"Escape is impossible until one perceives all of the barriers."

Dwayne McDuffie has died and the worlds of comics and animation are less as a result.

McDuffie was one of the best. He was the mastermind behind Milestone Comics, an incredibly underrated imprint that has given us quite a lot of interesting characters and poignant stories. He was a key component of the awesomeness of the DCAU shows, and I think he understands the core DC characters better than most.

And I think he may have been too good for DC. At the very least, he deserved better than what DC gave him. Milestone as an imprint was shuttered with several finished issues still to be printed, issues that would have provided closure to their respective titles. When DC finally had the sense to hand him what ought to have been their flagship title, "Justice League of America," they tied him up in so many editorial mandates and crossovers that the book was never able to find its feet. When DC integrated the Milestone Universe characters into the DCU proper, the early hype of how much would be done with them eventually petered out into a few appearances in Brave and the Bold and JLofA, and Static joining Teen Titans (apparently the only Milestone character DC actually cared about). As if to add insult to injury, DC censored McDuffie's "Milestone Forever" for unknown reasons.

And all the while he kept working on DC's characters, in one form or another, putting out some of the best stories ever told with them. I haven't been able to watch "All-Star Superman" yet, but after "Crisis on Two Earths," I think it's clear that McDuffie is one of the few people who could faithfully and excellently translate a Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely epic into a screenplay.

And now, he's gone. I wish his family and friends the deepest of condolences, and I hope that, perhaps, DC will finally do right by his characters even if they didn't do right by the man.

Steve Gerber: 1947-2008

This is where I should be saying something insightful and inspiring about the work of Steve Gerber and what it meant to me. This is where I'd like to be saying something like that, but I can't, not honestly. I know I've read some of Gerber's work, I know I've enjoyed many of his characters, I know I've read about his legal battles and his work-for-hire disputes and all the various problems that have plagued his work and the recent revivals of Howard the Duck and Omega the Unknown. The problem is that I don't feel like I've read enough, like I know enough of what his writing is like, what his themes are, or anything of substance.

But I know that after seeing the outpouring of praise and support over the last couple of days, I feel like I've missed out on something big. But I'm certainly willing to find out what I've missed. Where should a Gerber neophyte start to get an appreciation of his work?

Goodbye, Steve Gerber, though I never knew you at all. I hope, in some small way, to correct that.

Heath Ledger: 1979-2008

So, I saw it in the subject line on a message board I frequent, and my first thought was to hit up Snopes, to find out that it was just another of the biweekly "celebrity dies in car crash" hoax-scares.

Ten seconds and a Wikipedia headline later, and I find out that Heath Ledger died.

I've always liked Mr. Ledger's work. I dug "10 Things I Hate About You," I liked "A Knight's Tale" (though I've never cared for the soundtrack)--heck, I was a fan of "Roar" in its first run. I haven't yet seen "Brokeback Mountain," but I probably will soon, given recent events.

When the newest "Dark Knight" trailer hit, I said excitedly that any fears I'd had about Ledger as the Joker had been totally assuaged. While I'm still excited to see his performance, I wish it would be under less morbid circumstances. Finding out that he was working on a project with Terry Gilliam only adds to the tragedy of his untimely demise.

My condolences go out to Mr. Ledger's family and friends.

Mike Wieringo: 1963-2007

Well, that was some unpleasant news to come home to. Mike Wieringo passed away on Sunday, due apparently to a heart attack.

I really don't know what to say. There's no way I could eulogize Mr. Wieringo as beautifully as his friends have. I've never had the pleasure of meeting the man, never got to get his autograph or commission a sketch. I've just enjoyed his work for years.

And that's it: I've never not enjoyed Mike Wieringo's art. His run on Adventures of Superman was clean and polished, even if the scripts weren't. His work on Fantastic Four was nothing short of amazing. And his work with Spider-Man?

In the history of Spider-Man comics, there are three artists who, in my opinion, have been truly perfect for the character. There's John Romita Sr., the first artist to succeed Steve Ditko on Amazing, whose pencils defined Spider-Man for more than a generation. He gave us the iconic "Face it, Tiger" panel, designed MJ and Gwen Stacy, and it was his work which graced the majority of merchandise well into my childhood. There's Mark Bagley, who has all but supplanted Romita on the licensed goods, and who has managed to give two lengthy and beautiful runs on the character, defining Spider-Man for the '90s and for the '00s.

And then there's Mike Wieringo, whose clean, whimsical style was tailor-made for the wall-crawler. He made drawing Spider-Man look easy. He gave Spidey a sense of grace and fun that I have yet to see duplicated.

I consider myself so very, very lucky that the last of his work published before his death combines two of his greatest strengths--Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four--into a thoroughly enjoyable and beautifully-rendered story. I just wish we'd been luckier, and that this miniseries would have been just one link in a long chain of amazing artwork. The fact that I'll never see another cover signed "'Ringo" makes me very, very sad.

Goodbye, Mr. Wieringo, and thanks for everything.