If Our Shallow, Self-critical Culture Sometimes Seems

Adults...struggle Desperately With Fiction, Demanding Constantly That It Conform To The Rules Of Everyday Life. Adults Foolishly Demand To Know How Superman Can Possibly Fly, Or How Batman Can Possibly Run A Multibillion-dollar Business Empire During The Day And Fight Crime At Night, When The Answer Is Obvious Even To The Smallest Child: Because It's Not Real.

I Loved Iron Man: Robert Downey Jr. Has Been And Probably Will Be My Favourite Actor For A Long Time…but Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Superman Returns And All The Others Feel A Little Like Saturday Morning Cartoons Next To The Carbon Black Glory That Is 'the Dark Knight.' Trust Me, *this* Is The Future Of This Sort Of Thing.

The Only Time I Ever Met A Character That I Wrote Was When I Met Ian Mckellan, When He Was Playing Magneto In The 'x-men' Movies.

We Tell Our Children They're Trapped Like Rats On A Doomed, Bankrupt, Gangster-haunted Planet With Dwindling Resources, With Nothing To Look Forward To But Rising Sea Levels And Imminent Mass Extinctions, Then Raise A Disapproving Eyebrow When, In Response, They Dress In Black, Cut Themselves With Razors, Starve Themselves, Gorge Themselves, Or Kill One Another.

With Marvel And Dc, You're Working With Their Pre-established Fictional Universes And Characters. At Those Places, You're Working With Characters Who Will Outlive You And Maybe Your Children And Your Childern's Children. Batman Will Outlive Me, Spider-man Will Outlive Me, The Avengers Will Outlive Me, And So It Goes.