I noted in the statistics thread that I was the only person to choose DeMatteis, so glad to see him getting some acknowledgement over here at least. But still nobody's mentioning Milligan.

As for near misses, I got very far into preparing with Paul Jenkins in the #12 spot. I'd even written out quotes for him. I'll post them below. I wrote out 3, but was planning to pick only one of the Spider-Man's and find another. But then somehow, unbidden, images of Civil War: The Return entered my head. I recalled throwing it across the room. Generally, I prefer to judge writers by their best. But Jenkins is a writer who pays the bills. As much as I love his Inhumans or Hulk, there's also a pile of work I just find frustrating to read, and figured I could find a writer who had upset me less for that coveted #12 spot, and I settled on Paul Dini.


Your name is Bob Reynolds. You're a private citizen. You have this weird notion that you might once have been somebody important-- a powerful being named the Sentry. You're thirty pounds overweight. You prefer cartoons over CNN. And you drink too much. Hey, but who cares, right? I mean, who gets to decide what's real and what's not anymore?
--"The Unicorn", The Sentry #2, Marvel, 2000


Peter Parker: But to me, it's never been about winning. Baseball's far bigger than just a good result. Mind you, being a Mets fan, I would say that. What d'you say, Uncle Ben? Maybe this year?
--"Maybe Next Year", Peter Parker Spider-Man #33, Marvel, 2001


Spider-Man: You don't need me anymore. From now on, you're a big man, okay?
Lafronce: Okay.
Spider-Man: And big men don't hug each other when they part ways.
Lafronce: They don't.
Spider-Man: Nope. They shake hands.
--"Heroes Don't Cry", Peter Parker Spiderman #35, Marvel, 2001

(While the above is my favorite Jenkins scene, I wasn't sure it worked when removed from the context of the images, which was what I was striving for with my quotes, to focus on the scripting itself.)

some Near misses:

Jodorowsky - left him off my list mainly becase I've read only one of his works in full - though that's a great one: The Incal. Everything else has been a book here, a story there, not enough to judge those works fairly.

Kurtzman - again, I only know the MAD stuff - though that was almost enough on its own for me to include him, especially since I've been reading the early issues of MAD the last year or so.

Gerry Finlay-Day - I see a trend: I've read only Rogue Trooper, which I liked a lot but was a bit one-note; not enough on its own for me to include him, in the end.

Charlier - have only just started getting to know this writer, through an early-ish volume (no. 3) of Blueberry. My over all impression was very positive, but one volume isn't much to go by - and it's hard to separate the beautiful Moebius artwork from the writing.


Marv Wolfman - probably got the most serious consideration of anyone on my near misses list: I rate Tomb of Dracula with the best of 70sMarvel, which means up there with favourites like Moench's MoKF, Englehart'sDr. Strange, Gerber's HtD, etc. But what kept him off is that I have read a lot of his other work and nothing else Wolfman has done comes close to ToD, in my view. Night Force might have had a chance but we'll never know, as it was cancelled so quickly. His superhero work was usually pretty solid, and often better than just solid, but for me never reached the level of ToD or works by other writers on my final list of 12. And some of it was pretty ordinary, to my mind - Nova, for example, felt nostalgia-driven and not in a way I found attractive personally. Still, ToD was almost enough all by itself, and on another day, in a different mood, I might put Wolfman in there - where he surely would have been had I made this list around 1975-1978.