Ego is difficult to take seriously

Byrne, like Diablo, reduces complex compounds to their fundamental elements

Byrne's true passion is for a nostalgia that manages to look forward even as it looks back

The 70s were not kind to Thor and the Fantastic Four

DeMatteis gave Marvel a set of gifts that were not all immediately appreciated

It's a wonderful conclusion to an unusual series

Moonshadow’s father is never entirely absent, but he is unpredictable and unreliable

Sunshine is that rare mother who is granted a history and subjectivity independent of her son, and every bit as valid as his

The origin of Moonshadow as a reader

Moonshadow revels in the absurdity that makes belief in a Grand Plan so difficult.

Moonshadow’s combination of words and pictures is more immediately legible than it was forty years ago

Moonshadow was accurately marketed as a "fairy tale for adults”

This book is less about a mystic bond than about the illusion of connection

The deaths of Spider-Man’s loved ones are a narrative repetition compulsion

Until the very end, Kraven does not realize that the Spider is just a man

Kraven’s Last Hunt was built on relationships, connections, and intersubjectivity

The Defenders is a remix of Crime and Punishment, borrowing from the point in the book that so many readers find the least satisfying

Eric and Sunshine share another distinguishing feature:  each of them has outlived his context

Devil-Slayer was the sort of character that DeMatteis found irresistible:  flawed, tortured, with a tragic backstory steeped in magic and horror

By rights, a fight against demons from hell should have been a recipe for simplistic heroism