I think I'm in love with the Endless. As, like, a concept. Though Delirium's kind of early-Winifred-Burkle cute and Death is, well, Death... "Season of Mists" is just jaw-droppingly well-written. I'd be afraid of it peaking here if I didn't know better. Gaiman's got more skill in his pinky than I'll ever have.

Sandman, start to finish, is so good it's frightening. Delerium is sort of inspired by/based on/something 'twixt the two Tori Amos, or so I've heard.

Sandman, start to finish, is so good it's frightening. Delerium is sort of inspired by/based on/something 'twixt the two Tori Amos, or so I've heard.

At some point during the run--not at the start of it, but after the two had met and become friends--aspects of Ms. Amos were written into the character, and the character's look.

And I have to disagree with the contention that there is only one train song in recorded history that isn't about death, losing your woman, or both

Southern Pacific by Neil Young is about being forced to retire, so I don't think that counts as death.

I think Night Train by James Brown is about sex, so only about the little death.

So I read, in one of those 10 Greatest X-Men Stories Ever Told things, the Dark Phoenix Saga and "Days of Future Past." They were very telling-not-showing back then, weren't they? Though I give major props to Claremont for using the word "comprise" correctly.

I was struck by how faithful the animated series was to canon. The team was a bit different, but the events were practically identical. Hell, even some of the dialogue sounded familiar.

"Days of Future Past," though, was nothing like I remembered from the animated series. In the animated series, Bishop comes from the future to identify one of the X-Men as a traitor. Is that another story in the canon?

They had some very compelling battle sequences back then, though. Both the fight for Jean's life and the X-Men vs. the Brotherhood fights were exciting even in print.

I really miss the animated series. It even had a cool theme song.

It even had a cool theme song.

I've got it on this collection (which is the only place I've found The Tick [animated] theme). The Knight Rider theme is kind of cool too. Also (Betsy alert) the Max Headroom theme is on this.

"Days of Future Past," though, was nothing like I remembered from the animated series. In the animated series, Bishop comes from the future to identify one of the X-Men as a traitor. Is that another story in the canon?

P-C, I haven't seen that ep from the animated series in years, but there was a huge dangler of "one of the X-men is a traitor!" for years, and it was resolved in in the Onslaught story arc. In the future Bishop came from, the X-Men were destroyed because of this traitor, although that's not *why* he came back in comic canon.

The animated DoFP was a conflation of the comic version and Bishop's story. Bishop is from an entirely different alternate future in the comics, a future that only barely resembles the cartoon version. Forge's involvement, for example, was pretty much them trying to get his character more screen time on the cartoon show.

Recap time!

In the comics, Bishop's is a future in which there are no surviving X-Men except one, an old man called the Witness, because he was the one who saw it all (he's very clearly an older Gambit). His cryptic remarks to Bishop and a scrambled recording of Jean Grey are all he has to go on. They lead him to suspect that Gambit was himself the traitor.

He doesn't actually go back to prevent the betrayal; he goes back to capture a psycho mutant called Fitzroy who travels back to our present to escape. In the process, he and Fitzroy both get stranded and Bishop's two best friends die. He stays with the X-Men to learn the truth. As said above, the Onslaught arc resolves this.

Good call, because, you know, DD's girlfriends have the life expectancy of a Spinal Tap drummer.

This is why Matt Murdock and Jean Grey should have been a couple. Dying girlfriend problem solved!

Hal's not the Original GL.

Just the best-known and brightest.

I'd take issue with that last. I'm more a fan of Alan Scott than Hal Jordan, though I'll admit that the Denny O'Neil run was the best-written treatment of Green Lantern.

I'd take issue with that last. I'm more a fan of Alan Scott than Hal Jordan, though I'll admit that the Denny O'Neil run was the best-written treatment of Green Lantern.

Well, in the comics, it was always said later on that Hal Jordan was the greatest Green Lantern of them all, unitl he went nuts.