I'm a huge fan of comics, and currently majoring in physics. I know comics generally ignore how all the sciences work irl, but do you ever keep it in mind when writing?

I do. I love science and I subscribe to the science magazines to try to keep up…I may have downright fetishized it to some degree, particularly in the ALL-NEW ATOM which was very much about that. There was quite a bit in Firestorm and more was coming when I left.

But I also have a tremendous group of scientists and science writers from many different disciplines (astronomy, biology, nuclear physics, and many others) that I routinely pester to answer questions and to vet science issues. I HATE getting that stuff wrong.

This is one of the things I  liked about the DCu as opposed to the Marvel Universe when i was a kid…the MU, it seemed to me, used a lot more gobbledygoo science, “unstable molecules,” and the like. It’s clear that Stan just had no background in science.

Whereas many of the biggest DC writers in the past were SF writers, who often routinely stuck some science facts in there. The Atom might not have explained a lot about where his mass went when he shrank, but they TALKED about real science, as opposed to the “Ultimate Nullifier” sort of thing, which is fun, but a little silly.