Lastly, has the passage of time changed or softened any of your opinions regarding your perceptions or fondness of the team? Especially after seeing how this forum in particular highlights what the team meant to so many readers through the years? I have always felt that AF was the foil to a great many teams, had a great backstory and very interesting individual character origins and tribulations. And most certainly was much more than "a team that could survive a fight with the X-Men"

It remains, for me, the most jarring change of creative teams that I can recall (certainly, on a book that I had previously loved).

Rightly or wrongly, it was one of those rare moments where I thought: 'I genuinely think that I can do better..!'

Still, AF's loss was Hulk's gain..!

I bought a handful of the post-Byrne issues, but my irregular visits to places that sold comics meant there were gaps in between. I think I bought (or read, sometimes you just borrowed from a friend) 29, 32, 35, 36, 38, 40 ,43.. and that was it for me. Things got increasingly wonky as the issues progressed.

Pretty much everything post-JB is best written off as fanfic, in my mind, as it really wrecked what made the book and team special.