Like trying to herd cats, except if the cats had their own editors and writers taking them away from you.

There's a lettering mistake on the first page, as what appears to be the old JLA satellite burns up entering the atmosphere; but three pages later Black Canary coldcocks Green Arrow one, so that makes up for it. From 2009, Justice League of America #31, "Welcome to Sundown Town, interlude: Crisis of Confidence" Written by Dwayne McDuffie, pencils by Shane Davis, inks by Sandra Hope.

Dinah could be the author's surrogate in this issue, and probably just as steamed as McDuffie, as after the deaths of the Martian Manhunter and Batman (in other comics...) six Leaguers quit the team by editorial fiat um, I mean, for personal reasons! Ollie gets slugged since he and Hal had gone off and created their own team--remember Cry for Justice? Ugh. Later, probably after venting a bit, Oracle calls that a lack of respect on Ollie and Hal's part: they wouldn't have pulled that with Clark or Bruce. But, Dinah admits that was "barely the tip of the iceberg."

Arsenal leaves the team--I forget what terrible thing had happened to him at this point, besides possibly breaking up with Hawkgirl, and while it seems like he's grieving well enough here, I'm pretty sure he had a relapse coming. Black Lightning had left to take over the Outsiders, one of Batman's final requests--why they had to be separate from the JLA, who knows? Wally confesses, while he promised Wonder Woman he would be more available for the team, that wasn't realistic with problems in Central City and his family. Superman and Wonder Woman have a private remembrance of Batman while sparring in the Fortress of Solitude, then both tell Dinah they will try to be there for the team, but...maybe don't count on it. (WW had "obligations to Themyscira," although I couldn't say what in particular then; while Supes was going to be mired in the dismal New Krypton arc.) When Dinah complains she just lost all the founding members, Supes suggests maybe she should patch things up with Hal; and Dinah contains herself enough not to scream until the Fortress caved in.

Red Tornado hadn't answered her call, Atom was joining Hal's team, and Hawkgirl was somewhere with Hawkman and neither back yet, so Dinah's JLA was down to John Stewart, Vixen, Zatanna, and Dr. Light; who are supportive of her but all snippy with either each other or regarding their former teammates. Perhaps not unreasonably, Dinah throws in the towel, telling them she was disbanding this branch... 

My god, did McDuffie get all the toys taken away from him at once? "Welcome to Sundown Town" would continue until his last issue, JLA #34--without Dinah, but with Milestone's Icon and Hardware! Also, I try to refrain from swearing here, so you'd have to ask me somewhere else what I think of Rich Johnston and Bleeding Cool: "hot garbage" would be the most polite thing I could say. After his work on the Justice League cartoon, McDuffie's run on the comic should've been a can't-miss classic for the ages, but he was never given the tools or the freedom for it to take off. I'm furious at this comic...and just noticed the editor, so now I'm even madder.

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The Lilac City Comicon has once again come and gone, and this year we picked up 176 books and a handmade stuffed Nightcrawler! I am not even sure how much he cost, I may have just thrown my wallet and run away with him...but I do believe I had her card from last year, so check out Kelly Lundblad at Etsy. (EDIT: That link did not appear to take; I'll keep looking.)

But, why not check out one of those comics today? We'll start with a real oddity: from December 2009, Ambush Bug: Year None #7, "Whatever Happened to Ambush Bug: Year None #6?" Plot and pencils by Keith Giffen, script by Robert Loren Fleming, inks by Al Milgrom; story and art Art Baltazar, script by Franco Aureliani.

This is one of those comics where the behind-the-scenes may be more interesting than the actual comic; or perhaps from the comic that we got: this was a six-issue mini-series, the first issue of which came out July 2008, and it came out regularly up to the fifth issue January 2009...then a long and not-entirely-explained delay. Ambush Bug: Year None #6 was solicited with a Darwyn Cooke cover that would never see print--well, not really. The series would skip #6, and return with #7, featuring the Bug tied up over a pile of Ambush Bug: Year None #6, with Cooke's cover, asking for a match.

The short answer probably is, Dan Didio probably got sick of Giffen and company's nonsense, or that one or more jokes hit too close to home. Since earlier issues featured Didio as a character, and the first issue had Ambush Bug trying to buy a new refrigerator without a dead girl in it ("It's a standard feature.") I have to wonder where they crossed the line. Baltazar and Franco were Eisner winners, and may have been brought in to fill enough pages to salvage some of the book so they could publish a last issue and get people to quit asking about it. (More people probably asked about it than read it, this is Ambush Bug we're talking about.)

The series ends about the only way it could: with Ambush Bug banished once again from the DC Universe. He wouldn't be gone long, though: Giffen would bring him back during his Doom Patrol run: Didio did not seem to hold a grudge against Giffen or the Bug, and Ambush Bug would be a mascot-like character in the New 52 "Channel 52" ads. I still have to wonder what the original #6 looked like, but some of the jokes were probably of the moment anyway.

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Tough to pull off a dramatic unmasking when your face is seriously janked up.

Also, no one knowing who you are doesn't help, either. From 2004, Iron Man #88/433, "The Singularity, part 3" Written by Mark Ricketts, pencils by Tony Harris, inks by Tom Feister.

In the previous issue, Tony's longstanding on-and-off girlfriend Rumiko Fujikawa had just been murdered by someone in an Iron Man suit, and this month Tony has to fight the murderer in last year's suit. Although the murderer shoots down a news copter, another cameraman broadcasts the fight: Tony was unable to put his mask on, but this does clear his name. In Times Square, Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan see the broadcast, but Pepper seems to have a bigger picture goal in mind: lecturing Happy about "the singularity," she leads him to Tony's secret war room. (Pepper seemed severely traumatized last issue after the murder of the Stark board of directors; here she seems to be treating this as a lark, a fun day out.)

As the fight goes on, outside Tony's mansion the army has gathered a team, wearing even older Iron Man armors; and their commander is relayed an order from the president: "Eliminate the last Iron Man standing." Meanwhile, the fight doesn't go Tony's way: he catches a beating and his own lecture, this one about how stupid not having a secret identity was and how he put all his loved ones at risk. The Iron Murderer then unmasks, revealing himself to be...I have no idea who that is. It's illegal arms dealer Clarence Ward back for revenge, although how he got an Iron Man suit I have no idea. I'm not even sure how the army got them, for that matter.

I got the last four issues of this series out of a quarter bin, and I'm definitely blogging this one now so I can do the final issue for year-end. This is a lot--a lot a lot--editorial clearing house and putting the genies back in the bottle. The amount of effort put into doing that, and I'm not sure how long they stayed put...
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Forget "Must There Be a Superman," Must There Be a Kingpin?

This was from a somewhat famously muddled time in the book's history, but also features a plot point that would drive me insane every single time it came up; neither of which I'm going to lay on the creative team here! From 1987, Amazing Spider-Man #288, "Gang War Rages On!" Written by Jim (Priest) Owlsey, pencils by Alan Kupperberg, inks by Jim Fern.

We're up to the fifth part of this non-crossover storyline, and Spidey's yawning on the splash page...that may not be a good sign, or it could be a great dig! With the Kingpin gone, the various criminal factions of the city have been shooting each other up, and "in the midst of the violence and bloodshed, a lone man struggles to contain the fighting...the amazing Spider-Man!" That makes it sound like the rest of NYC was hiding under their beds, and even ignores the guest-stars helping out here, Daredevil, Falcon, and the Black Cat. The Punisher also appeared, but as more of an antagonist, as Spidey was trying to keep him from murdering the hell out of assorted gangsters. Spidey was also surprisingly pissed at Daredevil, who was trying to big picture this gang war, while Spidey just wanted to finally bring Kingpin down. Falcon points out here that DD may have been more than a bit condescending to Spidey, and he's not done yet, either.

The Kingpin returns here, several steps ahead of everyone else: he makes like he's going to have his various lieutenants killed, but that's both a deal with the feds to take back his throne, and a distraction to give him time to get his ailing wife Vanessa out of the country. Spidey is pissed at getting played again, but a sad Daredevil feels like it was a necessary evil to end the gang war. Also this issue: Mary Jane shows up at Peter's, and isn't thrilled that the Black Cat is there making breakfast. It's perfectly innocent, but Cat still refers to her as "Molly Jo." I don't think that was catty or mean, she legit may not have cared enough to remember...

There's also a veritable fish market of red herrings: Ned Leeds visits Lance Bannon, who seems to have a ton of Hobgoblin photos; then Lance sees Flash Thompson hiding out at Betty Brant's place. (It's not really "hiding out" when you wave out the window!) The Hobgoblin then finds and roughs up Flash, yet still leaves him when Betty arrives. Hobby then crashes Jack O'Lantern's hideout, but their fight is interrupted by Alfredo! Maybe I didn't say it in a dramatic enough voice: Alfredo! The Rose's sidekick or something. Despite his lack of name recognition, Alfredo very nearly takes out the Hobgoblin with an electronic jammer that knocks out his glider and weapons; but Jack saves Hobby because he wants to be the one to kill him. Hobby bails, planning to kill those two later, but the next issue box promised the "No Tricks! No Gimmicks!" reveal of his identity. At least five letter-writers guess Ned Leeds here, and partial credit, I guess? Ned would be killed in Spider-Man vs. Wolverine #1, but in Amazing #289 would be revealed to be the Hobgoblin posthumously. The link there explains some of the boondoggle: Priest was going to go with the Foreigner, but Peter David didn't think that made sense, so they went with Ned Leeds instead: years later, original Hobgoblin writer/co-creator Roger Stern would return for the Hobgoblin Lives mini-series, which revealed-slash-retconned Roderick Kingsley as the original Hobgoblin. (I didn't buy it regularly, but I did have Hobby's first appearance and read most of those, and there was a real menace in his appearances up to maybe #261 or so; before he was 'unmasked' as Flash Thompson. That was a trick; Hobby had dressed Flash up and left him to be captured; but it felt like some wheel-spinning after that. Not unlike the Clone Saga, the Spidey writers may have hit a good thing but not known when or how to wrap it up.)


And it's not even the Hobgoblin stuff that kills me, it's the Kingpin. I hate hate hate the way Marvel kept pushing that Kingpin was "too big to fail," that taking him out (either by arrest or murder) would lead to a crime-apocalypse. Yes, I get that he's too good a villain to just have the Punisher shoot him in the face, but he, DD, and Spidey all had that story where they couldn't bring him down, and it made them all look like powerless tools.

I thought there was a Batman story with that title, but might've been thinking of Superman #247, "Must There Be a Superman?" Oh, look, the Guardians of the Universe being dicks, what a surprise. Well, a surprise they're in Superman, not the dick part.
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I was certain I had read this before, but picked up another copy since I thought it was the last issue; I may have been wrong on both counts. From 2004, Iron Man #87/432, "The Singularity, part 2" Written by Mark Ricketts, pencils by Tony Harris, inks by Tom Feister and Charles Wallace.

The cover has a big banner for "Disassembled," even if it's blocked by Iron Man's head; and while that isn't as big a warning sign as say, Infinite Crisis or Mr. Yuk, it's gotta be up there. Tony had recently become Secretary of Defense, but the new direction Bendis was taking the Avengers would crap all over that; in fact, it would be a new writer for the last four issues of the series. (Moreover, that stretch of issues is probably only remembered for the ones with covers by Adi Granov, which seemed very influential to the movie look.) Tony seemed to be going off the rails, verbally berating the Latverian ambassador; and Iron Man has just murdered the Stark Industries board of directors! Pepper Potts narrowly survives: she had been late due to a problem with the art department. And Tony's long-suffering girlfriend--from #4 of this series!--had realized Tony had meant to propose to her, and was going to his house to say yes.

There's a flashback and some congressional testimony next, but Tony is oblivious to the current situation since he's in an isolation chamber. This was perhaps post-Disassembled, since he mentions Scott Lang's death; but Tony seems more concerned about either a possible health problem, or nanotechnology. Still, he's willing to come out of isolation for Rumiko--just in time to see her murdered by Iron Man! Tony doesn't get long to mourn, since "Iron Man" has him by the head--to be continued! Two more issue of this storyline, and I have no idea (or no recollection) who the bad guy was, or if I read them: it's entirely possible I had stopped reading the book when the Secretary of Defense plot was dropped. I also think that was the last time I read Iron Man regularly. And poor Rumiko's death feels less like a "fridging" than an editorial mandate to clean house. Like that makes it better.
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"The End" Week: World's Finest Comics #323!

It's a sad fact of life that sometimes friends drift apart. You might no longer share the same interests, or not have the time you had to spend together before, or disagree about what to do with yourselves. Or, your friendship might be ending by editorial fiat. Like today's book! From 1985, World's Finest Comics #323, "Afraid of the Dark" Written by Joey Cavalieri, pencils by Jose Delbo, inks by Alfredo Alcala.

There seemed like a bit of lip service to wrapping up an earlier storyline here; as the villain is Nightwolf, at the behest of the Power Broker; but it's the former's only appearance, and I can't even find any info on the latter. Still, an archaeologist who appeared in an earlier issue, and got her grant from the Wayne Foundation, spills the beans on Nightwolf: he was her fling, but stole a belt they had discovered and went to an old shaman to find out how to use it. Now, he's covered Metropolis with Advanced Darkness and magic wolves. While Superman realizes it's magic and he's vulnerable to it, he still gets knocked out and maybe gnawed on a bit by the doggies.

Meanwhile, after seeing the archaeologist, Batman disguises himself as Nightwolf's shaman, in order to trick him into a fight where Bats easily takes away his belt, and that's that. Except Batman is surprisingly pissed off at Superman, for nearly getting himself killed. For some reason, they have this conversation in a barn, somewhere, and after Superman has a rambling monologue about the good times he had on farms and wheatcakes. Swear to god, wheatcakes. That's usually Spider-Man's thing!

The last page alludes to Superman and Batman's fifty years of friendship, as they both go their separate ways. With Batman swinging away on a rope attached to...nothing in particular, I'd guess. The editorial on the last page notes that the book was going on "hiatus," while the bigwigs tried to sort out a premise and format. (I was more familiar with World's Finest as an anthology book.) I was going to blame this on the Dark Knight Returns, but that wouldn't debut until 1986! Ditto Byrne's the Man of Steel. This was post-Crisis, though. And the World's Finest name has returned, more than once.
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Told today, Superman would probably have to kiss Hal's ring...

I'm in a staggeringly bad mood today, so let's take a brief look at some things I don't miss (and maybe a couple I do) from DC Comics, using Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #4, "Hero" Written by Louise Simonson, pencils by John Paul Leon, inks by Dennis Janke.

Whereas Marvel often went with crossovers in their annuals, DC would sometimes go with a theme for the year, that would go across multiple books without them necessarily tying into one another. In 1995, that theme was "Year One." This is ground that has long since been trod over again and again (and to continue the metaphor, burned down and on occasion salted over) but it wasn't a bad idea then. Simonson strings together multiple points from Superman's relatively new, post-Crisis continuity, like his first meetings with Batman (from Byrne's The Man of Steel #3) or Aquaman (also told in Aquaman's annual for 1995) or the Justice League of America.

Now, that last one was later retold and expanded a bit in Waid and Kitson's JLA, but I don't know if Simonson or some other story set the precedent: Supes helps the JLA out against the Lord of Time, then cops out of League membership, stating he didn't have the time to devote to the team. (I do prefer Waid's story, where after Supes leaves, Green Lantern launches the chair Flash made for Supes into space.) As I've said before, I don't miss that aspect of that era of Superman stories, not one little bit: at the very least, figure Supes would've taken a reserve spot and a communicator, and not left with a vague, I'll-be-there-if-you-really-REALLY-need-me promise.

So, some of this annual's scenes I've seen before, or since; but there is one that I'm not sure has remained canon: Superman's first meeting with Hal Jordan, Green Lantern:

As Clark tells his mom over the phone, that he's met a lot of heroes but none like himself; a news report breaks in about a twenty-ton Lexcorp satellite headed straight for Coast City. Since the thing is inexplicably not breaking up in the atmosphere, Superman streaks to the scene to avert disaster. A disaster currently not being stopped, by Coast's own Green Lantern. Tongs, Hal? You're going to stop a multi-ton, hurtling towards disaster satellite with tongs? It's not like the damn thing's even yellow...

Sure enough, the tongs don't work, and as Hal kicks himself by remembering his dad saying he would be a failure; Superman slows down the satellite enough for Hal to get his head back on straight and net it. He and Supes chat a bit, as he puts it down on the beach.

Hmm. This would be foreshadowing, if Coast City hadn't been obliterated by then. Fauxshadowing. I'm going to assume this was inserted via editorial mandate and not by Simonson, but the trend at DC then, while Kyle Rayner was Green Lantern, was that Hal had always been unstable, which would be why he went bad and became Parallax. If Hal was seen in flashback, he was often either acting sketchy, foreboding, otherwise hinting towards future instability. This was done more than a couple of times, but that's still a fistful of retroactive blacklisting versus years of being the steadfast hero in his own book, the Justice League, and various other appearances. Put that way, "possessed by yellow evil entity" starts to look pretty reasonable.

This could be another of those things that happened in the DC Universe proper, and I might be thinking of the New Frontier again, but didn't Hal's dad die when he was pretty young? I thought Hal idolized his pilot father, and it's hard to believe someone that hung up on his dad calling him a failure, would have the confidence to become a test pilot, or Green Lantern, or even Hal Jordan.

As Hal talks to Superman, he thinks maybe he can thank Supes for the assist, by helping him learn about his past: Supes hadn't learned about Krypton just yet, placing this scene between The Man of Steel #3 and #6. Hal's ring tells him about Krypton, but Hal decides telling Supes the whole sole-survivor business would just be too harsh.

So, I'm torn: I liked this annual, and I enjoyed the highlight reel trip through Superman's past. I don't like the editorial fiat of the day coming into things: Superman's first visits with the Flash and Aquaman are also shown, and they manage without any heavy-handed foreboding of Barry's sacrifice or Arthur losing his hand. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these, especially since this one manages to avoid getting too mired in Superman's origin, which gets a new coat of paint and/or massive revisions every year or so now. (Which is it today: was Krypton a sterile, loveless society? Silver-age science action planet? Totalitarian war zone? Chock full of crystals? What?) But if I did, I'd want just a single issue trip, not six or twelve issues of revisions. And I'd want it straight, without dropping a bucketload of hints about current storylines: the Clark of ten years ago doesn't get to muse about maybe someday, a new Krypton will arise, and he'll leave the care of earth to other hands...

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Seven or so reasons why I'm nervous about Garth Ennis ever leaving Punisher: Double Edge: Alpha

Sigh. I can't find my Heckler comics, my old issues of Adam Warren's Dirty Pair are buried somewhere, and who knows what happened to that Marvel Knights run I was looking for. But Double Edge: Alpha #1? Right on top of a pile. OK, fine...

Larry Hama has written some pretty good Punisher stories. This was not one of them. At least, I had thought he had, going back over this, I'm not so sure. For good measure, Double Edge was right after years of over-exposure for the Punisher; and this was Marvel's idea of 'fixing' the character. By killing Nick Fury, then having Frank Castle become head of a crime family. I think John Ostrander wrote that series, but I have to believe that premise wasn't his idea.

Quick recap: finally captured by Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., the Punisher is still being hunted by psycho-mob princess Rosalie Carbone, subjected to psychoanalysis by the old Hulk supporting character Doc Samson, and finally brainwashed by a never-seen-before government spook...named Spook. Take a deep breath, let all that settle, and let's go:

1. Even if the Punisher had been wacking mob bosses at the rate of about 3.2 a month since the 70's; I still kinda have to doubt Rosalie Carbone could become the head of the organization. Not because she's insane, or because she's a woman, or even if she seems to be more interested in killing Frank for sleeping with her and not calling than revenge over her dead family. No, it's just that if your boss dresses like that and yells all day in a voice that has to sound like a super-pissed Fran Drescher; well, working for the Kingpin has to sound like a better deal. Heck, working for the Owl probably starts to look pretty good.

2. Doc Samson is a supporting character I've liked in other books, but here he's a bit of a tool. Now that I think about that, Peter David wrote him pretty well in Incredible Hulk and that one issue of X-Factor, and while he was more likable there, has Samson ever been an effective psychiatrist? All of X-Factor's still messed up, and all his work on the Hulk was more-or-less a band-aid. Samson is usually trotted out when the plot calls for a recognizable face to drop some psychobabble; so he's often used merely to shovel some exposition. (Most of Nick Fury's appearances probably fall under that description as well...)

His default characterization seems to be that he sincerely wants to help, but is a bit pompous and/or useless. Err, now I don't think I could write Doc Samson if they paid me, because all I can picture now is Frazier Crane with super-strength. (I checked out Polite Dissent for Doc Samson info, since I wasn't sure he was an actual doctor.)

3. The Spook manages to convince Frank that Nick Fury was one of the shooters when his family was killed in Central Park. How? Drugs and um, Photoshop. And my vision just went all red, since my suspension of disbelief just hemmorrhaged.

Spook interrupts Doc Samson's regression therapy session, showing Frank a doctored photo behind his back, and dropping none-too-subtle keywords to put the idea in his head. (Like Krusty the Clown's "If my banker is watching, let nothing STOP you from PAYMENT of this check!") Which makes him a more effective therapist than Samson.

Why the Spook wants Fury dead isn't made clear this issue, and I'm not sure it ever was. Also, he's a pisspoor retroactive villain: Fury and Castle both recognize Spook as a scumbag they've crossed paths with before, but this is his first appearance.

4. Nick Fury had previously been portrayed as an ally of the Punisher: not officially sanctioning his activities, but not going out of his way to bring him in either. This time, he's a lot more down on Frank.
Ah, remember when Nick Fury could smoke...indoors, in a comic? Strangely, I think Chaykin had been trying to get Fury off the smokes in his recent limited series: By the time Double Edge came out, Nick's last series had been gone for a couple of years, and even the Howard Chaykin scripted Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. had disappeared without a trace. (It came out in April 1995 for four issues, Double Edge lists as August 1995, the month after Fury would've ended.) I have to wonder if maybe Marvel wasn't washing their hands of Nick and writing him off for good: the one-eyed superspy was already a cliche, and had anyone done a honestly good Nick Fury story since Jim Steranko?

Either due to fan outcry, or possibly the Hasselhoff movie; Fury would return in Fury/Agent 13 in 1998, which was, despite having Mike Zeck covers (I think. GCD wasn't sure), terrible. There's some virtual reality WWII nonsense, but Fury's 'resurrection' boils down to, "Oh, it was a Life Model Decoy that was killed. Even though we promised it really, really wasn't."

Years later, Garth Ennis would have Nick use Frank as an asset again, in the Mother Russia storyarc; in which no one mentions that time Frank killed Nick. Neither should you.

5. Recently, this interview at Comic Book Resources with Punisher War Journal writer Matt Fraction reminded me of Double Edge. It mentioned a recent story where the Punisher was forced by the Hate Monger to kill an innocent woman. That would be at least the third time, in continuity, that the Punisher's been mind-controlled into killing an innocent. Granted, other more super-heroic characters get mind-controlled all the time, but their method of operation usually doesn't involve shooting people in the face.

6. After the Carbone assassins drop a bunker-penetrating bomb (!) on the S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse, Frank escapes but thanks to the brainwashing and drugs he thinks it's only moments after his family's death. In a shoeless rage, Frank guns down the assassins, then gets a ride with a drunk guy. A drunk guy who happens to be wearing a Punisher-skull t-shirt, and gets shot in the face for his trouble. It's dramatic shorthand that intends to say, "The Punisher's crazy and out of control!" but more loudly says "We're running out of pages, and the Punisher has to escape and get his shirt, and this guy's kind of skeezy, so..."

7. That Double Edge cover is everything that's wrong with 90's comics, as a drooling Punisher brandishes...an unidentifiable metal thing. But, the comic is durable and seems to have held up to me throwing it around, setting my coffee on it, etc.

Never leave, Garth. Please. Read more!

Warning: This scene does not appear in this comic!

Not. Even. Close. From Batman: Gotham Knights #71, "The Shape of Things to Come, part four" Written by A. J. Lieberman, pencils by Al Barrionuevo, inks by Bit. I'm guessing this cover should've been used earlier in the story, but who knows.

I swear, it's like Lieberman lost a bet with editorial: "Sure, A.J. We'll give you your own Batman book to write."

"Yay!"

"But you have to use Hush. Every issue."

"Crap."

"And, you have to at least try to make him cool. No fair just having Batman pummel him for 22 pages. That's how we lost Prometheus."

"Damnit!"

"But we'll let you kill off a big name Batman villain. Maybe Poison Ivy or something."

"All right!"

"But we're not going to hype it at all. Or crossover with the other Bat-books. And she'll be Superboy-punched back to life in a couple months, so whatever, however you wanna do the thing."

"Bwah?"

"I'll level with you, A.J. We're trying to phase out Knights and replace it with a new number one. Basically, I need you to ride out the clock."

"How...how long do I have? How many issues?"

"With the delays, and the new creative team, trying to schedule a little lead time, we don't know. Don't worry. Just write in four issue arcs. We can stretch or crunch 'em as needed."

"If...if I write four issues and it's turned into three, do I get paid for four?"

"Funny. Don't use that." Read more!