Comics writers of the 70s and their signature works

[gentlesatirist]

After reading another great Comics 101 piece by Scott Tipton over at moviepoopshoot.com - in which he said his image of the JLA was formed as much by Gerry Conway as Gardner Fox - I got to thinking of how a lot of the 70s writers I was weaned on went by in a blur of anonymity as I focused on art credits.

Without getting into voluminous detail, I was hoping the assembly gathered here could cite one or two works most associated with these writers :

Gerry Conway
Len Wein
Roy Thomas
Elliott Maggin
E. Nelson Bridwell
Cary Bates
Paul Levitz
Marty Pasko
Denny O'Neil
Steve Engelhart
Steve Gerber

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated...


- FE
Wickliffe OH

[MDG]

I'll bite, but I expect to be shot down on some of these.

Gerry Conway--JLA
Len Wein--Swamp Thing
Roy Thomas--Conan, All-Star Squadron
Elliott Maggin--Superman titles (no particular issues or runs really stand out)
E. Nelson Bridwell--Capt Marvel/Shazam (Best: 8 pagers in World's Finast w/ Newton art)
Cary Bates--Flash (?)
Paul Levitz--Revived All Star
Marty Pasko--Superman, Action (no particular issues or runs really stand out)
Denny O'Neil--Batman and Green Lantern/Greeen Arrow (w/ Adams)
Steve Engelhart--Detective (w/ Marshall Rogers), and probably something at Marvel
Steve Gerber--Howard the Duck

MDG

[JeffreyWKramer]

Gerry Conway - JLA, Spider-Man, Superman vs. Spider-Man
Len Wein - Swamp Thing
Roy Thomas - Invaders, All-Star Squadron, Conan
Elliott Maggin - Superman
E. Nelson Bridwell - Shazam!
Cary Bates - Flash
Paul Levitz - All-Star/JSA, Huntress, Legion
Marty Pasko - Uhm... Plastic Man? Not a big Pasko fan here
Denny O'Neil - Batman. Created Ra's al-Ghul, the last truly great Bat-foe. GL/GA
Steve Engelhart - JLA, Avengers, Detective (w/ Marshall Rogers)
Steve Gerber - Howard the Duck, Defenders

[T GUy]

E. Nelson Bridwell--Capt Marvel/Shazam (Best: 8 pagers in World's Finast w/ Newton art)

In the 'seventies, surely the Super-Friends? Though I've heard the view that this resembles the clasic (Schwartz/Fox/Sekowsky) 'sixties JLA more than the '70s JLA, so perhaps thisis an Honourary Silver Age Comic...


Cary Bates--Flash (?)

I'd think of Superman first. The material from the late 'seventies to early 'eighties is my favourite Superman and favourite Bates.


Paul Levitz--Revived All Star

Me too, but I believe many favour his LSH work


Steve Engelhart--Detective (w/ Marshall Rogers), and probably something at Marvel

The Avengers primarilly. He also had a long run on Captain Marvel post-Starlin, and again many would cite Dr. Strange (Marvel Premiere and his own title).


Steve Gerber--Howard the Duck

And Man-Thing, The Defenders and Omega. The first seven or eight issues of Marvel Two-in-One are overlooked examples of good Gerber scripts.

[Slam_Bradley]

Gerry Conway - Spider-Man, JLA
Len Wein - Swamp Thing
Roy Thomas - Conan (his DC work was 1980's)
Elliott Maggin - Superman
E. Nelson Bridwell - Shazam!
Cary Bates - Flash
Paul Levitz - All-Star/JSA, Legion?
Marty Pasko - I mostly remember him doing shortish Superman stories.
Denny O'Neil - Batman
Steve Engelhart - Detective, Avengers, Captain America
Steve Gerber - Howard the Duck, Defenders

[Mike Kuypers]

I think the series Paul Levitz is most identified with is the Legion of Super-Heroes, esp. "The Great Darkness Saga," with Keith Giffen. But that was 1982.

He also did the short-lived Stalker with Steve Ditko.

[dan bailey]

He also did the short-lived Stalker with Steve Ditko.

the gcd appears to be down at the moment, & it's been more than 25 years since i've seen an issue, but didn't wally wood ink ditko on these? if anything, i seem to recall wood overwhelming the pencils ...

[MWGallaher]

Some notable alternatives that come to my mind when I think of some of these writers:

Gerry Conway: Firestorm
Len Wein: Phantom Stranger
Denny O'Neil: Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter
Steve Gerber: Tales of the Zombie

And now for a few writers not mentioned in FE's initial post:

Doug Moench: Planet of the Apes
Don MacGregor: Black Panther
Tony Isabella: Black Lightning
Marv Wolfman: Tomb of Dracula

[InfoBroker]

Gerry Conway
He became the writer that killed Gwen Stacy, he had a decent run on Spidey and FF, but Gerry's work never really appealed to me on those two titles. I did like his early work on DD from 1971-72, issues 82-92 or there abouts.

Len Wein
Solid writer, never broke the core standards of a character or the concepts that were central to what made a comic work. He understood that it was easy to tear up the tracks, but the mess left behind wasn't nice.

Swamp Thing is the standout comic of his from the early 70s. He also had a hand in maintaining solid sales on several mainstream characters at both DC and Marvel. This would include the return of the X-men comic with Dave Cockrum in the late 70s.

Roy Thomas
Conan was his diamond. but I also enjoyed his final moments on Avengers (Kree-Skrull War), and the overall tone of most of the Marvel comics that came out under his tenure as editor-in-cheif. This would include the definitive work of Steve Gerber, Steve Englehart, Marv Wolfman that I will mention below.

I also enjoyed almost anything that Roy did in tandem with Gil Kane. That would include but not be limited to:

Captain Marvel 17-21
Conan 17,18
Giant Size Conan 1-4 (Hour of the Dragon adaptation),
Amazing Spider-man 101 & 102
Warlock in Marvel Premere 1 & 2
Gullivar Jones, Wariror of Mars from Creatures on the Loose 16,17,18


Denny O'Neil
Early 70s work with Neal Adams on Batman and Green Lantern/Green Arrow. However, the GL?GA material doesn't hold up very well over time.

Steve Engelhart
SE's earlist work at Marvel was the Beast series in Amazing Adventures. His early scripts show great promise. He had a keen awaereness of inner workings of the characters he worked on, and strong dialog that was true to the characters, yet fresh and original. My favorite work of his was not Avengers, and especially not the Celestial Modanna series. I consider his earlier Avengers material superior, and his Dr. Strange work with Brunner and especially Gene Colan to be outstanding. When he shifted to DC, his JLA run was good, but his Batman run with Marshall Rogers was the motar and bricks that Frank Millar would stand upon to do the Dark Knight material.

Steve Gerber
Loved Howard, but I still think his Man-Thing stories are more interesting and opens the door for the material that Peter David would explore with Hulk, and even lends direction to themes that Alan Moore and Neil Gaimen would use in the 80s and early 90s with Swamp Thing and Sandman.

adding Marv Wolfman to your list...
Marv is the standards bearer for one series in the 70s and one in the early 80s Noone could follow or match him on them either. Ariche Goodwin and Gerry Conway had a brief stint on Tomb of Dracula, but it was Marv Wolfman that define the characters, established the scope and range of how to tell tales of vampires, horror and suspense in an ongoing series. Steve Bissette called it the best graphic horror novel ever done. Many aspects of what Marv did here are the guidelines for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

His early 80s series is the work he did with George Perz on the New Teen Titans. Strong characters, solid plotting. Dick Giordano mentioned somewhere that this title was the framework for DCs super-hero franchise in the 80s. A lot of their other titles built on the material and the styles that Marv Wolfman/Geroge Perez established here.


- jb the ib :cool:

[dan bailey]

And now for a few writers not mentioned in FE's initial post:

Doug Moench: Planet of the Apes
Don MacGregor: Black Panther
Tony Isabella: Black Lightning
Marv Wolfman: Tomb of Dracula

for moench, i'd add werewolf by night & master of kung fu. for macgregor, war of the worlds/killraven.

[Rob Allen]

Not mentioned so far:

Steve Englehart's Captain America
Len Wein's Hulk and Spider-Man

And I agree with InfoBroker about the Thomas/Kane team - I loved their revamps of Mar-Vell and Warlock, which were both in turn revamped again by Jim Starlin.

[Roquefort Raider]

the gcd appears to be down at the moment, & it's been more than 25 years since i've seen an issue, but didn't wally wood ink ditko on these? if anything, i seem to recall wood overwhelming the pencils ...

He did ink the series, but even if his inks are powerful the result was a fine blend of Ditko and Wood.

I really liked Stalker!

[gentlesatirist]

Thanks! I had meant to include Wolfman in my intitial post.

Surprised to see non-Legion mentions for Levitz, and that All-Star Squadron wasn't mentioned more for Thomas...

And what about Bob Rozakis?


- FE
Wickliffe OH

[Slam_Bradley]

Thanks! I had meant to include Wolfman in my intitial post.

Surprised to see non-Legion mentions for Levitz, and that All-Star Squadron wasn't mentioned more for Thomas...

And what about Bob Rozakis?


I didn't mention All-Star Squadron because Roy didn't move to DC until the 80's. And I really couldn't remember when Levitz started writing Legion.

[gentlesatirist]

...for his Spectre/Jonah Hex work would have to be Michael Fleischer, although I don't think he wrote much beyond that.

Out of curiosity, when Did Stan Lee relinquish most of his writing chores at Marvel?

On Cary Bates : I always think of him primarily as a Superman writer, rather than Flash.

And I guess we'd have to include Robert Kanigher on some of the war titles. And the immortal Bob Haney on B&B.


- FE

[InfoBroker]

Stan's scripting chores had dropped to near zero by the time he moved into the publisher role and handed the Editor-In-Chief hat to Roy Thomas. He even said as much in the full bullpen page announcement from the Spring of 1972. Prior to this announcement, he was only scripting Spider-man and the Fantastic Four.

In the summer-fall of 1971 he had taken a couple of months off to work on a screenplay, and probably lay the ground work for this shift. For those three months or so, Roy Thomas picked up Spider-man, Archie Goodwin scripted the FF, and Gerry Conway took over Thor. I'm not sure Stan was writing much beyond those titles. When Stan came back from this sabatical, he took back the writing reigns of Spidey and FF but I think that Thor stayed in the hands of Gerry Conway. Gerry took over both the FF and Spidey following Stan's announcment in 1972.

Oddly enough (I know I should say "strangely enough"), Marvel Premiere #3 featuring the return of solo-adventures of Dr. Strange, contained the last story Stan wrote as Editor and Art Director of Marvel Comics. Business titles he had held since at least the 1950s if not earlier. It was illustrated by Barry Smith and as far as I can recollect, the only time these two collaborated together.

-jb the ib :cool:

[T GUy]

For those three months or so, Roy Thomas picked up Spider-man, Archie Goodwin scripted the FF, and Gerry Conway took over Thor. I'm not sure Stan was writing much beyond those titles. When did he relinquish Captain America? I have No. 116, which is Lee/Colan... and is probably 1969 (I think I'll go and check all these points out on the GCD).

Right. Gary Friedrich takes over from Stan the Man with No. 142, October 1971. I assume that there's an interregnum earlier when the Smiling one works on the screenplay.

[InfoBroker]

That is the screenplay break month. It aligns with Spidey #101, FF #115 and Thor #192. These all came out in July of 1971. Which means Stan started his break in the March/April timeframe. It also means, like Thor, Stan did not return to this title after the break.

Now I'm wondering if he was doing anything else...

- jb the ib :cool:

[Shellhead]

Gerry Conway - Amazing Spider-man, esp. the deaths of Gwen Stacy and the Green Goblin.
Len Wein - for some reason, I think of him as more of an editor than a writer.
Roy Thomas - Avengers, Conan, Invaders?
Elliott Maggin - ?
E. Nelson Bridwell - ?
Cary Bates - sounds vaguely familiar
Paul Levitz - editor?
Marty Pasko - ?
Denny O'Neil - Green Lantern/Green Arrow
Steve Engelhart - Avengers, Captain America, Detective Comics, Justice League of America
Steve Gerber - Defenders, Man-Thing, Howard the Duck

[Leocomix]

Doug Moench: Master of Kung Fu
For Gerber, add Omega
For McGregor add Killraven

[jackdaw53]

Way after the 70's... but a fair number of people reckon his run on Captain Atom was best thing he did. I've been very tempted to get the back issues for sometime now. Reckon I'll succumb before the year is out.

[Darrell D.]

Gerry Conway- Spider-man, his early JLA work
Len Wein- Hulk
Roy Thomas-Conan
Elliott Maggin-Superman
E. Nelson Bridwell-Shazam!
Cary Bates-Flash
Paul Levitz-JSA stories in Adventure Comics
Marty Pasko-Superman
Denny O'Neil-Batman
Steve Engelhart-Avengers/Defenders
Steve Gerber-Howard the Duck

[Paiute 1]

Gerry Conway: Spiderman, did not like his Thor
Len Wein: Swamp Thing, did like his Thor
Roy Thomas: Conan, wish he would have done more FF's
Elliott Maggin: okay JLA
E. Nelson Bridwell
Cary Bates
Paul Levitz: Legion of Superheroes
Marty Pasko
Denny O'Neil: Batman of course
Steve Engelhart: In order Captain America, Anengers and the Defenders
Steve Gerber: Manthing

[prince hal]

Bob Rozakis co-created and wrote 'Mazing Man, which I think is the title most identified with him, but that was an 80s series.

He wrote tons of backup stories for all kinds of titles, too.

He also wrote the multi-part story about the villain called The Calculator, who ran into the Atom, Hawkman, GA and Elongated Man and a couple of other bottom-of-the-bill (at the time) heroes before they all teamed up with Batman and took him on in Detective. IIRC, it was described as Marshall Rogers' "tryout" for his run with Engelhart.

He was also the fabled Answer Man in the DC text pages way back when.

[dan bailey]

Way after the 70's... but a fair number of people reckon his run on Captain Atom was best thing he did. I've been very tempted to get the back issues for sometime now. Reckon I'll succumb before the year is out.

It's one of the few complete runs of any length from the last 30 years or so that I've read (same goes for, I believe, another run that Bates wrote most or all of -- New Adventures of Superboy). Obviously, I think pretty highly of it.

[Paiute 1]

Englehart had a pretty good run on the Hulk, something that dosen't get mentined to much.