"Comics are so often seen as the province of white geeky nerds. But, more broadly, comics are the literature of outcasts, of pariahs, of Jews, of gays, of blacks. It's really no mistake that we saw ourselves in Doom, Magneto or Rogue."

--The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates on the influence of superhero comics on hip-hop culture and marginalized people in general. "I tell you [Jim Shooter's writing in Secret Wars] was Faulkner to me," he says. "I'm 35 years old, and I'm still walking around saying to myself, 'The Beyonder himself is close at hand...'"