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Panel 1. Extreme close-up of an angry BLACK LIGHTNING. His expression says this is a man you do not want to be messing with. The only background is the early evening sky, just before the sun sets on the Brick City. (COLOR: As always, captions designated as "BL" should be colored differently than any narrative captions in this story.)

CAPTION (BL): I had a dream.

Panel 2. Large panel of Lightning walking down the steps of the Freedom Baptist Church with his dazzling bride, Lynn Stewart. Yes, he is in costume because this panel begins a DREAM SEQUENCE. No lightning bolts come from his eyes. The smiling newlyweds are being greeted by Tommy Colavito on the left and the old Outsiders on the right (Batman, Geo-Force, Halo, Katana, Metamorpho). They are throwing confetti and rice. The scene resembles the cover of Batman #122--the gentle and reassuring look of a much simpler era of comics--but with the Outsiders shown somewhat more prominently than their 1959 counterparts. (EDDY: Let's do flowery borders of some kind to distinguish this sequence from the flashback and the real time sequences.)

CAPTION (BL): Lynn and I get married again, the really huge wedding we never had the first time around.

CAPTION (BL): We couldn't ask for a more perfect day.

CAPTION (BL): Tommy Colavito is wearing a suit.

CAPTION (BL): The Batman is actually smiling.

CAPTION (BL): Everything is perfect.

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Panel 1. The DREAM SEQUENCE continues with a large panel of the smiling newlyweds on a chartered boat in the Caribbean. Lynn wears a really hot swimsuit while Jeff tries his hand at catching really big fish. Jeff is being encouraged by the boat's skipper, a dark-skinned, heavy black man in his late 60s.

CAPTION (BL): We go to the Caribbean for our honeymoon, two weeks of pure paradise where the closest thing to a menace I come across is the skipper of the boat we charter.

CAPTION (BL): He says he was Amberjack, a super-villain who fought Mr. Terrific and the Human Bomb in 1941.

CAPTION (BL): He enlisted after Pearl Harbor, went straight after the war, and retired here six years ago.

Panel 2. Jeff and Lynn, sitting at a kitchen table with the remains of a good meal still visible, are laughing at the skipper and the dorky fish-motif mask he is wearing. The skipper has his hands clawed and extended in a bad Dracula impersonation.

CAPTION (BL): I have no idea what he was doing in my dream. Maybe I read something about him once.

CAPTION (BL): It's not important, okay?

Panel 3. Jeff and Lynn are intertwined in a most passionate embrace. Their nude forms are lit only by a flickering candle on their night stand.

CAPTION (BL): What is important is I never felt so complete as I did during this dream, never felt more content than I did in this very best of all worlds.

Panel 4. Largely obscured by shadows, Tobias Whale lurks in some dark and distant place. He glowers from those murky shadows and brandishes an ancient, rusty harpoon.

CAPTION (BL): And, if any evil did lurk in the dim, distant corners of that place, it was held at bay by the soft candlelight flickering in the night.

Marvel time being somewhat fluid, Captain America may have--in current continuity--missed much of the turmoil you mention in this question. Even so, I think the biggest shock was more personal than socio-political, namely, how does a man fifty years out of his time fit into today's world and make the kinds of contributions he is driven by sense of duty and morality to make?

In a moral sense, the Steve Rogers of the 1940s was decades ahead of the America of his time. He fought alongside brave men and women from all walks of life. Two of his closest allies were an android and a mutant. I think his essential sense of fairness allowed him to take women's lib and integration in stride.

However, like the rest of us, he had some growing up to do in the area of politics. We aren't electing perfect men and women to office. We never did. They are human beings; they can champion wrong causes, they can make mistakes, they can use their offices for personal gain.

Captain America overcomes this by placing his strongest faith, not in elected officials, but in the basic courage and decency and goodness of his fellow Americans.

Briefs. Boxers would bunch up under the costume and you don't wanna know what happens when you jump around while wearing a thong. You also don't wanna know how I know that.

I couldn't respond to this thread earlier because I was in New Orleans for the Big Easy Comic-Con. Coincidentally enough, while walking on Bourbon Street in the early hours of the morning, I came across a curious sight.

An elderly, nattily-dressed man was drawing a several-panel "Our Pal Hoy" comic strip on the wall of the Cafe Laveau. He was using common classroom chalk.

I recognized the style immediately. He was Beauguard Canal, the artist most aficionados consider to be *the* MPH artist. He left comics in disgust shortly after DC added go-go checks to their covers and retired to New Orleans to be closer to his daughter and help her run the restaurant.

We chatted for a spell and I learned that, on a regular basis, he draws these brilliant little comic strips on the wall of the restaurant. They stay up until rain or time erase them and then he draws a new one.

That evening, I tried to bring a group of comics artists from the show to meet Canal, but I couldn't locate the restaurant. They accused me of making up the story of meeting the legendary artist, but I swear it's all true.

Q: In closing, what advice do you have for someone wanting to be a comic book writer?

A: Don't get caught alone in a dark alley with me. I'm still kicking myself for not killing the likes of Kurt Busiek and Mark Waid when I had the chance. Who needed the competition?