Speaking as a European, I hope the US remains the world's superpower for a good long time, considering the alternative…

Sure, let's say she's playing…I dunno, Dr. Deidre Wentworth (aka Superia) - then why keep it a secret?

Considering the fact that Jessica Jones is all about a reluctant/retired superhero, I wouldn't be surprised if Janet McTeer will end up playing one of Marvel's Golden Age superheroines, like Blonde Phantom, Ms. America or Sun Girl. Of course, that wouldn't really explain why they're keeping it a secret…

Wrong, wrong, wrong: Gerry Conway, Ross Andru and J.M. DeMatteis gave the world the red-blue bundle of joy that is the Scarlet Spider, and Fabian Nicieza, Mark Bagley and Darick Robertson (and Steve Ditko, Larry Hama, Evan Skolnick, etc.) gave us the New Warriors. All Yost did was write a boring book about Kaine…

OH SNAP

I don't know if I would go as far as 'single most defining event' - the biggest impact of Wertham was the creation of the Comics' Code Authority, which subsequently meant the end for EC Comics, which was the most successful publisher at the time. Maybe that did stunt the progression of comics as a 'serious' art form…

Well, call me old-fashioned, but I've always thought that a good writer can write all types of characters, no matter the writer or character's gender/class/sexuality/nationality/race/what have you. I've never read a Patricia Highsmith story and thought "as a gay lady, she obviously doesn't really understand straight…

Sorry, I should have been more specific: my question should (be) read (as) 'are Marvel comic books that much more sexualized and violent?'

Disagree: I thought Superior was an intriguing, daring, exciting idea, and that Christopher Yost's take on it was dull as dishwater - which is what I'm used to from Christopher Yost, who is pretty much the definition of a bland, yeoman writer. And I'm not on Twitter so whatever antics Dan Slott gets up to on there…

Speaking as an European fan of American, Japanese and European comics, I think that's a gross over-simplification. Here in Europe, that forty-year old guy with a big stack of Spirou, Tintin and Asterix albums is considered a socially-inept outcast too, believe me. And while we have a longer tradition of comics for…

I would never argue that Marvel fans don't like diversity across the board. Marvel Comics has always been fairly progressive and liberal, which isn't weird considering that it's a NY-based publisher staffed almost exclusively by NY-based writers and artists for most of its existence.

*Sigh*

I dunno, in a sea of books that are constantly being rebooted, with writers changing so often that there's barely any momentum to characters' multi-year arcs, Amazing Spider-Man has been remarkably consistent ever since Brand New Day.

Honestly, I don't get the Dan Slott hate. I don't like everything about his run, but on the whole he has managed to combine doing new, exciting things with the character and his world while still staying true to the decades of preceding continuity. Sure, something like Spider-Verse was a bit of a dud (though still…

Maybe Amazing Spider-Man is their top selling book because it has been written by the same guy for nearly a decade, has been shielded from a lot of bullshit crossovers and still stars the classic, most-beloved version of the character?

Are comic books that much more sexualized and violent than, say, the late 80s when I was 7 years old and reading the regular Spider-Man and X-Men books? I remember those containing a fair bit of subtext that I see now as an adult but didn't bother or warp me at the time (I think ;)…

Frankly, when I was a kid, I gravitated towards American comics because they seemed a little bit more mature, sophisticated and exciting than the extremely kid-friendly (and thus very, very dull) Franco-Belgian comics that used to be ubiquitous here in the Netherlands.

*Some* comics work best as miniseries and one-shots. The examples you name are all great, and I totally want a comics industry where those kind of stories can be told. But there are equally gratifying pleasures and artistic heights to be found in the long-form storytelling of Preacher, Hitman, Invincible, Claremont's…

None of those shows deserve Emmy's. None.

Mark Waid is 55.