1997 Total Justice in Total Teamwork Coloring Book: Lost

Oh no! Despero was left pulling his hair fin out over anxiety from this perplexing development. He then broke out into a bluegrass-tinge spiritual over his woes.

I'm gonna have to call b.s. on Despero's characterization over the course of this entire adventure, ya'll.

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I started a new job this month, so I'm very grateful I already had December of Despero ready to roll out, allowing me time to get acclimated. My buddy that abandoned comics nearly a decade ago when I closed his shop has also been picking up my slack in the comics news department. He informed me of one creator's Facebook suicide threat last weekend, and then forwarded me a tweet* from Erik Larsen on Thursday...

"Holy crap--I woke up to find both Joe SImon and Eduardo Barreto passed away? Time to go back to bed. Ed was only 57--Joe was 98!"

I guess part of the problem with comics going mainstream is that we now have our own celebrity death by threes (with Robin and Joker co-creator Jerry Robinson gone a week prior.) Ed Barreto was one of the key Martian Manhunter artists of the 1990s, and with online tributes like Comics Alliance's weighing in heavily on his Batman, the Shadow, and New Teen Titans work, I feel we'll have to do something special to show love here to his consistently unrecognized masterwork, American Secrets.