I get the impression that happened to Gerber a lot. The end of Hard Time was clearly rushed. Howard the Duck went to heck after his problems with Marvel drove him away. Even the universe itself conspired against him when he died before he had a chance to finish telling his Dr Fate story.

Thunderbolts was a fantastic series about villains pretending to be heroes who became villains trying to become heroes (and, in some cases, heroes who used to be villains). Then Fightbolts came along and threw all that away. Marvel realized their mistake (read: Fightbolts was a huge flop) and brought the series back. Unfortunately the revival only lasted a few years before Marvel used Civil War as an excuse to regress the series back to a story about villains pretending to be heroes. I’d much rather read about Zemo as a villain turned hero (anti-hero? Anti-villain?) than watch Norman Osborn or the new Black Widow or whoever slowly walk the same path all over again.

Speaking of books that lost their way and went to hell, Runaways really should have either continued under BKV and Adrian Alphona or ended with their departure. The Whedon and Ryan stuff was okay but it wasn’t as good as the original run and it certainly wasn’t worth the wait. Everything else (the minis and the Moore run) has been disappointing at best and awful at worst.
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I really would have loved to have seen what McDuffie would have done with the real Fantastic Four. Instead he was given just enough time to restore the pre-CW team so Millar (the guy who divided the team in CW) could write the real F4. That’s just not right.

I will NEVER buy anything else from Devil’s Due after they dumped their entire Aftermath line without warning. Defex and Breakdown had just ended and they announced that there’d be a handbook-style oneshot and a shared-universe series once Blade of Kumori and Infantry had wrapped up. Instead the comics just vanished without resolution (and I was really liking Casey’s Infantry too).

Considering that the company helped encourage the “wait for the trade” mentality, I can’t help but feel a little cheated that Crossgen only collected the first half of Negation. Then again, considering the company went under before they had a chance to finish the Negation War follow-up mini, I guess I can’t really blame them. I’m under the impression Disney owns the Crossgen stuff now so I doubt any of these stories will ever get a second chance.

Quntum & Woody is a book I discovered in trades long after it ended. I liked what I’ve read but I don’t have all the trades. From what I understand, not only has the series not been traded in its entirety, but the series is unfinished and the numbering actually skipped over several issues between publishers.

Planetary is self-explanatory.

Considering how things went, I’m really glad I didn’t get Morrison’s WildCATs or Authority relaunches.

Gail Simone’s Welcome to Tranquility was a fantastic comic and I’ve heard no news about it since it went on “hiatus”.

Oh, and I’m all for pretending that Kevin Smith’s Black Cat mini never ended. The tonal change between the first three issues and the ridiculously late last three issues was so different that it might as well been by a different writer.

I’d also love to know -never mind read- The real Omega The Unknown ending.

Ten years ago, a friend of mine bought the existing art for Veitch’s Swamp Thing #88 and made me photocopies and it’s pretty cool.. The first third of the issue is inked and lettered, the middle third is just pencilled & lettered (back when there was hand-lettering on the board before sending it to the inker). The final third of the book is loose pencils. Don’t know if there would be interest in opening old wounds, tho’…

Steve Gerber’s HARD TIME “ended” in an extremely truncated form: The last issue had the protagonist leaving prison and, in flashback, reviewing all that had happened in the 48 years between the penultimate issue and the last one!

Omega the Unknown – His “real” ending was never published (or, in all likelihood, written).
Guardians of the Galaxy – He got yanked off this title halfway through Starhawk’s origin.
Doctor Fate/Countdown to Mystery – Nuff said.

THE SHADOW by Andrew Helfer and Kyle Baker

SUPERMAN (and ACTION) by John Byrne