Els Lee

I agree! I think there’s a charisma and level of fun that Ironman/Avengers/Guardians characters bring that DC (so far and on the big screen) has failed to replicate, including in the publicity. Wonderwoman has gotten a bit closer.

Interesting! Do you think hipsters are the new hippies – i.e. back to handicrafts/artisanal objects as well?

I agree that the intriguing hook is often necessary, especially when the writer is still in their early career and needs to convince the editor/reader to keep going. I’d also say, we’re gun-shy about using weather as an opener partly because of sentences like the one which inspired the Bulwer-Lytton contest (‘It was a dark and stormy night’). These are easy to make fun of. Maybe future generations will make fun of the intriguing hook.