Z-A of Me Meme

Q is for Quasar #17

"Reborn to Run" - In which Barry Allen appears in the Marvel Universe during a cosmic race, which he ends up winning, is one of my favorite comics ever. Knowing that Mark Gruenwald had such a love for the silver age Flash that he would introduce him into the sandbox that he had chosen to stay in , makes me wonder just how great a flash series written by Gru would have been. Much like his Squadron Supreme mini-series had me chomping at the bit for a Gru run on JLA. We lost a great man, and a not-too-shabby writer to boot.

People may have qualms about his run on Captain America, what with Cap-Wolf, Robo-Cap, Teen Cap, and the various wannabe Caps that came about in the mid-90s that are currently being killed off in Warren Ellis's Thunderbolts. What I remember is a great, long, run on a character that kept growing and growing on me, with his earnest love of his country. If not for Gru's run on Cap, (when nobody wanted to write him) I think he may have been killed off during the whole rush to "event" in comics post-Death of Superman.

I miss Mark Gruenwald, even though a part of him is sitting on my bookshelf as we speak.

That's another thing, Mark loved comics so much that he had himself cremated and put into a printing of what he thought of as his best work, the Squadron Supreme tpb. It's an odd sentiment, but I now think of him everytime I read it.