We’ve been reading on blogs that some comic book fans (G.I. Joe and some  of the Marvel series) are starting to lose faith. In writing, we noticed that we can’t limit ourselves to scenarios in which our heroes confront increasingly large robots or monsters, or face larger and larger armies. We want to avoid the problem that plagued the TV series 24, where, every season, the stakes were higher than in the last. This approach is a dead end. Readers know the heroes will pull through, and they know that there’s a limit to just how big the challenges can get.