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Just in case Marvel is scanning the Internet for comments on the subject as a sort of informal survey (and they're totally not), I woulda bought the new Defenders series if it were $3 a pop.

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I hope this doesn't mean Tom Batiuk is going to start musing on aging and mortality in his comic strips.

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I really enjoyed DC's Showcase Presents: The Unknown Soldier. It's such a simple concept. They—"they" being Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert—took readymade character name, gave their hero a bandaged-up mummy face and master of disguise skills, never revealing what his face actually looked like under those bandages (Rather, they'd always show people reacting to his true face, leaving it to the reader's imagination how horribly scarred he must be).

I kinda liked Garth Ennis and Kilian Plunkett's four-issue Vertigo miniseries starring the character too, and Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli's recently canceled 2008-2011 Vertigo ongoing was a pretty strong comic, although it really seemed to have wandered away from the initial master-of-disguise concept.

Now, we get our first look at the new "New 52" Unknown Soldier and it's... well, I read these new design reveal posts on DC's Source blog and I wonder if more thought isn't put into the character designs than the stories featuring those characters sometimes.

This one, for example, has three hash marks on his head, where he can't see it, and on his shoulder, where he can't see it without difficulty. They are there, artist Dan Panosian says, to remind him that he lost his wife, his son and his daughter. In case he forgets, I guess...?

No word on whether this newest version is master of disguise, or a reinvention of the reinvented invention of 1966.

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In the midst of reviewing Avengers Assemble #1, Don MacPherson noted some wonky credits, which credit Bryan Hitch for designing the new Hawkeye costume...even though no one else gets credited for any of the other costumes appearing in the book...or for creating the characters wearing them.

Let's rectify that for them, shall we?

The Avengers and The Hulk were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Thor was created by Lee, Kirby and Larry Lieber

Iron Man was created by Lee, Kirby, Lieber and Don Heck

Captain America was created by Kirby and Joe Simon

The Black Widow was created by Lee, Heck and Don Rico

Hawkeye was created by Lee and Heck

(I knew all of those off the top of my head, give or take a Heck or Lieber, but I had no idea where Black Widow and Hawkeye came from)

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Aw, this is sad: Josie DeCarlo, the widow of the late Dan DeCarlo and the inspiration behind the lead character his Josie and The Pussycats strips, has passed away.

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I learned a new word in this post: "Fatbeard." It's not strictly defined, but I think I can make the meaning out okay via context. (Via Comics Reporter)

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Yes, let's have a change of pace in the sorts of questions we ask in Alan Moore interviews, shall we?

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I enjoyed this piece by Kevin Melrose on Robot 6: "Scientific-minded Stan Lee finds flying Superman 'frustrating'".

I may have misread the reprints of the first Thor appearances, but didn't he basically just throw his hammer, and then hang on to it, in order to fly...?

Also, Stan Lee did have his own chance to explain how a Superman might fly, when he recreated Superman for his 2001 Just Imagine Stan Lee... series of books for DC. Did that Superman fly? Were his abilities to do so explained?I've honestly forgotten (I've honestly forgotten everything about that particular character from Lee's series of reinventions with top-tier artists...relatively little of the series was all that memorable, beyond the novelty of it, but his Superman one seemed like the least memorable. At least based on my memory.

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I like Carol Danvers' new hairdo...

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...but I do not like Colossus'. Is that why he's been wearing that dumb Juggernaut hat? To cover up the ill-considered shaving of his head?