Comments for Atomic Junk Shop

Comment on Review time! with ‘Batman’ volume 1: Daylight by Bill Reed

Bill Reed — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 21:43:30 +0000

I liked this a lot. Feels refreshing compared to recent heavier or more complicated Bat-fare. I like the episodic structure. I think the story is Bronze-Age-adjacent enough that readers of this blog would dig it. And the art’s great.

My understanding is the single issues called Lady Death Man “Ojo” but they forgot to fix it in the trade.

Comment on It’s a crazy thought, but maybe some super-villains deserve oblivion by frasersherman

frasersherman — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 21:06:30 +0000

In reply to Pete Woodhouse. After writing the piece, it occurred to me Gerry Conway did better than many: the Jackal, the Punisher, Hammerhead, Mr. Kline and a few other new adversaries on the books he was writing on. Admittedly some of them, like Kline, were not good villains ...

Comment on It’s a crazy thought, but maybe some super-villains deserve oblivion by frasersherman

frasersherman — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 21:04:50 +0000

In reply to Pete Woodhouse. I think I saw a letter from Bill Warren, who would later write the definitive book on 1950s SF films (Keep Watching the Skies) in an early 1960s Flash, too. Didn't know Barr was a former letter hack. I have a lot of Flash issues from that era, I'll have to look for the discussion. And yes, they really were young.

Comment on The Greg Hatcher Legacy Files #382: ‘Friday on the Third Rail’ by Bill Reed

Bill Reed — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:55:48 +0000

I see Kelly Thompson commented on the original article. I wonder if she took it as a challenge.

Taking this opportunity to once again mention that McLaughlin’s Aquaman is still the definitive version, for me.

Comment on Review time! with ‘Batman’ #158-163 by Greg Burgas

Greg Burgas — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:46:32 +0000

In reply to Pete Woodhouse. No, it's pretty much a usual Loeb story, in that he gives his artist something fun to draw. It's a tour through Batman's Rogues' Gallery, with Superman thrown in there, and it's a rather silly story. Much like "Hush 2"!!!!!

Comment on Review time! with ‘Batman’ #158-163 by Pete Woodhouse

Pete Woodhouse — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:36:05 +0000

Still haven’t read the original Hush. Apart from some no-doubt pretty Jim Lee pin-ups, have I missed much?
And I don’t care if the new series has a hologram cover of Lee doing the ‘hokey-cokey’: there’s no way you should be paying a fiver for a ‘floppy’. It’s been said before, but ridiculous value for money.

Comment on It’s a crazy thought, but maybe some super-villains deserve oblivion by Pete Woodhouse

Pete Woodhouse — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:29:33 +0000

… and the elephant in the room on why Marvel recycled so many villains and ideas post-1970. Kirby had left for DC. Of course, Ditko and Wood went four years earlier.
House of No Ideas/The House That Jack Built.

Comment on It’s a crazy thought, but maybe some super-villains deserve oblivion by Pete Woodhouse

Pete Woodhouse — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 19:22:32 +0000

Very early on in Bates’ run — it may’ve been Flash #209 or slightly earlier — there was a lively letter column (the regular contributors were called LOC’ers: letter opinion column?) debate on which writer could take the comic forward.
As well as iconic artist Carmine Infantino (kicked upstairs), Julie Schwartz’s editorial stable stalwarts John Broome and Gardner Fox had also departed (the writer purge/Broome went to Japan), so the architects of the character in his revived solo book during the previous dozen years were keenly missed. Schwartz seemed to recognise this by carrying these letters which included summaries/reviews of prospective or recent writers.
Bob Kanigher was remembered as “dragging Flash through the bogs of human interest [ouch!]”. Denny O’Neil was nixed on similar relevance grounds: he would give Barry “too many hang ups”.
Mike Friedrich I think they said was too young and inexperienced; it’s easy to forget how young those ’70s guys like Friedrich, Bates, Shooter, Conway and Levitz were. My memory’s not so good on this point… so sorry, Mike.
The LOC hadn’t got around to Bates’ work yet due to time lag, but it is ironic many of the Schwartz LOC’ers went on to comics careers: Irene Vartinoff, Peter Sanderson, Martin Pasko, Mike W. Barr, et al.

Comment on It’s a crazy thought, but maybe some super-villains deserve oblivion by frasersherman

frasersherman — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 10:17:40 +0000

In reply to John King. Thank you. Corrected accordingly. I'm not surprised I missed the wedding but I should have remembered the Avengers.

Comment on Review time! with ‘Exquisite Corpses’ #1-13 by John King

John King — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 22:32:47 +0000

I’ve heard the term “exquisite corpse” before but have not been familiar with the meaning.
There was a 2021 film of that name
and I have heard the They Might Be Giants song “exquisite dead guy”