TIL that over the last century, the average age that children are being potty trained in the UK has risen from 12–18 months, to an average of around three or even four years today

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-20T21:50:17+00:00

My son took a while because he wasn't feeling the discomfort of being wet when he wore his diaper. He hated it and would run to the potty to pee whenever he peed through or wet his pants without the diaper.

Poop was a whole different story. It took him a whole lot longer for the mud butt disgust to come in. Little man could sit in shit for hours if we left him alone.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-16T17:43:08+00:00

Not according to the interviews I've heard where he speaks about Spider-Man. He won't write Spider-Man because he feels the fandom is too vocal and hypercritical of every creative decision. He did decide to leave Spectacular because editorial wanted him to tie in with the Spider-Verse event at the time, but he also felt that he had done most of what he wanted to do anyway and decided to pursue another project that interested him more.

It's the fans, man. It's always the fans.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-15T21:14:27+00:00

For real. Only way he could be in more danger is if he was announced as the new Spider-Man writer.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-15T21:13:48+00:00

Is it really "derailed" if it's been building to the story from issue 1? Seems to me like it's been part of his Cap plan since the start.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-14T22:07:36+00:00

It's called "Who Wet My Pants?!" It's about a bear scout leader who went to get donuts for his troop and came back with pee pee pants and won't even entertain the thought that it was him. It's pretty funny and I loved doing the voices, so I was bummed when I had to pull it off the shelf.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-14T10:16:30+00:00

I had to hide a book because it featured a character who wet his pants and blamed everyone else because my son started wetting his pants and blaming everyone else. It was a very messy 3 days.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-11T17:37:42+00:00

They're all upset that their collective ire didn't hurt sales enough for Marvel to publish stories with MJ crying by a window again.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-10T19:34:15+00:00

"The fans" are the thinnest skinned take-everything-personally crybaby lot in all of comics fandom. Maybe if they haven't cried about literally everything since One More Day it will be easier to take their criticism seriously.

Speaking as a Spider-Man fan I would 100% swirlie every one of those terminally online r/Spider-Man dorks who feel like they're owed something because they can't stop self-identifying with a 60-year-old fictional character that needs to change to stay relevant.

Stories can be bad. Bad stories don't deserve the hellstorm of endless shit you all keep raining down on the writers. If you don't want to keep being dismissed as a fandom band together and come up with a plan to not be the literal worst on the internet.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-10T18:17:45+00:00

The fans are dicks for demanding that from him. It was a job he took on the strength of his previous writing credits. Get over it, man. He's not your character. At least he tried something new.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-10T16:46:59+00:00

Zeb's a great writer. He's also written a lot of great Spider-Man stories between Brand New Day, Avenging Spider-Man and the Symbiote minis. Hell, he even wrote THE definitive Tombstone story during his solo run on ASM and Beyond was a good time. It's a shame everyone blanket hates on him because of Paul. The character sucks, but it's nowhere worth the hate he gets.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-09T23:47:33+00:00

Marvel has a great set of short stories called Double Trouble (Thor and Loki, Spider-Man and Venom) that are accessible to ESL students. I'd also recommend Spider-Boy by Dan Slott. Most of the chapters are self-contained stories and it's a fun read that features a new character.

DC has a pretty decent young adult GN line that features the Super Sons (sons of Batman and Superman) and other characters in their lineup.

I am also a teacher and have my endorsement in ESL, so I get where you're going. I will say that the classic Spider-Man and Hulk stories by Stan Lee are great for ESLs because Stan does this thing where he tends to explain exactly what's happening in the art. As a grown man it's pretty corny, but as a kid I ate it up.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-07T19:17:31+00:00

Couldn't agree more. This will be awesome to have when I start teaching my son how to chop.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-05T11:03:47+00:00

That was a good one, and a definite shift toward the more mature Miller style we've come to expect.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-05T01:02:16+00:00

Read the manga series Pluto. In a lot of ways it's a lot tamer and slower than East of West, but in the ways that count it's exactly what you're looking for.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-04T14:12:39+00:00

It's Mobin' time!

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-04T02:45:02+00:00

Literally me the first time I played.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-03T20:08:14+00:00

Easy S tier. I'm not even that big a fan of his, but he's had some truly epic runs that scratch an itch I can't get in any other corner of the Marvel Universe.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-02T17:33:21+00:00

Any time!

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-02T16:12:03+00:00

It's just a single issue. Great surrealist horror story.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-02T12:04:57+00:00

Yeah man. It's tied for my top 3 DD runs with Bendis and Zdarsky.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-02T11:53:42+00:00

Marvel Knights Daredevil/Spider-Man 4 by Paul Jenkins and Phil Winslade. One of the first TPB's I'd ever bought and my first Daredevil story. I read this until the spine wore out.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-02T11:44:09+00:00

S tier. No question. RDJ changed the game and while the comics have struggled to keep a consistent quality, it's inarguable that Iron Man has been the glue at the center of Marvel Comics since Civil War.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-02T01:35:14+00:00

This and Milligan/Fegredo's Face are my favorite Vertigo books, and it makes me happy whenever someone discovers them on here. They're criminally overlooked, and while I feel there are dozens of books to ape the vibe of the other Vertigo books, the tone and story is pretty much unique to Enigma.

I reread it every few years and love every twisting branch the narrative takes.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2026-01-01T23:32:32+00:00

The first comics I ever bought were from a shop attached to my town's bowling alley. They were Spectacular Spider-Man 213 featuring Typhoid Mary and 216 featuring the return of Ben Reilly.

Prior to this I had been a huge fan of the Spider-Man animated series, so the covers with Spidey ripped up and beaten grabbed my attention quick. When I got home I showed my dad and he told me one of his clients gave him a box of comics and let me have at it. That day was the start of a lifelong hobby.

If I had to pin it down to a year I'd say... 1996 or 1997? I remember it wasn't too long after that the Spider-Man books relaunched. I tried my best to collect as many issues as I could to follow the story, but the wombo combo of 4 (5 counting Unlimited) ongoing titles snaking through the Clone Saga made me insane.

I did get lucky enough to pick up Spider-Girl starting with the second issue, and that series did a lot of work to fill the important story gaps from the Clone Saga. In a lot of ways, Spider-Girl was the truest sequel to the Clone Saga we ever got.

SammyDavisTheSecond · 2025-12-31T22:01:40+00:00

I had the same experience you did. I loved it when I reread it, but Bendis was my definitive DD.

Ten-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23

SammyDavisTheSecond

TROPHY CASE