For example, I would have been very happy if Marvel had chosen to tell a series of stories about what happens in the aftermath of a global conflict after Busiek’s Kang saga, if those stories were themselves interesting. If on the other hand they were formulaic make-work, there’s no reason to prefer them over any other kind of formulaic make-work, and it’s preferable that the company just pretend that the story as told never “really” happened.

I’m the type of comic reader that loses interest in a book if a creative team I enjoy leaves or a story ends, and absolutely prefer the singular vision of the same writer sticking around to tell the whole story. I have grown very tired over the years of worthwhile advancements in a story being completely reversed when the next team takes over (Hey kids! Just like politics!), so maybe what is needed is to completely break from ongoing series, as much of a tradition as they are. We are currently seeing a shift in the medium to writing for the collected trade, which does wonders for story structure and sells to wider audiences, so why not?

Alan Moore wrote original superhero stories that created the illusion of worlds larger than the current story, and often alluded to the continuity and characters of other comic companies while creating unique stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Grant Morrison and others have been allowed to write the stories they want to write, accepting or ignoring continuity as they choose. I’d feel a lot better if the current Civil War storyline was just the “Bendisverse” and wasn’t in danger of affecting future Spiderman stories that I might actually end up reading.

I just caught up on Moore’s Top Ten, which I enjoyed very much even if it wasn’t Moore’s absolute best.

Haven’t taught a class on comics. I’m planning to teach a week on comics and “sequential art” using Scott McCloud in my spring course on the history of reading, though.

Side note, have you been following more “literary” comics like Sandman (Gaiman) or Promethea (Moore trying to one-up Gaiman) or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the comic, definitely not the movie), which incorporate but are not limited to the superhero genre? And what’s with the British invasion that has turned writers into the comics celebs? (I stopped collecting just as Claremont and Miller and Simonson were getting recognition for writers, but it was all about the artists in my day–Claremont the only non writer-artist of the bunch making my point for me). Finally, have you ever taught a course on comics?

Re excessive darkness, particularly in the X-men: And of course it rather justifies either Magneto or the Sentinelistas. With this level of butchery going on, prophylactic genocide one way or the other seems rather sensible, and Xavierian sweetness and light criminally naive.

I wonder what the education schools would think of the Danger Room?