DONALD J. BINGLE

It’s a staple of writing thrillers that the stakes and the difficulties for the protagonist must keep ratcheting up throughout the story. After all, if the protagonist is faced with a difficulty, comes up with a plan to overcome it, and executes that plan seamlessly, there’s not really that much tension/suspense. Heck, there’s not even much of a plot. There’s a whole raft of things that can be done to thwart the protagonist’s efforts. He can have underestimated the difficul

I confess, I didn't read a lot of comic books before my college days (where my dorm had a comic book library), but on the great divide between fans of DC and fans of Marvel, I'm clearly a Marvel guy. One of the main reasons for this is the difference between the powers of the mainstays for the two franchises (Spiderman, for Marvel, with limited powers vs. Superman, for DC, with virtually unlimited powers). Sure, this is a broad generalization re the two worlds, with plenty of