Yep, those are arm jets. Remember, he could fly in the manga.
Also TRADING CARD OMG ASDFGHJKL; I WANT IT ;-; That's the scene from Midoro Swamp where Atom has to remind Cobalt not to kill the lizard. That bothers me a bit... but there are plenty more things about
Atom that bother me more than this, such as: he's an animal killer, and in the old manga and anime series (especially the 60's), he may even be a murderer. Of course, I'm fairly sure that the latter was not intended nor implied, but it still bothers me; and the former bothers me even
more, because the animals he kills are either semi-important plot devices (like the fish in Hot Dog Corps.), or passed off as "monsters". /rant
Okay, sorry about that... Now, not only does the realism factor occasionally bother me,
this haunts me on an almost regular basis!