I have to admit, there was a point where I started separating my comics by creator rather than series, as certain runs might be so far superior to what surrounds them as to be absurd. But I do prefer thinking about series as whole entities, despite revolving-door creative teams-- the kind of thing which has been bugging me more of late than it ever did when I was younger.

I'd have to go back and look at those POWER MAN / IRON FIST issues. I recall how ABOMINABLE the book became, art-wise, during the McGregor & Wolfman runs (Frank Robbins! Aubrey Bradford! AUGH!). I don't recall Dan Green doing a bad job-- but later on, Green MURDERED Byrne's art on that AVENGERS run with Michelinie. I couldn't believe an inker who'd started out so good could sink as far as he did. It was like he started talking lessons from Frank Chiaramonte-- AUGH! Then again, Bob Wiacek has been on a steady downward slide for 20 straight years-- if he's still in the biz today. So Byrne is not alone in letting his craft slip away from him.

Ah yes-- ANT-MAN!!! Amazing. I've heard recently that Byrne got very puissed at Bob Layton for changing his art too much, and never wanted to work with him again. which I thought was strange, because I'd heard 20 years ago the same feelings were held by Dave Cockrum, after Layton completely redrew some faces in the one issue of X-MEN they did together.

I believe TWO-IN-ONE #50 was Byrne's writing debut-- he really showed what he could do. Oddly enough, in the 80's, more and more guys who started as pencillers and later did writing & pencils suddenly ONLY wanted to do writing-- Starlin, Grell, Miller, Giffen, Byrne... Of these, ONLY Byrne's work REALLY suffered terribly whenever anyone else would pencil his stories. I realized that John's art was ESSENTIAL to his entire "style" of storytelling-- without it, one would be suffering through interminable long storylines, without any pretty pictures to jazz it up.

I'm thinking of his ENTIRE RUN as writer of IRON MAN-- maybe I just really, REALLY HATE J.R.Jr.'s "new style", which he'd developed right about then-- but even after he left and Paul Ryan took over, there was hardly any noticeable improvement in the storylines. Yes, it's true-- long before, as legend now tells me, I.M. went COMPLETELY to hell, Byrne bored the hell out of sop much I stopped buying the series, so i missed all the REALLY awful stuff that came later!