Denny O'Neil always said he needed to relate to the heroes he wrote, and Tony Stark was more-or-less antithetical to Denny's values as a social crusading Catholic and veteran of the Bay of Pigs conflict in 1962.   But Stark shared a vulnerablity Denny understood intimately.  So, the mainstream superheroics are given human dramatic stakes by Tony's manipulation by O'Neil creation Obadiah Stane, back into sorrows of the bottle and self-loathing.  Now, Denny had two stories to tell, with down-to-Earth James Rhodes standing in as Iron Man.  Now one of Marvel's best-known heroes- maybe the highest-profile character who could be tried this way- was a Black American, but most of all, a loyal friend, with a different approach and skillset to bring to the twenty year-old character.  Here's my podcast, with limited space remaining, quickly hitting the key insights I uncovered.  It really must've been torture to see Tony, and eventually Rhodey, in their personal d

Hey, if Mike ever needs a scripter, I was one IDW President away from my professional debut!  But I guess he's got this one figured out.  Check him out?  Vozcomix: MAD MUMMY Gris Gris Girl Pt. 1 : No good deed goes unpunished. This week Adam does a favor for his friend Colon who works in Egyptian antiquities at the museum and he gets m...

Some well-done, street-level adventure comics, here. Blind attorney Matt Murdock's the Devil of Hell's Kitchen in Frank Miller's tone-changing run, an echo of the approach in Denny O'Neil's Batman stories a decade earlier.  That's, of course, a Barry Windsor-Smith cover- the coloring gives it away, right? Ever realize Denny pioneered the 'secret identity slip' that keyed in Miller's Born Again  storyline with Mazzuchelli?   Art: Klaus Janson  First as editor, then as writer, here's some insights about what made Denny's Daredevil, click. And on Apple: Creatng Marvels: Daredevil