Originally published at Scott Edelman. Please leave any comments there.

Here’s the fifth Ethics column I published in The Comics Journal back in the mid-’80s. This one appeared in issue #106, the March 1986 issue, and dealt with my realization that I’d spent my entire career in comics trying to be Stan Lee, rather than myself.

But by the time I realized that, it was too late.

That issue of Captain Marvel I mentioned? You can read more about it here. I see now that when I’d written that entry in August, I’d forgotten the Space Phantom was meant to be a part of the story. Was it him impersonating Wonder Man on that final page, which would have lead to a confrontation between Captain Marvel and the real Wonder Man the following issue?

We may never know. But I guess I should never say never, for who knows what else I might discover in the vault?

As for the main point of the essay, I do sometimes regret that I didn’t start to find my voice in the comics field until just as I was leaving it. Will I ever give comics a try again? It seems impossible now with all the many things I’m trying to get done each day, but as I’ve already written above … never say never.