As interesting as Atom is, in this (and it's interesting to see how he reacts to the WS heroes attacking him, but still refuses to start blasting everyone he comes across), this series was awful, and pretty much led to the crummy state of the WSU that last a couple of years.
Everyone other than Atom is portrayed as complete, mad, brawling idiots, and whilst the Authority were a proactive team, they at least would've figured out exactly what Atom was and why he was there, before going all-out on him.
That, coupled with the fact that the series essentially turned everyone into Captain Atom's whipping boy (even Jenny Quantum, who should've been badass enough to contain whatever was wrong with him - she did ingest a supernova, after all), makes this one of my most hated series of all time. To the OP, you've obviously not read too much of the WSU, because while, yes, most of the WS characters are based on existing ones (Majestic on Clark, Zealot on Diana, etc), the work done by Ellis, Casey and Moore at one point made these books way, way stronger than anything DC was putting out, and greatly widened the void between the characters and their inspirations..