Green Lantern #24

Christmas time (the gift giving and receiving portion anyway) has become all about the little kiddies in my family. Between myself and all my siblings, we've got 5 youngins running around, so near midday you've got dozens upon dozens of toys honking, hopping, blasting, blaring, and vrooming around whatever place we've chosen to act as the holiday house romper room that year. So the adults decided not to exchange gifts, just concentrate on the lads (I actually said I still wanted to get stuff but I was overruled). Still, someone will slip a gift in here and there, big and small, and sometimes it's the smallest ones, that "just had to be gotten," that are the best.

I found this copy of Green Lantern #24 in my stocking at my parents house. I saw it immediately, pulled it out and with a smile on my face thought "what the hell?"
Turns out my father got it for me and put it in there.
Now, my father isn't completely unaware of comics. He knows I like them, and tells a fine yarn about how my mother threw away his #1 Conan, and then proceeds to ill-inform whoever is receiving this story about how many thousands of dollars it would be worth today. He knows the big names, and when I pulled this issue out of the stocking I got to hear about how his Green Lantern comics cost 12 cents.

He also knows I like me some Atom.

So he tells me that he was in the store (not sure which because it didn't matter, but you can, after all, buy GL comics in places like Supermarkets) saw this, looked at the cover and saw Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman... and the Atom.
He knew I liked The Atom, so he wanted to get it.

The Atom is on here?

I did my "Atom honing search" which failed me upon first pickup, and sure enough...

there he is by Superman's feet! Way to go dad, nice catch!

Now it turns out that The Atom isn't actually in any of the comic, which was fun (although it's a Part 8, and I've not read any of the previous) pitting the Sinestro Corps against the GLerns, and Hal and Kyle busting out of Parallax. There is a frame of the JSA in a heated battle, and you can plainly see Damage, son of Al Pratt, also featuring some Ray Palmer DNA in him...

so he's in there!

Either way, I loved it. Loved that my pops scanned a busy as all hell cover for the world's smallest superhero, found him in a less than obvious state, and that's all he needed.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, the appropriate dose of holiday fun, and caught A Christmas Story on TBS more than once!