I at first thought that it would be self-sacrifice from the start, but after a second viewing of the events between the boarding and the saddest image I have seen in the whole series (see the manga for that scene), I realized that it was indeed a missile that had struck the asteroid, rather than the spaceship in which Atom was riding. Anyway, Atom then said his final farewells to his family, left the rocket, grabbed the missile, and flew it into the sun. Then, Songoku appeared, and said a few words, then morphed into Atom and back to himself. The thing was not nearly as saddening as we imagined it might have been. However, we had watched Nukunuku (cozy, comfortable, etc) TV the final episode, which contained a parody of Atom #193. A giant cat-head-shaped asteroid was headed toward Earth. The local industry just happened to have 88 super destructive missiles on hand, so they fired them at it. However, 1 failed to launch, while the others failed to explode. Now, they worked feverishly to repair the one, hoping that if it exploded, it would start a chain-reaction among the others. But as they lacked the time to install its guidance system. Nukunuku was used to guide it, and there was a similar tearful farewell, with the kid begging her not to go. but this being a comedy, the panel upon which she rode fell off just as it was leaving the atmosphere, and she just happened to fall through the roof of her familys house. So, when the teary-eyed family walked through the door, they were surprised to see her munching on chips and watching a commercial for that very series DVD on TV.
