[Protoclown]

Sarcastro: Dave, that was brilliant! Seems to me we have to get you a new job at Marvel...

BakaGaijin: Wow, the Venture Bros reference seems totally obvious now, and looking back on it, I absolutely heard him saying the caption just like Orpheus. But like I said, it was totally subconscious. Thanks to the Venture Bros, I absolutely cannot read Dr. Strange's dialog without hearing it in the Dr. Orpheus voice (so he's become like ten times cooler than he used to be, and I've always liked ol' Doc Strange). So yeah, I've gotten to the point where I just think Strange talks like that and I don't even link it back to Dr. Orpheus anymore.

Sniperwulf: I doubt I'll be doing anything on "Messiah Complex". I've actually been enjoying it, so I don't think it's worth ripping apart in a Longbox column, but Max has a Weekly review of it coming up very soon. I disagree with his review, so I'm sure I'll post my thoughts in that comment thread when it pops up.

Negative Zero: I totally dig what you're saying about this alienating new readers rather than drawing them in. Sometimes I get the impression that Joe Quesada and Dan Didio over at DC are having a running contest to see who can implement the most horrible ideas. So far I think Joe is winning, but given Dan's record he could easily turn things around in his favor.

And in other news, today at my comic shop all the copies of the first "Brand New Day" issue were damaged by Diamond Distributors so there weren't any on the shelf. I had to laugh.

However, there WERE variant covers behind the counter that had $20 price tags, and one guy actually bought one in my presence. I so wanted to slap it out of his hand.