rescued him and returned him to the Waverider so that they could find the rest of the team. After all of the Legends were back on the Waverider, Gideon played Rip's final message to them. The Legends then returned to 1942 to ensure that the Einsteins couldn't be put in danger again. Sara apologized to Ray for her harsh words to him and he assured her that they would get justice for Laurel. They all started to head back for the ship but they were then confronted by the Justice Society of America.[37]
Ray and his team in the JSA's Headquarters.
The Legends tried to explain their mission to the JSA but they were not convinced and a battle ensued. The JSA easily defeated the Legends and had them locked up at the JSA headquarters. They questioned the Legends before letting them go and told them to leave 1942. Shortly after, Nate discovered that the JSA was going to die on their next mission so they all returned to 1942. They infiltrated a Nazi nightclub in Paris and learned of Baron Krieger's plan. However, a Nazi general demanded Ray salute to Adolf Hitler but Ray refused and a fight broke out. The JSA arrived and Stargirl knocked out the Nazi patrons with her staff. The JSA then agreed to work with the Legends to stop Krieger and retrieve the Askaran Amulet but Amaya Jiwe told off Ray for blowing her cover and that he wasn't a real hero. Ray and Amaya went after Krieger but Krieger used a sample of Eobard's serum to transform himself into a monster. He knocked out Ray and Amaya and took them to an underground bunker. While Amaya was ready to accept death, Ray wasn't willing to give up and convinced Krieger to let Ray replicate the super-serum. Ray used the opportunity to take out the guards with a microscope. Ray retrieved his suit and rendezvoused with the rest of the team. He then used modified serum to save Nate from his injuries. After the successful mission, Amaya apologized for dismissing Ray as a hero.[39]
Losing the A.T.O.M. suit
Ray and Stein were talking about Ray's condition due to him taking the serum and it seemed that he was stable. The two of them were knocked out by Amaya who had stowed away to kill Rory as she thought he killed Rex Tyler. When Nate had gotten a power to have his body turn to steel, Sara tasked Ray with the job of helping him hone his powers. Ray believed that stimulus is what was needed so he and Nate tried sparring in the cargo bay. The two got carried away and ended up blowing a hole in the hull that sucked the two of them into the Temporal Zone and stranded them in Feudal Japan. Ray was then captured by samurai and taken to the Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. He confiscated Ray's suit believing it to be armor for himself. He was then locked up though was rescued by Sara, Amaya, and Rory.[40]
However, the Shogun had learned how to use Ray's suit and the team realized that they had to stop him before he used it to conquer all of Japan. Since Nate was the only one that could stand up to it, with his new powers, Ray had to teach him how. Nate was a little nervous as he still couldn't hone in his powers and his uncertainty made Ray angry as he had to teach him how to destroy the ATOM suit despite the money, time, and effort to master shrinking he put into it. He claimed that it was the only thing that truly made him a hero which made Nate speechless. Ichiro noticed Ray's discomfort and told him that armor was something that could be replaced but the man who wore it couldn't be. It was the person who wore the armor that gave it meaning.
Ray fighting against his ATOM suit worn by Tokugawa.
To stand up to Tokugawa he gave him his son's armor and sword to wield in the battle against him. Thanks to his understanding of his suit, Ray was able to cripple Tokugawa but he managed to overpower Ray. Thanks to the arrival of Masako and Nate, Tokugawa was defeated when the suit overloaded and exploded. Ray was sad to see his suit destroyed but happy to see that it wouldn't be misused. He apologized to Ichiro for the armor being damaged but he told Ray that it served its purpose to be damaged instead of the owner. After taking a better look at the sword, Ray asked for their family name and it was revealed to be Yamashiro.[40]
When the Legends received a distress call from a time traveler that crashed in the 1860s during the American Civil War, Ray had to stay aboard the ship as he was crippled due to not having the suit. When Rory was brought back to the ship, infected by a zombie virus, Ray and Stein had to work in finding a cure. However, Rory escaped and Ray had to go off and work on the cure and left Stein to track him down. Stein was scared as he had an innate fear of zombies and Ray sternly told him to pull himself together if they were going to get out of this alive. When Rory was cured, he decided to give Ray Snart's Cold Gun so that he could feel like a vital part of the team again.[41]
Ray using the Cold Gun alongside Mick and his Heat Gun before accidentally crossing streams.
Ray spent some time training with the Cold Gun though he said that he might be able to tweak it and even improve it though Rory told him that there was nothing wrong with it. Rory started to spend more time with Ray and tried to help teach him how to be like Snart, cold and calculating. When there was an aberration detected in 1987 at the White House, Ray and Rory went as part of a tour but separated away to find the cause of the aberration. Ray found Reagan's jelly beans and he wanted to try some but he didn't think it was allowed. Rory told him that he didn't play by the rules anymore and Ray went and stole some. They then found Damien Darhk and reported it to the team. When Sara went off to try and kill Darhk to avenge her sister, Ray and Rory arrived to try and stop her. The Secret Service showed up and Ray voted to stay and fight. He tried using the Cold Gun but accidentally crossed the stream with Rory's Heat Gun which disabled both weapons. Ray and Mick were thrown back and it looked like the Secret Service would succeed in taking them into custody. Luckily, Firestorm arrived to help get them away before they could be arrested.[42]
Ray went on a stakeout with Rory as he kept trying to emulate Snart's personality but Rory told him that he wasn't Snart so that he should stop trying to be. He should just be himself. When Stein's younger self was stabbed by Damien Darhk, he and Rory rushed over to bring him back to the Waverider. In the medical bay, Ray talked with Stein about how he didn't recognize who his younger self was. Ray said that anyone would feel that way about their younger selves and that he felt that way about his current self. He claimed that he didn't know who he was. When the team infiltrated the White House to stop Darhk making a deal, he revealed that he planted a bomb up at the peace dinner. Ray went with Rory to find and disarm it. Ray couldn't find a way to disarm it but knew a way to disable it using components from the Cold Gun. He managed to fry the bomb just a second before it could explode.[42]
When Ray found that he was returning to the Old West when they detected an aberration, he was excited due to their last trip to the period. The Legends learned that the aberration was Quentin Turnbull was going to forge his own country in place of the United States by using dwarf star alloy to destroy the Continental Railroad and cut off the U.S. military from the west. Allied again with Jonah Hex they moved to stop the train carrying the alloy before it could detonate. Nate, using his new Steel abilities, managed to stop the train and Ray got his hands on the dwarf star. He found that there was enough left for him to forge over a dozen ATOM suits. Ray managed to re-create his suit but used the remaining dwarf star to forge Nate his own metallic suit.[43]
Fighting the Dominators
The Legends were then called back to Central City in 2016 when Barry Allen called them for help with the threat of an invasion by the Dominators. Ray and his team re-met with Team Flash, Team Arrow and met Supergirl from Earth-38. Ray talks with Cisco about his new suit and Barry goes to see Ray and asked him where Snart was, however, Ray told him that Snart had sacrificed himself to save the Legends and that he had died as a hero but Barry corrected him to say he died as a Legend. They all trained against Supergirl to help prepare against the future fight. When the President had been taken, they were all ready to move, but before they did Barry confessed about going back in time and creating Flashpoint. Ray was among those idiots that were selfishly angry at Barry for taking it upon himself to change the past for his own gain especially given all the work the Legends had done to keep history safe. Supergirl led them off to try and save the President when the Dominators ambushed them and put them under mind-control. Ray along with the others attacked both Oliver and Barry though the arrival of Wally West helped stop them from destroying their friends. After Barry tricked Supergirl into destroying the mind control device, their minds all returned to normal. The team then forgave Barry for changing history as they realized that any of them would've done the same in his position. Yet, a moment later, Ray along with Oliver, Diggle, Thea, and Sara was taken by the Dominators.[44]
Captured aboard their ship, they were all placed in some kind of mental fantasy where their lives were relatively normal ones. Ray was a friend to the Queen family and was invited to Oliver's wedding to Laurel when he bumped into Sara and seemed to spark some memories of being teammates aboard the Waverider. When Oliver realized what was going on, he gathered Ray and the others to try and find some way to escape the fantasy. They confronted enemies of theirs from the past and fought their way through them before they found their way out of the hallucination and woke up to find they were on a spaceship, in outer space. They managed to get to an escape ship and tried to outrun the Dominators pursuing them when they were saved by the Waverider. Nate told them that Cisco, Felicity, and Oliver's new recruits managed to find where they were. They then realized that the reason they were taken by the Dominators was so that they could probe their minds to find intel on meta-humans. They then went to Gideon to learn that the Dominators were working on a weapon and the spaceship they were on was now heading for Earth.[45]
Ray with the other heroes as they face the Dominators.
Ray went with Oliver and Barry to meet with the President, but it was revealed to be a setup by Agent Smith to try and capture Barry to trade him to the Dominators for safety, in response for creating Flashpoint. They all fought off the agents and returned to Central City. Barry told all of them that he decided to give himself up but Ray and the others told him that they wouldn't allow him to do that and they were willing to fight and stop the Dominators their way. When the attack began, Ray joined the other heroes as the met the Dominators head-on. They fought them off as long as they could until Felicity activated a nano-weapon that brought them great pain and forced them to retreat. With Earth saved, all the heroes went back to Central City to celebrate and then Ray along with the other Legends returned back to their mission.[46]
The Legion of Doom
Nate informs Ray that he let Eliot Ness walk off with officers controlled by Al Capone
When the Legends found an aberration in 1927, they went to Chicago where Ray and Nate found Eliot Ness. Ray went to Ness and told him that he was there to escort him to police headquarters, two officers arrived and told them that they had been sent to escort him. Ray let Ness go with them but learned from Nate that the officers were likely sent by Al Capone to bring Ness to him so that they could throw him in the river. The Legends managed to make it to the docks and save Eliot Ness in time though he was unconscious. Ray and Nate went to the police station to pose as Ness and a federal agent to keep history back on track while the others went undercover at Capone's nightclub. When Ray and Nate arrived with the police, they learned that Darhk and the speedster they were after had kidnapped Sara and Stein. They then went to Capone's office where they managed to find his ledger and their friends, narrowly escaping being killed by Capone and his men until Nate jumped in front of Ray with his powers. However, as the two were working on Ray's new Exosuit, Jax came running in and revealed that Stein was really their speedster in disguise, who was after the medallion they kept Darhk from getting back in 1987. Ray managed to save Jax from getting killed by the speedster but he managed to get away. They then learned that Malcolm Merlyn left with the medallion in return for giving Sara Stein's location. They managed to save him before Capone threw him into the river. Ray and Nate then gave Ness Capone's ledger and set history back on course.[47]
Ray and Amaya were woken up by Nate's noise in the library as he was trying to unravel the mystery of the medallion. Nate then officially dubbed their enemy trio as the Legion of Doom which Ray seemed to like. They then learned that the medallion was able to help locate the Spear of Destiny which had the power to reshape reality itself. When they found signs that the Legion was in 1967 Los Angeles, they went off and found Rip Hunter who was going by the name Phil and was working on a film set. Unfortunately, their battle with Darhk and Merlyn to get him back scared George Lucas and he decided to quit film school. This created an aberration which made Ray start to forget his scientific knowledge as it was through Lucas' film Star Wars that inspired him to become an inventor and instead made him a surgeon. They did manage to find and rescue Rip but learned that he didn't have the spear, George Lucas did. He along with Nate and Amaya tried to find Lucas to get the spear and convince him to go back to film school but were jumped by Darhk and Merlyn. Ray found that his suit was gone and Nate didn't have his powers anymore since Ray hadn't invented them anymore.[4]
Ray and his team facing against the Legion of Doom.
When they learned that the spear had been thrown away, they all went to the dump where Ray, Nate, Amaya and Lucas had to dig through the trash to find it. The two former assassins began the trash compactor to motivate them to look faster. Ray and Nate told Lucas that he had to go back to film school or they wouldn't have their powers anymore. They found the spear but knew that if they gave it up they would be killed anyway. George Lucas then admitted that what he really wanted to do with his life was direct and it corrected the aberration giving Ray his suit back and Nate back his powers. Using them, they were able to escape and overpower Darhk and Merlyn as well as take the medallion back from them. It looked like they would stop them but their speedster enemy arrived and tipped the scales back in the Legion's favor. Rip then appeared, seemingly his old self again, but it was quickly revealed to be an act to try and distract the Legion. In the chaos, the Legends watched as Rip was captured. That night, Ray along with Nate and Amaya decided to have a movie night with George Lucas' films.[4]
Ray worked with the other Legends to learn more about their new speedster enemy. When Stein revealed that he had a daughter that was a time aberration, he jumped at the chance of working with her when she had an idea of linking the medallion data with Gideon. He met Lily Stein and together they succeeded in networking the two and celebrated with some champagne. However, Mick accidentally revealed that that Lily was an aberration and Ray suggested to her that she should talk to her father.[48]
Ray was in his room when he found droppings from a rat which he guessed had stowed away because of Mick's sloppy eating habits. When there was a massive time quake, he quickly found Nate and Amaya as Gideon told them that it was due to George Washington getting killed before he could lead the American army across the Delaware in 1776. Ray miniaturized himself to stealthily cover the team when they found Washington. Rip Hunter, now with the Legion, released an EMP wave that shut down Ray's suit and left him shrunk. He was taken to the Waverider where he worked to try and fix Gideon's data drive. On his way there, he ran into the rat that he had found and it chased him to the drive. When power was restored, he was able to re-activate Gideon. When his suit was repaired, he went back to normal size and celebrated Christmas with the rest of the team. He also managed to capture the rat and he gave it to Rory as a Christmas present.[49]
Gideon was able to use Lily's algorithm to locate a piece of the spear in the year 3000. However, when the team arrived, the spear had already been stolen by Rip and he had murdered Dr. Mid-Nite. Shortly afterwards, Gideon again located another spear fragment in 507 A.D. Britannia. Ray was excited to be in Brittania as he loved Arthurian lore though Nate told him that his expectations were way off base. Ray, Nate, Jax, Amaya and Sara went through the woods towards the spear's location while Nate kept correcting them on their views of medieval England, especially their misconceptions about knights in armor, just as knights in armor arrived to surround them. Ray immediately spoke to try and explain themselves and was ecstatic to see that they were Knights of King Arthur's Camelot. The leader then revealed herself as Guinevere and agreed to escort them to the castle. In the castle, they found King Arthur sitting with his other Knights of the Round Table. He explained that a dark knight was recently abducting knights from his kingdom and Ray quickly assured the king that they weren't their enemies. Arthur was still not sure so he called for Merlin to see if they were truly trustworthy. Ray and the others were shocked to find that Merlin was really Stargirl.[3]
Ray was feasting with the others in the castle and he quickly found Sir Galahad and went over to introduce himself. Ray told Galahad that he was a big fan of the knight thought it meant that he made wind. He quickly explained himself better and Galahad told him that he was just a humble servant and was happy to serve an inspiration like Arthur which Ray quickly agreed the king was. When the king returned, it appeared that he captured the knight that was terrorizing the kingdom but it was revealed that it was a trick by both Damien Darhk and Rip. Rip was using mind control tech to have Arthur be their puppet and demanded that they get Stargirl's fragment of the spear. A fight broke out which had Arthur kill Galahad while Darhk demanded that they surrender the spear or they would unleash a brainwashed army to destroy Camelot. Ray mourned Galahad's death and took his sword. When Guinevere gathered the knights together to stand against the Legion, Ray was present for her inspirational speech and moved to join them for battle. Nate found him as he took Galahad's sword and infused it with ionic energy from his suit to make it stronger and even light up. Nate told him that the team had the spear fragment and were leaving though Ray wanted to stay and fight for the kingdom as it meant so much to him when he was a child. Nate warned Ray that he checked his manuscripts and saw one of Ray's funeral but Ray accepted it all being part of what it was to be a true legend.[3]
Ray fighting as a knight of Camelot.
Guinevere took Galahad's sword and officially knight Ray as Sir Raymond of the Palms. The Legion met the knights on the battlefield at dawn and the two sides clashed in brutal combat. Ray fought beside Stargirl as Nate, Amaya, and Sara arrived to help. When Ray got to Nate, he asked if he came to fight for an imaginary kingdom after all but Nate told him he came to fight for his friend. When Stein and Rory managed to cut off the Legion's control of the army, he watched as all of the men were freed including Arthur. He then watched as Arthur unhorsed Rip and helped capture him. However, Darhk rode his horse from the battlefield and tried to escape. Ray went off and pursued him, ignoring Nate's cries to keep him back. Ray rode to find Darhk's abandoned horse and Darhk emerged from his spot and told him that he was a glorified nerd, not a knight. However, Ray wasn't intimidated and was ready to fight against him.
Ray fighting against Damien Darhk.
The two crossed swords and Ray was able to use his ionic charged sword to destroy Darhk's sword and held him at sword point. Darhk quickly admitted defeat before he pulled out a hidden blaster and shot him. Nate caught up to him and found him on the ground, unconscious and seemingly dead, and became scared that the manuscript's prediction had come true. Ray then woke up and revealed that he was still okay as he had worn a piece of his Exosuit under his armor for further protection. Guinevere told Ray that he would always be welcomed at the Round Table and he and Sara left but not before he told Sara that every good legend ended with a kiss. Ray moved aside as she went to kiss the queen goodbye. When Ray made it back to the Waverider, Nate asked if he wanted to see how he was remembered in the story of Camelot but Ray said he would rather make his future along as he went. Nate then looked to see that Ray now had a solid place in the legend.[3]
Ray was on the bridge when Rip had managed to cause the ship to begin locking down and then later initiate self-destruct. Jax managed to reboot Gideon but the Waverider ended up crash landing in the same time that Ray had been stranded when the Time Scatter was initiated. Gideon explained that when she was rebooted, she took them to the oldest time that was in her logs which was his time. They all wanted to leave but couldn't as a vital part of the ship broke off in the crash. Ray volunteered as he knew the area and took along Nate and Amaya. They found out that the part landed in a place that Ray knew belonged to the T-Rex Gertrude that he stole eggs from. Gertrude picked up his scent and tried to go after him. He took the others to the hut where he had stayed when he was there and when they found his dolls, he explained that he had been lonely. He left to catch something to eat and loudly announced his return back to the hut, breaking a moment between Nate and Amaya. Later that night, Ray quietly told Nate that he interrupted them on purpose and told Nate he couldn't be with Amaya as it would endanger the existence of her granddaughter. He told him that Amaya has a destiny, unlike them, and will eventually have to go back to 1942 and to her village. He also told Nate of the fate of her village and he wanted to tell her but Ray told him that he couldn't. The following day, they found the part and it was in Gertrude's nest. They managed to sneak in and grab it but Gertrude caught up with them. He and Nate were prepared to fight but Amaya invoked her totem and calmed Gertrude and the dinosaur left them in peace. Ray then reinstalled the part and he quickly apologized to Nate for trying to steer Nate away from Amaya but Nate told him that he was right and couldn't be with Amaya. He then stood with the team when Rip, with his old self fully restored, met with the team. Ray was happy to have the old Rip back again and he revealed that he knew where the last fragment of the spear was.[38]
The Legends managed to track down Commander Steel to NASA in 1970 where he was a mission control supervisor overseeing the Apollo-13. Ray went with Rip and quickly found Henry Heywood at a press conference and Ray deduced that he must be nervous due to the crisis that Apollo-13 suffered when its oxygen tank exploded. He then spotted them and he then quickly punched Rip on sight. Ray then nervously greeted the man after Rip was taken away. He asked Henry why he punched Rip and he told him that it was between the two of them. When the others joined them, Henry revealed that his fragment of the spear was safely in Neil Armstrong's flag on the moon. When they learned that the shuttle was suffering no problems, they realized that history had been changed.
Ray fighting Eobard Thawne aboard the Apollo-13 space shuttle.
Ray went aboard the Waverider with the others to check out the shuttle and get the spear fragment when they saw that it was completely off course and was heading for the moon. Sara had Ray shrink down and head for the shuttle to find out what was going on. He flew over and got inside to find that two of the astronauts were unconscious and Eobard Thawne was there. He moved to follow him but was quickly spotted by the speedster. They went into an all-out brawl and though Thawne couldn't use his speed, he managed to damage his suit's thruster system. Ray managed to blast Thawne and then tied him up. The part of the shuttle they were in separated and crash-landed on the moon and Ray told them that he would need a pickup as he couldn't fly back by his suit or the shuttle.
Ray retrieving the last fragment of the spear from the moon.
He excitedly went over to Armstrong's flag and retrieved the spear fragment but the team told him that the Waverider had been damaged by meteors and couldn't pick him up.
Ray realized that he would have to repair the shuttle by using the dwarf star in his suit to power it. Thawne quickly pointed out that if Ray didn't do it correctly then it would make the shuttle explode mid launch. He argued that fixing the shuttle would require two people to help repair it. Thawne offered an alliance and temporary truce which Ray grudgingly accepted. They moved to repair the shuttle and Thawne told him that it was nice to actually work with another scientist again and that they had more in common than he would think as they were both scientists that chased after the impossible.
Ray being told by Thawne that they are a lot alike.
Ray disregarded his words and Thawne said that it was easy for Ray to think of him as a monster but he had met history's greatest monsters and he argued that he wasn't one of them. Ray disagreed as Thawne killed Barry's mother twice, Rex Tyler and brainwashed Rip so that he would turn into a killer. Ray claimed that he used his science and suit to try and help people but Thawne told him that he really was the ATOM because he wasn't satisfied with his small life and there was no shame to try to be greater. Ray asked if that was why he wanted the spear for but Thawne said that what he wanted was to live. They finished repairing the shuttle and managed to successfully take off and make it to the Waverider.
Ray moved to put Thawne into their ship's brig before going to the bridge with the others. They saw that they needed to re-enter Earth's atmosphere without the help of Gideon and if they didn't angle themselves correctly then they would either burn up or get bounced off for the sun's orbit. Ray knew that Thawne would know the right angle and Thawne easily told him it was 38 degrees. The team was having doubts about trusting Thawne's answer and Ray believed that Thawne was telling them the truth. Sara agreed and decided to angle the ship to 38 degrees.
Ray intercepting Thawne as he tries to make his escape.
To get the ship to be angled, Henry Heywood had to sacrifice himself to open the cargo bay doors which sucked him off into the atmosphere. When they landed, Thawne then phased out of his cell but Ray was waiting for him with a speedster weapon as he knew he would try that. Ray guessed that Thawne was a time remnant and was being chased by something trying to correct the abnormality that he was. Thawne's watch alerted him and Ray guessed that Thawne would have to leave without searching the ship for the fragment. Thawne smirked at him before he assured him that they would meet again before he sped off.
Fight for reality
With all the fragments found, the team knew they had to try and get the Legion's fragments before they tried to make a move for theirs. Rip revealed that the Legion had been operating from the Vanishing Point and they set course for the destroyed outpost of the Time Masters. Ray shrunk down and went through the base and found Thawne in his lair. He didn't seem to realize they were there and kept his eye on him until the rest of the team found the fragments and got them. When the fragments were placed together, they watched as they melded together and the spear became whole. Rip then warned them that the spear would try and tempt them into using it by playing on their desires, dreams, and regrets. Mick tried to destroy it in front of them with his Heat Gun but didn't affect it at all. However, it revealed a message that Nate was able to translate into revealing that the Blood of Christ created it and could also destroy it. Since the team couldn't go to the crucifixion to preserve the timeline, they went to find the only person on Earth with leads on where Sir Gawain had retrieved and hid the blood of Christ in his quest, J.R.R. Tolkien.
He was serving as an officer in World War I and the team went to France in 1916 to find him. When they retrieved the famous author, he revealed that the best place to find answers was in Sir Gawain's resting site at a cathedral. Ray went with most of the team to the cathedral where they found the bones of Gawain. However, they were surprised by the sudden return of Leonard Snart, who had been recruited by the Legion. They had gone back in time to before Snart joined the Legends and told him of his fate and he agreed to join them to change his future. Darhk also appeared with a platoon of World War I German soldiers who attacked them. They were then forced to flee and head back to the ship. After Nate and Tolkien found the location of the blood, which was in the center of the battlefield, the team decided to get the two warring sides to call a temporary ceasefire. They managed to succeed and get to the blood but through Snart, Rory decided to join the Legion and gave the spear over to them. The Legion then used its power to rewrite reality.
Ray was made into a janitor at S.T.A.R. Labs and had no memory of his past life. He was cleaning some glass from Stein's dropped picture frame at the reactor lab though he didn't recognize him. However, he had a sense that things weren't quite right and, on instinct, created a device which would help restore a person's proper memories. He was then found by Nate and Rory, who had decided to try and make things right, for help. Nate was skeptical that Ray could help them until he showed them the device he made. Rory then used it on Nate and found that it worked when Nate regained his memories and punched Rory for his betrayal. Rory then used it on Ray and he also punched Rory immediately for his betrayal and for him getting stuck cleaning an obscene amount of dirty toilets. They were then found by Sara and Amaya who had been altered to now be loyal henchmen for Damien Darhk. Nate and Ray tried to get through to them but it didn't seem to work to stop them at all. In the struggle, Sara was hit with Ray's device which made her regain her old self as Amaya ran away.
Sara had then gone off to get back Amaya and also brought back Jax and they learned that Thawne was building a new reactor which he would use to destroy the spear. They then realized that if the spear was destroyed then they couldn't put reality back to normal. The team then headed off for the reactor, minus Rory as none of them felt that they could trust him after what he had done. They found Stein at the reactor but he couldn't snap back to his former self and he quickly sounded a silent alarm to alert Thawne that they were in the lab.
Ray and his team are confronted by Thawne at his thermal reactor
Thawne had the spear in his possession and after his security surrounded the team, he was moving to throw the spear into the reactor and destroy it in front of them. However, the rest of the Legion, including Rory, arrived to stop him as they planned to keep the spear and use it to erase Thawne. A fight then broke out which had the spear constantly changing hands until it ended up in Rory's. Rory mentally debated on who should have the spear and he finally decided to give it to Amaya to use and repair what had happened. Before she could repair reality, the team watched in horror as she was killed by Snart's Cold Gun. Thawne then snatched the spear and destroyed it in front of them all. The Legends were ready to fight Thawne with everything they had but Thawne felt that them being stuck in this reality and with no one ever to believe them of how they were almost able to become Legends was a better punishment than death. Ray was with the others as they felt there was nothing else to do but Sara came up with an idea: to go back in time to when they lost the spear to the Legion and make sure that they never get it.
The team had to find the Waverider first which had come to them in a miniature state. Rip told the team that Thawne had used Ray's ATOM suit to shrink it and it could be used to enlarge it again. Ray guessed that Thawne had it in Star Labs and they broke into the complex to look for it. He and Jax found it in his tech room and Ray immediately was happy to see it and even gave it a kiss to Jax's discomfort. Ray put the suit on just as Damien Darhk stumbled upon them. Ray had enough time to fire a plasma blast at Darhk's guard before Darhk held him and Jax in a mystic grip. Rip distracted Darhk with the Waverider's miniature weapons before Rory came and knocked him out from behind freeing the two of them. Ray then used his suit to return the Waverider to its normal size and they escaped an alternate reality and headed back for 1914. Rip warned them that they couldn't allow themselves to be seen by their past selves or it could be disastrous. They planned to get to the blood of Christ, now that they knew where it was buried, and leave it for their past selves to find when they go to the church. Ray then asked what would happen to them if they succeeded and they realized that they would disappear as they wouldn't exist if the Legion used the spear in the first place as they were now an aberration.
Ray is killed by Eobard Thawne
Ray used his suit to go to the battlefield and got the blood from where it was buried but it was taken from him by Thawne. Ray demanded the blood to be given back to him but Thawne went and crushed the vial in his hand. The speedster then said that he had been told to just erase the Legends the entire time and felt that he should finally follow that advice. The next thing Ray knew, Thawne sped over to him and punched through his chest and ripped out his heart. Ray took a moment to gasp out in horror before he collapsed on the ground, dead. His friends mourned him but Rip reminded them that Ray's present self is still alive and he could be saved if they succeeded.
The Legends did succeed, and Eobard was killed by Hunter Zolomon, erasing his death and Amaya's deaths. They went back on to the Waverider, and Rip left the team shortly after, claiming there was nothing left for him to teach his team about time travel. After he left, a time storm hit the ship, due to their interacting with their past selves, and they crash-landed in Los Angeles, however, when they arrived, they found themselves surrounded by futuristic buildings and dinosaurs.
Temporary retirement
As the Legends tried to figure out how to fix the now disheveled timeline, they were nearly attacked by a dinosaur only for it to run into a portal leading back to its own time period. Various portals soon opened up with Rip himself stepping out of one to explain to the group that their services were no longer needed as Rip revealed to them that in the time that he had left (15 minutes for the team; 5 years for him) that he had established the Time Bureau, a more organized and professional organization able to fix anachronisms without the extra damage the Legends usually caused and relieved them of their duties along with the Waverider. Ray decided to settle down in Silicon Valley revealing to the public that he was alive power with his reputation damage supposedly post-mortem. Ray started working for Upswiped a tech company. He was unhappy seeing he got demoted in life itself.
When Sara contacted Nate and him about Mick running into Julius Caesar in Aruba, they agreed to find the Time Bureau to see about returning to their old time traveling lives. The three of them found the bureau but were greeted with hostility when they arrived. Rip arrived to quell the hostility, but Nate quickly grabbed him and angrily demanded that Rip tell him if he was the one to convince Amaya to return to 1942. He told him that it was Amaya who came to him and asked to return.
Shortly after, they were kicked out of the Time Bureau headquarters after Mick caused chaos by picking a fight with who he thought was Julius Caesar, but in reality was a tourist. After witnessing Mick force out a Roman Aereus from a vending machine, they realized that he was telling the truth about seeing Caesar. With this in mind, they stole the Waverider and reunited the Legends, sans Amaya, whom Nate refused to see.
After traveling to Aruba and capturing Caesar, the Legends made the decision to return to 1942 on their own. However, when Nate took a selfie with Caesar, he inadvertently allowed Caesar to steal his history book on Rome, allowing Caesar to learn about the future and allowing him to conquer the entire world. The Time Bureau arrived before the Legends could act, however, and attempted to take over the operation only for Agent Sharpe to be captured and the operation to end in abject failure. After some persuasion, Rip allowed Ray and the Legends to finish the job, and Nate and Ray retrieved the book successfully: thereby setting history back on its proper course.
Return to time travel
After Nate, Ray and Jax reverse engineered stolen Time Bureau technology to track anachronisms, the Legends settled on a Level One anachronism in 1870 Wisconsin, specifically P.T. Barnum's fledgling circus. After some digging, Nate, Jax and Ray found the anachronism, which turned out to be a sabertooth tiger. Upon attempting to contain it, however, they inadvertently enlarged the tiger and allowed it to escape its enclosure. Knowing that none of the Legends had handled animals, Sara sought out Amaya, much to Nate's displeasure.[citation needed]
Ray and Jax eventually accompanied a frustrated Nate to a nearby bar for drinks, during which Nate revealed his powers to P.T. Barnum in a bar fight. When asked by P.T. Barnum regarding his abilities, a drunken Nate revealed the abilities of everyone presented he said Ray could shrink. Ray protested and said he couldn't do it naturally without his suit, but Barnum kidnapped him and Jax. They were forced to dress as conjoined mixed racial twins. When the crowd began to lose interest in the performance, Barnum coerced Nate into "steeling up" by first threatening him, then Amaya. Barnum then shot Nate multiple times despite Nate's protests, angering Amaya to the point where she attacked Barnum, driving him out of the tent. This distraction allowed Ray along with Jax to be free. After that Ray made his way back to the Waverider, where Amaya revealed to the Legends her lack of control over her powers. Ray along with the rest of them promised to help her.
Ray as a pig is presented to the Department of Defense.
The second fugitive that the Legends faced after defeating the demon Mallus was found in Salem. Ray, Sara, and Zari went into town to find the fugitive, and their search eventually led them to Prudence Hawthorne, a teenage girl whose mother had been accused of witchcraft. Fetching John Constantine and Mick from the Waverider, the Legends followed Prudence into a remote forest, where they found Prudence and a growing cloud of sparkly fog. John demanded for the wicked spirit to show itself, but that "spirit" turned out to be Prudence's Fairy Godmother, who had escaped from Mallus' realm and been spit out into the timeline of Salem. The Godmother introduced herself and was about to sing a song until they cut her off and brought her and Prudence onto the ship. Closed in one of the rooms, Prudence worried about her mother, eventually using her Godmother's magic to unlock the door and escape. Ray and Mick moved to intercept them, but Prudence yelled at them to move, calling them swine. The Godmother turned both men into pigs, as well as removing John's mouth from his face before sweeping past them and exiting the ship. Just then, Nate arrived, having been sent by Ava Sharpe to find evidence of magic existing to help her receive the funds she needed to help the Legends with the fugitives. Nate listened as Ray explained (in pig language) the situation, replying that he could use Ray's help at the Time Bureau. Ray agreed to go but made sure that Nate would carry him there. Nate brought Ray forward and raised him in the air, but nothing happened. Nate tried again several times, pleading Ray to turn back into a human. Eventually, after a heartfelt conversation with Zari, Prudence released the Fairy Godmother, undoing all the spells she had cast but causing Ray to suddenly turn back into a naked human. Nate revealed his powers and caught Ray, whom he introduced to his father. Ray's transformation and Nate's powers would end up being enough to convince Hank to give Ava the $4.2 billion she needed for her new magic department.[50]
Later, after getting new clothes, Ray cheerfully met up with Nate, celebrating his "non-cloven digits" and opening up a time courier portal back to the Waverider. Ray gestured Nate through the portal, but Nate told him to go ahead, announcing that he would be staying in 2018 for a while to work at the Time Bureau and reconnect with his father (as well as finish recovering from his recent heartbreak, which he only told Sara[51]). Ray made Nate promise that the Legends would "see him for the next one" before hugging him goodbye. Ray shared a final glance with Nate, who gave him a reassuring smile, before sadly returning to the Waverider alone, leaving his friend behind in 2018.[50]
Ray says goodbye to Nate Heywood before the latter begins his leave of absence from the Legends.
After leaving Nate, Ray continued his work with the remaining Legends, forming a bond with Charlie and getting a tattoo of a corgi on his bicep, but he admitted how much he missed Nate. Sara spoke to Nate and reassured the other Legends that he would be back soon.[51] While in pursuit of a shtriga in 1990s Maine, Nate was too busy at the Bureau to team up with Ray, so John went with him instead. The two served as summer camp boys' counselors while searching for the shtriga and the children that it had captured. Eventually, they found the missing children, but the kids were all on the verge of death. As Ray chanted the necessary incantation, John used magic to return their life forces back to their bodies, unmasking the shtriga's true identity in the process and allowing Sara and Ava to kill him. However, one little boy was still in severe danger. Eventually, John made a heroic sacrifice, sucking his own life force out of himself and healing the boy. Just then, the other boys that the two men had counseled arrived, worried after they didn't show up for food. Ray praised them as they loaded John onto a stretcher and gave electrolytes to the rescued children. The two returned to the Waverider, where Ray and Sara had Gideon sedate him while discussing possible solutions to healing John.[52]
Ray finally decided to search for Nora Darhk, who had escaped to a Renaissance Fair in 2018 to hide from her pursuers and avoid her use of magic. Ray tracked her down and saved her from a man who was trying to make a move on her, bringing her back to the Waverider and asking her to help him save John. She refused at first, afraid because her magic was connected to her dead father. Eventually, she agreed to a lifetime of magic after a speech from John. Ray connected her to a machine that used energy to help her send him life force, and in time, John was healed. A few minutes later, John stood up and left to smoke, much to Ray's annoyance. Nora thanked him for seeing the best in her, saying that it was time for her to go. Ray placed the time stone in Nora's hand, begging her to travel as far away as possible and hide, not telling him where she was. Nora reminded him of how upset the team would be if he released her again, but Ray confessed that he cared about her more, only wanting her to be free. At this, she took his hand and the two traveled by time stone to the Bureau headquarters in 2018. Ray told her to get out, but she said that she couldn't keep running because she realized that repentance was her path to freedom. She placed the time stone in Ray's hands, reassuring him that it was time to pay for her past. As the Bureau agents approached, she squeezed his hand once more, and Ray watched as she turned herself in. She gave him one last look before being escorted away at gunpoint.[53]
Ray realizes that Nora is turning herself over to the Time Bureau in order to take responsibility for her past.
A month after their separation, Nate returned to the Waverider, where Ray eagerly went to greet him despite Sara's warning that Hank was also on the ship for an impromptu evaluation. The Legends noticed the time seismograph going off and settled on a mission to 1920s Paris. However, Sara had Ray, Zari, John, and Charlie stay behind on the ship to avoid looking unprofessional or causing a scene. Ray and Zari attempted to teach Charlie an American accent so she could act out as Amaya until Hank was gone, ultimately failing. Sensing his feelings for Nora, John reminded Ray that he could most likely sneak off the ship without being noticed. Ray flew the jumpship to the Bureau and begged Ava for permission to see Nora, but she refused. However, the new creature handler Mona had overheard their conversation and offered her help. Ray shrunk himself into an envelope, which Mona brought to Nora's cell, claiming it was a love letter from Ray. Unfortunately, Nora accidentally used magic to lock all three of them, as well as Ava, in the cell. Mona brought out a bottle of alcohol, and the three women began to bond as they drank the bottle. Mona and Ava eventually convinced Nora to open the letter from Ray, at which point he revealed himself and asked for help escaping from the letter's glue. Ray explained to the girls that he simply wanted to see Nora and make sure she was okay, which Nora found "stupid but sweet", but Ava scolded him for not listening to her. Ray then shrunk the door, allowing himself, Ava, and Mona back out into the headquarters. Later, as Mona was bringing in congee to help with their hangover, Nora asked her to deliver a response to Ray's "love letter", which the latter was happy to do because she now considered the two her generation's "Ross and Rachel".[54]
The Legends regrouped on the Waverider, where they threw a pizza party before saying goodbye to Nate. Ray sadly mentioned how different the ship was without him, but Nate reassured him that they could always visit him at the Bureau and he would always be there in Ray's "giant heart". Ray listened as Nate gave an emotional speech about his growth as a Legend and reminded them to "enjoy the ride while it lasts". As the Waverider flew off into the temporal zone, Nate went to speak to Charlie in private, and the remaining Legends shared a toast together.[54]
Ray and Nate reunited twice more as members of the Custodians of the Chronology and the Puppets of Tomorrow when John fractured the timeline to save Desmond, but he eventually went back and fixed the timeline again, erasing these events from existence.[55]
Possible futures
Around midnight on April 25th in the year 2024, Ray, as the Atom, aided the Flash in his latest battle with Reverse-Flash, along with Green Arrow and Hawkgirl, on the streets of Central City. The fight also somehow caused the sky to turn a deep crimson color. The fight caused several trucks to start leaking their contents onto the streets and caused power outages that spread over 20 blocks and throughout the city. During the fight, the Atom aided the Central City Police Department in evacuating all the nearby buildings during the power outage. Eventually, the two speedsters disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Ray, Oliver, and Kendra behind.[56] However, a 2049 newspaper mentions the presence of the Elongated Man and Batwoman as well, meaning the timeline may have changed.[57]
In a possible future, Atom is seen fighting alongside Flash, Captain Cold and Sara Lance against an unknown large metallic adversary. Barry caught a glimpse of this when traveling through the Speed Force.[58] This future is no longer possible due to Snart dying, though it is possible that the version of Captain Cold seen was actually his Earth-X doppelgänger, or that Earth-1 Snart had somehow been resurrected.
Rip Hunter mentioned Ray as having survived the Imperiex onslaught. However, this may have just been an excuse for Rip to use the trigger words, not an actual event.[27]
In another future, the Legends face off against Cicada and attempt to stop him, but they ultimately fail, as does Supergirl.[57]
"So you're always this positive, even when you're dead? How can you pretend like everything's okay?"
"I'm not pretending. I believe it. I found that if I can trust in myself, I can believe everything's okay, and it usually is. It's called positive thinking. Give it a shot."
As a child, Ray was lonely to the point of being delusional, as he didn't want to face the fact of that the world is imperfect; however, he eventually outgrew his lonely and delusional traits by the time he became an adult.
As an adult, Ray is an ambitious, intelligent and charismatic businessman. He is highly motivated to achieve more success and is willing to work both honorably and extremely hard to get what he wants. Ray can often find himself awkwardly babbling, likening him to Felicity in that respect. Ray is also selfless, putting himself in between a gun and Felicity, and eventually breaking up with her civilly to allow her to pursue her love of Oliver Queen. Ray is also a trustworthy friend, keeping both Oliver and Barry's alter egos a secret. Ray can occasionally be stubborn, such as when he believed he could take on a dangerous meta-human, but is not above admitting to this. Even after being held captive by Damien Darhk for 6 months, the experience has not changed his positive and optimistic attitude. He is naïve when it comes to women, as Ray believed Valentina Vostok to be an innocent person, only to find out the hard way, that she was actually working for Vandal Savage.
When setting a goal he seems to be highly persistent in achieving it, as it took him a lot of effort to finally get Felicity to work for him. Ray seems to be a visionary as well, as he gives expensive things away and seemingly wants to improve the city and make it flourish again, prompting Felicity to describe Ray as Barry with Oliver's body. Ray can become obsessed with completing these goals, however, as when building the A.T.O.M exosuit he ended up tired and rather reckless, but was determined to finish the suit.
Ray as the Atom.
"I became the Atom to make the world a better place. And I'm pretty sure that saving it counts."
Behind his positive attitude is a sad side as Ray had lost his fiancée Anna who was killed in front of him. Ray mentioned that he was not strong enough to save her which seemed to be a motivation to as why he is so keen on helping the city and training to become stronger. Ray can sometimes be stubborn and jump to conclusions before he gets his facts straight, despite this Ray is not above apologizing or admitting when he is wrong. This caused him to not see what good the Arrow was doing and attack him using the A.T.O.M exosuit, daring the latter to kill him and prove that he was the villain Ray thought he was.
Ray is also known to be a workaholic, as he once went several days without sleep, food, or bathing while still obsessing over his A.T.O.M. suit. It took Felicity's prodigious and thorough programming skills to shut him out of his work and get him to take a break and wash his noticeably foul smelling armpits. His workaholic tendencies are most commonly witnessed the expression of his indomitable willpower, as he is never prone to giving up, whether it's taking on an enemy or in his engineering pursuits. Ray is simply an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.
Ray is a very loyal person that can't stand to see people in trouble. While personality wise, he is considered a "boy-scout", especially by the likes of Leonard Snart and Mick Rory, he is dangerous, confident, and sometimes ruthless in combat. He is willing to attack without restrain, using all of his power to defeat his opponents. He is also inventive with his abilities, such as combining his punches with his energy blasts to hit harder. He also utilized his shrinking ability and flight to fly straight through one of the Hunters, piercing through him like a bullet and seemingly killing the man. He had also shown willingness to kill when not interfering in the team coming close to dealing a killing blow on Chronos before he was revealed to be Mick Rory, and when the team collectively obliterated the Pilgrim.
After learning of the message sent by Barry Allen from the year 2056 and that he altered the timeline, he criticized the present Barry for his actions. But he and the other heroes decide to forgive Barry with Ray saying that he and the other heroes still trusted him no matter what message, however, Ray was also being hypocritical; as he would have done exactly the same thing the latter did, if he was in an emotional state, and not thinking clearly. It was also seen that Ray is a little self-conscious of the fact that he fears he wouldn't be remembered or do anything too significant with his life. It was this fact that led him to join Rip Hunter in the first place. It was also seen when he showed his anger in helping Nate Heywood learn how to destroy his suit, believing that it was the only thing that even made him a hero.
Ray is very open and warm-hearted, always working to keep the team's spirits up and seeming to want to make everyone welcome. Ray's sense of optimism, innocence and steadfast adherence to his principles would easily make him the most morally-upright member of the Waverider's crew. Though he is one of three remaining members of the original team, he seems to love meeting and connecting with new members. Soon after Amaya Jiwe and Nate Heywood joined the team, he formed very close bonds with both of them, and they went on a few missions together as a trio. Being close with both of them also allowed Ray to help Nate begin to navigate his romance with Amaya.[38] Ray also played icebreakers with Zari when she joined[1], showed excitement when he saw that John Constantine was joining,[50] and opened up to Charlie even before he knew that she would work with the Legends.[51]
Ray is often the first to form a bond with his fellow Legends, such as Nate.
However, as much as he likes new members, he also strongly dislikes saying goodbye to old ones. Ray openly mourned the losses of Carter Hall (even though he barely knew Carter),[22]Leonard Snart,[35] and Rip Hunter,[59] and he even cried during the funeral of Martin Stein.[60] When Nate began working at the Time Bureau, Ray became lonely and a bit more serious until reuniting with Nora Darhk, and he sat in quiet sadness for most of Nate's farewell party.[54] However, Ray does not let his sadness or nostalgia distract him when a mission is at hand, showing his strong morale and inner workaholic.
Powers and abilities
Powers
Exosuit application: Ray uses his advanced exosuit to replicate powers akin to those of meta-humans and magic users. Some of the suit's capabilities can affect him in a way that they can still apply to him even after he's removed the suit.
Size alteration: Ray is able to change his own respective size, able to shrink or grow to whatever size he chooses. The effects still apply to him even after he's taken the suit off. This allows him to infiltrate wherever he wants with a low likelihood of being caught when he's shrunken. His larger heights also proportionately increase his strength and durability, allowing him to fight the Leviathan and win. By the time of the attack of the Earth-X Nazis, Ray was able to enlarge only parts of his body with no loss of balance and control, which notably allowed him to enlarge his arm to fill an entire corridor and crush several armed men, knocking them unconscious. Additionally, Ray can also change the size of other objects around him using his ion cannon, an example being a Thanagarian "tech meteor".[36]
Energy blasts: Ray is able to use the suit's offensive capabilities to replicate meta-human energy blasts, such as electricity projection and hard light blasts, with his suit have an onboard photon and ion cannons. The energy blasts are able to send humans flying through the air, knocking a target unconscious, cracking stone, denting metal, even causing small explosions on impact with harder and thicker surfaces.
Bond with Neron: Following a botched attempt to destroy the demon by Nora Darhk and John Constantine, through exorcism from Desmond's body, Neron escaped and latched on Ray instead.[61]
Former powers
Water Totem: Ray briefly wielded the Water Totem in the Legends' initial attempt to use the all Totems of Zambesi against Mallus at once individually after the demon broke free of his temporal prison. However, soon after when they tried to combine the totems' powers to destroy Mallus, Ray left the totem in Wally's care. After Mallus was defeated once and for all, the totem was left with Kuasa.
Water Generation: Ray used the totem to hurl a burst of water at Mallus in the Legends' inital attempt to use all of the totems to battle the demon after Mallus assumed his true form.
Magic: Ray briefly assisted John Constantine in returning some children's life forces to their bodies after they had been captured by a shtriga in Maine.[52]
Abilities
Peak of human physical condition: Ray is in top physical condition. He regularly engages in moderate to strenuous exercise to keep his body in top shape and to increase his mobility while using the A.T.O.M. Exosuit in combat. Ray was inspired by Richard Branson, who works out twice a day, which gives him 20 additional hours of productivity a week.[62]
Genius-level intellect/Great business acumen/Leader: Ray is extraordinarily intelligent, having an IQ of 140 and four PhDs.[13] His intellect made him a self-made man and an indispensable member of the Legends. Ray is also a skilled businessman, being able to lead Palmer Technologies, a multibillion-dollar enterprise, with success. He recognizes skilled people and is excellent at recruiting them for his cause. As revealed from an aberration timeline, Ray could have applied his intellect to become an M.D. for advanced cardiac surgical procedures.[4] Ray also exhibits leadership potential, as he received a signature from every Legend on his petition to become interim captain of the Waverider in Sara Lance's absence.
Master engineer: Ray has proven to be highly skilled in engineering, as he was able to design and build the A.T.O.M. Exosuit using dwarf star alloy as a power source. He has also developed several other gadgets and successful products when he was CEO of Palmer Technologies and while as a member of Team Arrow, such as nanobot surgeons and dispersal units, smartwatches, etc. Ray's engineering skills have shown to be on par with Cisco Ramon, who himself is a highly regarded mechanical engineer.
Master scientist: Ray is an adept biochemist, as he was able to analyze and modify Eobard Thawne's biomolecular enhancer to have lasting and more stable effects while in World War II, despite the formula initially being made from 22nd-century technology.[39]
Expert computer hacker: While not on the same level as his ex-girlfriend, Felicity Smoak, Ray is a highly trained hacker, as he was able to hack the Time Bureau's network to access Ava Sharpe's personnel file.[63]
Expert hand-to-hand combatant: Ray has some experience in unarmed combat, which at first was minimal. He is proven to prefer boxing as his fighting style, though is as skilled as any professional combatants. In battles, Ray almost always relies on his suit and uses his enhanced strength to engage enemies in close combat, a trait that is easily exploited by opponents relying on tactics (a prime example being when Ray attempted to arrest the Arrow and was subsequently defeated). Over time though and after training with his fellow Legends, Ray has become more adept in unarmed combat without his exosuit; he was able to knock out a restrained Scythian Torvil with a single punch and fight off multiple genetically-engineered AVA clones. Together with his suit though, Ray has become a formidable combatant as a member of the Legends.
Ray has some degree of proficiency in using a sword, as shown in a battle against the Shogun in Feudal Japan, able to land some solid blows to the A.T.O.M. suit the tyrant was wearing, trying to cripple exosuit by targeting some of its weak spots. However, it is possible the Shogun was not fighting in his full capability. Ray later used Sir Galahad's sword in Camelot to great effect by channeling his suit's ionic energy through the blade to help fight against Rip Hunter's army of mind-controlled knights and even Damien Darhk.
Skilled marksman: Ray has become a seasoned marksman throughout the years of using his exoskeleton's ranged weaponry. Using the suit's voice recognition, Ray was able to calculate the intensity and degrees of an Atom Blaster to fire at his restraints.
Licensed minister: This allowed Ray to officiate John Diggle and Lyla Michaels' wedding when the priest was unable to make it.[13]
Singing: Ray seems to be a good singer, though unrecognized. At the funeral of Axl, Ray was about to sing for the rat before Sara cut him off.[66] He also made a song of all the codes Nate made for the Legends, to help the team remember better, which he began singing to them until he was cut off by Sara once more.[67] However, Mick Rory managed to memorize the songs quite fast, stating it was because of how ofter Ray sang it, which implies that he kept on singing on the ship after that.[59] Ray also sang frequently with Sara and Nate Heywood as the Puppets of Tomorrow in an alternate timeline.[55]
Dancing: Ray is a talented dancer, as seen when he performed a dance routine with Nora.[68]
Indomitable will/High tolerance for pain/Expert survivor: After getting time-scattered by the emergency protocol of the Waverider, Ray ended up in South Dakota back in the Cretaceous period and managed to survive for six months before being rescued by Mick and Nate.[37] Ray mentioned that he is a lifelong boy scout, possibly giving him insights and resourcefulness in surviving.[69] Ray has also demonstrated significant willpower when it comes to adversity; he was able to resist Damien's attempted torture when being held captive by the latter for months, refusing to divulge the secrets of his exosuit technology.[20] Ray also refused to fix the Fire Totem for Damien and Nora Darhk even with the threat of death, only giving in when Damien threatened his mother, Sandy Palmer.[65]
Equipment
A.T.O.M. Exosuit: Ray wears a powered Exo-Suit of his own design as his heroic alter-ego, The Atom, to hide his identity from his enemies when he goes out fighting crime. It was designed by Ray himself, the armor is composed of and powered by a dwarf star alloy, making it strong enough to withstand damage from bullets, arrows, and explosives. Its offensive capabilities include electricity projection, compressed hard light blasts, photon cannons, and the ability to infuse ionic energy into objects. A recent discovery in the suit's technological applications is that it allows Ray to miniaturize selected targets, including himself. Alternatively, by properly charging the suit with enough energy, such as auxiliary time-drive from the Waverider, the suit can reverse the shrinking effects and increase the wearer's size to the gigantic stature and proportionately increase their strength. During the Legends' adventures in Medieval Japan, the A.T.O.M. was destroyed by Nate Heywood to prevent its abuse.[40] However, Ray found a supply of dwarf star alloy in the Old West and used it to create a second suit with the Waverider's fabrication room.[43]
Cold Gun and Goggles: After Ray's A.T.O.M. Exosuit was destroyed, Heat Wave offered him Captain Cold's Cold gun and Goggles as a sign of partnership. Ray used the gun briefly in his new alter-ego as "Colonel Cold".[41][42] However, Ray needed to disassemble the Cold Gun to stop a bomb, the gun does not have enough power after that incident. But, after finding more dwarf star alloy in the Old West and rebuilding his suit, he presumably no longer uses the Cold Gun.[43]
Sir Galahad's sword: This sword belonged to the legendary Knight of the Round Table, Sir Galahad, and Ray used it after the man was killed to help defend Camelot when it was under attack from Damien Darhk and Rip Hunter. Ray notably used his suit to focus ionic energy into the blade and enhance its strength, which he used to gain the upper hand in a sword fight with Damien. Afterwards, Ray presumably returned the sword to be buried with the fallen knight.[3]
Water Totem: Ray was briefly in possession of the Water Totem. Later on, he passed to the totem to Wally West who, after defeating Mallus, left the totem with Kuasa.
Ray is allergic to cats and dogs.[27] However, this allergy seems to either be very minor or only developed in his adult years since Ray was pretty well known for rescuing "strays" when he was younger.[1] Sara also mentions Ray being allergic to apes, specifically Grodd.[51]
Ray's favorite musical is Singin' in the Rain, which he openly considers the "best musical ever".[51][1]
He loves playing video games, especially The Legend of Zelda.[1]
Ray's favorite snack is arugula, according to an Ivy Town Times article.[1]
He was named “Most Likely to Become a Particle Physicist” in the second grade.[1]
Ray is very neat and organized, and thus enjoys washing dishes.[65]
For breakfast, Ray likes his coffee with grass fed butter and MCT oil and his eggs poached and runny.[65]
Ray has admitted that he considers Nate Heywood his best friend.[51] Nate feels the same way about him, according to Gideon's matrix.[70]
Nate's nickname for Ray is "big guy", which Sara adopted after Nate left the team.[64]
Ray admits that he misses having Nate to watch Patrick Swayze movies with and pair up for the buddy system.[51][52]
Every episode on the week of Halloween thus far has had some significance towards their friendship.
In "Shogun" (10/27/2016), they teamed up for the first time to take down Tokugawa Iemitsu and became friends.
In "Phone Home" (10/31/2017), they shared their first on-screen hug, and Nate comforted Ray upon the latter discovering the truth about his childhood bullies.
In "Witch Hunt" (10/28/2018), the two parted ways after pairing up for a mission with the Time Bureau.
Both men have stated that they love each other like family.[71][72]
Mick Rory's nicknames for him are "Haircut" and "Boy Scout".
Ray's attraction towards Nora Darhk is most likely a reference to the real-life marriage between Brandon Routh and Courtney Ford, who portray Ray and Nora respectively.
At 6'2", Ray is the tallest Legend (current or former), tied with Martin Stein. However, the tallest character on the show is Hank Heywood at 6'3".
Apparently, The Atom doesn't exist on Supergirl's Earth, implying that if Ray even has a doppelgänger on that Earth, he never became The Atom.[74]
Although Ray's birth year has been given as 1981, an Ivy Town Times article lists Ray as being eight-years-old on October 31, 1988, which would place Ray's birthdate between November 1979 and October 1980, making this a continuity error.
Behind the scenes
In the DC comics, the Atom is a superhero mostly known for his ability to shrink in size, turning into a miniature version of himself, hence the name. The original was Al Pratt during the Golden Age, a diminutive man with superhuman strength; he was a founding member of the Justice Society. Ray Palmer took the name during the Silver Age, a physics professor at Ivy University who developed equipment to shrink himself down to subatomic levels while maintaining regular mass. However, like on the show, he was able to reverse the process and expand his size on a few occasions, too. Palmer has been a member of the Justice League, Titans, Suicide Squad and Indigo Tribe. Adam Cray also briefly took the mantle using stolen equipment, and it was later used by scientist Ryan Choi until his death.
Ray's second codename, Colonel Cold, was originally intended for Lewis Snart, appearing in the promos for The FlashSeason 2 episode"Family of Rogues", before getting scrapped in the final version of the episode.
Ray Palmer was portrayed by Brandon Routh in a recurring role in the third season and in twoepisodes of the fourth season ofArrow. Routh also reprised his role in twoepisodes ofThe Flash, and as a series regular in DC's Legends of Tomorrow. He played the role in all three parts of the crossover event Invasion!. Routh also voices the character in three episodes of the web series Vixen. Because of these appearances, Palmer is one of the most recurring characters throughout the Arrowverse, appearing in all shows except for Supergirl.
Routh was also known for portraying Superman (another superhero of DC) in the 2006 film, Superman Returns. This is alluded to with Snart referring to Palmer as "Boy Scout," which was a nickname for Superman. Most recently, Superman was being portrayed by Tyler Hoechlin in the TV series Supergirl.
Routh made a nod to his previous Superman role during the episode "Invasion!" when he stated that Kara Danvers resembled his cousin.
During an interview with MTV News, co-producer Keto Shimizu stated a spin-off of Arrow could be made with The Atom/Ray Palmer in the lead role.[75] However, the idea never materialized and DC's Legends of Tomorrow was produced instead.
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