First, thanks for the scan of the Superboy issue with Super- Monkey in your TONY'S ONLINE TIPS column for June 14. My two-year old daughter has fallen in love with it, and it's now the wallpaper on our computer. So she can see Super-Monkey and Superbaby pulling tires off cars. It replaced the Brian Bolland cover to JUDGE DREDD #1, which I am sure my wife appreciates, since the two-year old would always say "him have bad teeth" when she looked at it. Just goes to show...monkeys on the cover sell the magazine without ever seeing the inside.

On this week's polls...I have a feeling neither the Max line nor the Marvel Knights line will be around next year, for different reasons. I've picked up on six first issues from Max (Alias, Cage, Fury, Howard the Duck, Blade, something else I can't think of) and none of them piqued me enough to buy a second issue. None of them. Nor could I think of a person to recommend them to. From asinine to simply unreadable would be the gamut of my reactions to the books This versus the newer titles from Vertigo (i.e., American Century, The Crusades, Fables, Outlaw Nation) which I picked up from issue one and have loved and, in the case of ON, recommend to a variety of people. I don't see a fundamental base for this line, especially from Marvel. For me, it comes down to an issue of quality.

I have been enjoying the MK CAPTAIN AMERICA, and half of each issue of DOUBLE-SHOT, but in terms of Captain America, Daredevil, it seems more likely they will be absorbed back into the mainstream Marvel. Perhaps the Punisher will carry on under the barrier, but I have never seen exactly why this line exists. It really doesn't do anything outside mainstream Marvel to justify its separateness. To switch companies, in the olden days, it would be like having the Robert Kanigher-edited DC mags called something different from the ones edited by Julius Schwartz?

As for which company I would want to own, it would definitely be DC. There is a broad spectrum of interesting characters there: the Charlton heroes, the Fawcett heroes, Jack Kirby's Fourth World heroes. It would be the best sandbox to play in.

Which the big three DC icons would I most want to write? That would have to be Wonder Woman. There is so much potential in that character. The long Kanigher run. The Mike Sekowsky period with Diana Prince as Diana Rigg. The William Marston originals. And yet that great history sometimes seems lost.

I haven't read much Wonder Woman lately; it doesn't grab me off the shelf. Not like the Kurt Busiek/Trina Robbins mini-series did, or even much of the Perez run. I tried again with the recent "Gods of Gotham," but couldn't get into it. But there are so many ideas in the character and her past.

Marvel's slashing of a page to make room for the synopsis page is a bad idea since it can severely undermine the ability to allow the story being published to be meaty enough. If I were running the company, I'd very much want to be able to publish a book with say, 24-30 pages of story. The more pages, the more interesting, exciting, and most of all, meaty, the story can be.

As for which company will be the top spot in five years, I'd say DC and Marvel will probably still be running neck on neck with each other, but who knows? Maybe CrossGen will end up passing both companies in successful sales. It depends on whether or not Marvel:

a) listens to its fans properly,

b) honors what makes their comics what they are, and

c) refrains from relaunching titles every 20 issues or so, as they are doing with Captain Marvel.

In the case of DC, it depends on its willingness to reach out to the public and make a real effort to promote all their wonderful comics. They need to reach their existing fan base and the general public. That's the key to success.

I don't see the new CrossGen imprints having much of an effect on things. I've heard all sorts of good things about the titles, from you and from others, but none of them have grabbed me enough to try them out.

DC will be the top US comics company five years from now. I almost went with Marvel, due to the many movies based on Marvel characters that will be hitting the screens in the coming years, but unless they're going to take greater advantage of this "free" advertising, I don't see them getting into the number one spot. I'm anticipating DC will do some things themselves in the coming years to offset whatever Marvel has done or will do; that will keep them at the top with Marvel a very close second.

On the SUPERMAN: DAY OF DOOM miniseries, it'll be nice to see Jurgens on Superman again. I can't necessarily say I'm going to buy it, but I'd have to say I'm kind of leaning in that direction a bit, based on what I've been hearing about the story.

On a possible Milestone revival, I'd be interested in reading

STATIC, but that's more due to the STATIC SHOCK animated series. The only time I read any of those titles was when they crossed over with the Superman titles. As with CrossGen, none of them really grabbed me enough to try them out.

I'm definitely against Marvel going the "Ultimate" route with all its super-hero titles. They can put out as many Ultimate books as they want, but I want my overly-convoluted, continuity-heavy Marvel Universe...well, perhaps not that convoluted, but given my general familiarity with the Marvel Universe, it's always a treat for me when a writer is able to bring something in from the comics of my past, and I can recognize it, and get that much greater enjoyment of it.

Going all "Ultimate" is, in my mind, throwing out the baby with the bath water! With both lines going, you've got the best of both worlds. However, I really hate the "Ultimate" name? It has always struck me as putting down what Stan, Jack, Steve, and the rest of the guys working at Marvel in the Silver Age did. On the other hand, I haven't yet been able to come up with a better name for it.

I'm generally for the page count cut to allow for the synopses page. It's always nice, even as a current reader, to get caught up with where things are in a particular title. Plus, there doesn't seem to be that many writers currently working in comics these days who do that good a job of recapping. I can understand the point of view that it makes for a less choppy trade paperback (reading some of the ESSENTIALS volumes does make it clear how sometimes several pages would be spent in recap, which can now be used to advance the plot a bit more). So far as having one less page of story, I would think any good writer/artist team can do a good job with whatever page count they've got, no?

In the regular Marvel Universe titles, I think Peter and Mary Jane should get together again. Mind you, I'm not currently buying any of the Spider-Man titles, but you know, there's been so few marriages between characters in Marvel titles as it is (and there have been plenty broken up among those). I'd like to see this one put back together again.

I voted "no" on the airlines question. I've got a couple of reasons for that, which I'll delineate:

1) I'd likely be considered a larger person, and I don't see why I should pay more than someone else. Now, my "largeness" is more height than weight, but airplane tickets are expensive enough as it is!

2) It would be nearly impossible to try to enforce it. With so many people buying their airline tickets online (every flight I've been on in the last year has been purchased online), what are they going to do, include an item that says, "Click here if you're a larger person"? Who's going to click that? Are the airlines going to wait until people are checking in, and then pull people aside and say, "Hey, you're so fat, you have to pay for an extra seat"? Who's going to put up with that kind of treatment?

3) The airlines are doing, in my opinion, a real crappy job with customer service since 9/11. I flew to Washington to spend Christmas with my family, bought my tickets online two months in advance, and had my flight changed three times before the day of my departure! The airline canceled flights that weren't full enough and ended up making all other flights overbooked as a result. If McDonald's can compute how many Big Macs to make every 15 minutes during the dinner hour, I would think the airlines would be able to figure out where and when to schedule flights so every flight would be as booked as it needs to be for their minimum requirements. Plus, the seats are really uncomfortable, especially for taller or larger people. I can't even put the food tray down all the way, because my knees get in the way.

If the airlines are looking to make more money, they need to offer better features. More leg room would be a good start. More comfortable seats, too.

I'm sure a number of people are going to vote "yes" to this question, figuring that it's their own fault that larger people are larger. But who decides who's a "larger person"?

On the last question, I sometimes read owner's manuals. It depends on my overall experience with the type of device. If I'm fairly unfamiliar with it, I'll definitely read the owner's manual. If it's the type of thing I'm very familiar with, I may just page through it briefly, or try it out on my own!