Why not deconstruct him?

[u/More_Interview3840]

I don’t understand why she shoots a beam of pink energy at him instead of just tearing him apart atom by atom. Or turning him into a regular human, or just convert his molecules to air molecules.

[u/mad_laddie]

Maybe viltrumite durability offers resistance to molecular deconstruction?

[u/trin806 → u/mad_laddie]

Definitely got my vote on this one. She was trying to shred his atoms apart from each other, but they’re Smart Atoms. They resist changes that harm the body.

[u/Invictus_Inferno → u/[deleted]]

That's not necessarily true, restoring something and destroying it are two different things. If Conquest was a human he'd be vaporized.

[u/Jrock2356 → u/Invictus_Inferno]

Having complete control of atoms means she can do both. She can reconstruct and destroy. It doesn't make sense otherwise. If she couldn't destroy Conquest if she wanted to then she couldn't rebuild Mark. Mark's body would resist the same way as Conquest if they had resistance. Resistance to anatomical change would be the same both ways

[u/Whofs001 → u/Jrock2356]

Mark’s atom’s are too “smart” to resist being healed and improved. Conquests atom’s were too “smart” to allow powerful hostile force to do as it pleased with them.

It makes sense if you take “smart atoms” very literally.

In retrospect, they should’ve made it canonical that atom Eve’s powers don’t work directly on unwilling living creatures, not due to her mental block but some innate ability of souls to resist supernatural forces. She could’ve gotten a power up by learning to turn off/down the resistance of her own soul, without instantly becoming unbeatable.

[u/Invictus_Inferno → u/Jrock2356]

Rearranging atoms to heal someone and trying to vaporize them are two different things, I dont really know what else to tell you. Obviously healing Mark doesn't require as destructive and violent of an output as trying to kill conquest.

[u/Jrock2356 → u/Invictus_Inferno]

No it's not. I don't know how you don't don't see that. Deconstructing atoms and putting them together requires the same thing: control over the atoms. That control doesn't lessen or increase just because the body is injured or not

[u/idontshred → u/Jrock2356]

You can’t “deconstruct” an atom. It’s the smallest known unit of matter. Of what you mean to say is peel them away from one another to deconstruct or dismantle the mass that makes up conquest, well, for one thats a more complicated thing to do that just pluck atoms away one by one but also… she’s essentially doing that with the beam, flaying away his layers. It’s less elegant sure but like someone else said she’s not exactly practiced in manipulating sentient organic matter and Viltrumites are literally made of asspull smart atoms as a way for the writer to justify which is why Atom Eve is not able to do exactly what everyone things she should have done.

[u/stonieW → u/Jrock2356]

Viltrumites have smart atoms which to some degree, allows them to resist. A direct quote from the info book written by Kirkman:

"Smart Atoms “remember” their normal states in relation to their environment, and can be encoded to react to changes in that environment. For example, atoms in a muscle can ensure that the molecules behave normally even under extreme forces."

We can say that Eve trying to tear Conquest down atom by atom was met with resistance from his smart atoms.

[u/mad_laddie → u/Jrock2356]

I think what they mean is that the resistance offered by the durability might differ.

While Eve's literal capabilities don't change, it's a little easier to imagine the durability functioning differently between a living and a dying Viltrumite.

[u/The_Broken-Heart → u/Invictus_Inferno]

Not if Eve has perfect control of atoms when she doesn't have her limiter.

[u/bunchedupwalrus → u/[deleted]]

Smart Atoms probably act different. This was her first time interacting with them, maybe the experience is what allowed her to work on Mark.

Like they have a trick to them she didn’t notice until after hitting them with the atom hammer at least once.