Yeah, that's been my problem. I've got dozens of plotlines and plenty of characters, all with firm stories and story hooks, but no talent with a pencil through which they could come to life on the page.

I read Marvel past the Inferno crossover. I felt they cheesed out on the ending of it, but stuck with them and DC for quite a while after that. I still don't think most of their work ever approached the sheer comic brilliance that you'd find in something like Watchmen or even the intelligent approaches taken with Bill Waterson's Elementals or more recently The Authority. Far more interesting stories, there, and often because they had no qualms about killing off characters nor any established malarky to which they had to cling and cleave.