Don’t ask me what I was thinking. All I remember is, I had recently read a historical factoid that for reasons beyond reason fascinated me, and when editor Paul Levitz asked me for an Atom ten-pager for 1977’s one-shot DC 5-Star Super-Hero Spectacular (DC Special Series #1) Dollar Comic, also featuring Batman, Flash, Green Arrow, and Aquaman, I saw the chance to send the Mighty Mite back in time via Professor Hyatt’s Time Pool and confront the situation. In retrospect, it’s a silly little story, hardly worth telling, but not atypical of a lot of the stories being published by DC at the time. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself; as a newbie, 21-year old writer, I really didn’t have all that much to say, and even if I did, I didn’t know how to say it in a one-shot back-up story about a guy who could get tiny.
Still, that didn’t stop artists Steve Stiles and Bob McLeod from drawing the hell out of it, historical references and all…an actual chore in the days before the internet when visits to a local library were required. Colors were by Liz Berube, letterer uncredited.
And the issue had a great poster-shot cover by Neal Adams, so there was that.
Tags: 1876, 5-Star Super-Hero Spectacular, Alexander Graham Bell, Aquaman, Atom, Batman, Bob McLeod, Corliss Engine, DC Comics, DC Special Series, Dollar Comics, Elisha Gray, Flash, Green Arrow, Liz Berube, Paul Levitz, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Exposition, Professor Hyatt, Steve Stiles, telephone, Ulysses S. Grant
I LOVED this story when I rescued it from the back issue bins 30 years ago, and STILL love it today 🙂