This got us such things as the big X-MEN logo/emblem Dave had put on the vertical stabilizers of the strato-jet blacked out every time I drew it because "That's not something the X-Men would have." Also go the white strato-jet colored dark blue every time after the first appearance, as they tried to turn it into the Blackbird. And don't even get me started on redirected pointers on balloons! Magneto being give Sauron's dialog, even tho doing so makes not sense, for instance, because it happens to mention being a former associate of Xavier's.

All without CHECKING with me, of course!

sigh.

Parts of the description of Caliban above remind me a bit of the poor, deformed mutant child that the Thing encountered in Thing #3 (or perhaps Thing #4). I remember getting that issue in a bag of 3 at the toy store and being very moved by it.

This is a little off-topic, but since the subject of HIDDEN YEARS just came up...I recently read it for the first time. Great stuff, lot of fun, good to see a real X-Men series again, with Cyclops actually acting like he's supposed to!

You know what drove me nuts in that run? The letters pages! Almost every issue seemed to have somebody complaining that you forgot that the stories were supposed to take place in the late 60s or early 70s. They just don't get it!

After my X-Days, then. Not that it matters, since I haven't read anything to do with the Legion since, oh, 1958!

****

There was a great issue of Superman in the mid-80s where Superman encounters four Legionnaires (Brainiac 5, Sun Boy, Blok, and Invisible Kid).  You should check it out some time -- I think you'd enjoy it.  I wonder what ever happened to the guy who did that comic?

Kidding aside, Quislet first appeared in the September 1985 issue of Legion of Superheroes, long after you came up with the concept for Caliban.  Like Caliban, Quislet can animate inanimate objects, and like Caliban, Quislet rides around inside a shell (in Quislet's case, he's an energy being from another dimension who rides in a "ship" about the size of a football).

Quislet was created by Paul Levitz and Steve Lightle, and I can't imagine either of them had any access to your notes for Marvel so it's almost certainly a coincidence.

This seemed closely related to the mentality that insisted I could not "reveal" anything that was not already established. Having Jean meet Ororo in Africa seemed particularly painful to some, even tho no one could show any absolute proof that it could not have happened.

It's a not uncommon problem, even in the real world, when the job of self-appointed "experts" becomes less about real knowledge, and more about protecting what THEY know!