Among the various rogues who faced the Atoms, the balding bad-guys David Clinton and Kale Zercoff were the most malevolent foes they ever faced. Both men based their crimes around their mastery of time, with Clinton the masked menace known as Chronos, and Zercoff as the henchman of Per Degaton. Initially small-town felons operating on Ivy Town of Earth-One and Calvin City of Earth-Two respectively, David and Kale first faced their worlds’ Atom one-one-one before eventually teaming up with gangs of goons who faced their arch-enemies’ teams, the Justice League and Justice Society.
After a series of battles throughout the years, Chronos sought to change his modus operandi, seeking to steal rare coins from four key locations in Ivy Town. First, he stole Scandinavian coins then French and Spanish coins before targeting American coins with his fourth burglary. The Atom was somehow tipped off the the perpetrator of these thefts, confronting Chronos on his fourth outing. However, an electrified force field around the Time Thief knocked the Tiny Titan unconscious, and when he woke up the Atom discovered his foe had stolen his shrinking belt. Impersonating the Atom, Chronis met the police lieutenant on charge of this criminal case, to try and discover how he slipped up and revealed his identity to his foe.
Decades earlier, the individual members of the Justice Sociery were each tasked with a hundred thousand dollars which combined they can donate to war orphans of Europe. In his futile attempts to obtain his portion of the proceeds, Johnny Thunder encounters two crooks dressed as Sandman and the Atom, threatening local gangs in an attempt to obtain protection money from them. Johnny’s Thunderbolt quickly exposed the pair, a crook disguised as the Sandman*, with the Atom impersonator** being Kale Zercoff himself. Seeking revenge against the Mighty Mite who defeats him months earlier, while Johnny and his T-Bolt were subduing he and his cronies,
Ray “Atom” Palmer was able to escape the syrup-filled blender his enemy left him trapped within, thanks to his secondary size-changing glove controls. Facing his arch-foe once more, the Atom was able to outmaneuver and capture Chronos (who Atom discovered avoided stealing coins with names that sounded like his criminal alias).
Al “Atom” Pratt was working the obtain his portion of the war orphans donation funds, when Zercoff was captured by his Justice Society teammate in the fall of 1941. Nevertheless, Kale would be freed by the summer of 1947, whereby he was recruited as the principal lieutenant to temporal tyrant Per Degaton's militia which inially defeated the Justice Society. On this occasion, Kale was finally able to knock out the Atom, although his victory was only temporary before once more returning to prison.
* This fake Sandman’s Earth-One counterpart dressed as the Sandman, and drugged police scientist Barry “Flash” Allen during a masquerade party the night that Professor Zoom aka the Reverse Flash murdered Barry's wife Iris’. While that Sandman armed his sand-gun with narcotics, which he used on his victim, the Earth-Two psuedo-Sandman seemed to have standard armament in his sand-gun.
** Zercoff somehow managed to portray himself as short as his foe, the real Atom, who was 5 foot 1 inch tall., However, unlike Ray Palmer, Al Pratt did not possess shrinking technology. It could be theorized that Zercoff hired a co-conspirator who was taller than himself, who impersonated the Sandman, thereby making himself short in comparison when standing side-by-side. As seen in their two direct confrontations, Zercoff was much taller and far bulkier than the Atom.
