Wonderful list, which introduced me to a few new characters. I am definitely down for some Jill trent, Doctor Omega and, especially, Anne Radcliffe. I know her, slightly, as a novelist, but had no idea she had ever been a character.

So a DIY Super-Skrull? (Or, for DC readers, Amazo.)

Right there with you! I went through the same process: "Wow! They once got almost 30 inches, and all they need now is 38? I'll bet they get it," followed by, "That's the dumbest thought I've had today," followed by "Wow, multiply my combination of optimism and ignorance by a couple of hundred million other people,…

I'm an avid user (and collector) of fountain pens. Also an avid reader of comics, most certainly including DC. And yet, to my sorrow, these don't really excite me.

All modern movies and TV shows set in the 1930s and early 1940s. They almost universally depict the world in color, whereas anybody who has ever watched the actual movies of that era knows that the world was still black and white.

Agreed, but with one caveat. There's quite an industry built around movies set in medieval China, and (although I'm no expert) I'd be surprised indeed to find out that real life was anything like, say, The Flying Guillotine.

I've always felt lucky that a Sunday School teacher pointed this out while I was still young and impressionable, allowing me to grow up knowing better.

Assignment: Earth, an episode of Star Trek, was actually intended as a pilot, I think. It could have been cool: Gary Seven, a contemporary human being raised in space by aliens, came off as emotionally challenged in a kind of Sherlocky way; his wacky-but-capable assistant Roberta tied us to our own reality. (And if…

Great. Now we get to stop worrying about Skynet and start panicking about the inevitable rise of organic intelligence.

For the sake of clarity: "comic book movies" does not have to equal "superhero movies." If you want to do a lo-fi ultra-real version of Love & Rockets, be my guest. Likewise the stuff Ed Brubaker does in indieland.

I usually wear them on Sundays, but I'd be down with a cassock the rest of the week.

I'm a basically grim, depressive guy with a cynical world view. Therefore, naturally, Batman is my favorite comics hero. I'm partial to the Adams/O'Neil, Year One and especially Year 100 versions. But, out of all Batman's incarnations, THIS one remains my favorite.

Now sit here by the fire, kids, while Daddy tells you the most terrifying story he's ever heard. I call it … "Bush v. Gore."

This is the most important takeaway from the whole story. Crackpots are funny until they start to influence actual policy.

Y'know, now you've sparked my interest. Here are some things I thought at first might be better without dinosaurs:

Ever since Spock died at the end of "Wrath of Khan," I haven't been able to watch Star Trek. Have they even made anything since then?

Bet this dude really hates spelunkers. I mean, how bad does the world have to be that you hide out in a cave?

Yeah, I almost never used the card catalog in my little hometown library as a kid. You didn't even need to know the Dewey system; it was just faster to browse. But I do have happy memories of using the card catalogues at the Vassar and Penn libraries, the latter of which, especially, would have been unmanageable…

I'm sorry, but for me this is one of the techs that inspires legitimate nostalgia. Sure, they're outdated, and no they were never perfect (I also used to just go to the right section and look around — IF I was in a library with open stacks!).

You would think Super Friends, but for some reason my go-to Saturday cartoon memory is Hong Kong Phooey.