When I look back at the stories that had a lasting effect on me — the ones that shaped, inspired, and frankly blew the roof off my basic storytelling sensibilities — I'd have to say that one of the defining tales was a 12-issue DC comics epic.

For a hick kid with a second-rate movie theatre, a laughably small local library, and six channels on cable? My storytelling could pretty much be summed up as BC and AC:

Before Crisis on Infinite Earths...and after it.