Of all Carey Bates' comics witch one is your favorite?

[Reptisaurus!]

Well, we had a thread for Bill Mantlo. And I see Bates as being the DC equivalent of Bill M, quality-wise. By which I mean that neither of them were very good, most of the time.

[Sir Tim Drake]

Cary Bates was far better than Bill Mantlo. Neither of them was a top-tier writer, but unlike Mantlo, Bates wasn't positively bad*, and some of his stories are minor classics.

*There, I said it. :)

Some good stories Bates wrote are:

Action Comics #484-- "Superman Takes a Wife"
Action Comics #507-508-- "The Miraculous Return of Jonathan Kent"
Five-Star Super-Hero Spectacular-- "How to Prevent a Flash"
Flash #179-- "The Flash-- Fact or Fiction?"
Flash #233-- "The Deadly Secret of the Flash"
Flash #268-- "Riddle of the Runaway Comic"
Justice League of America #123-124 (with Elliot S! Maggin)-- a really weird JLA/JSA crossover in which both writers appear as characters
Superboy #195-- "The One-Shot Hero" (Wildfire's first appearance)
Superboy #202-- "Lost: A Million Miles from Home"
Superman #296-299 (also with Maggin)-- the Mr. Xavier story

[Evan Lanctot]

Action Comics #412, 430-431 were great comics.

[Captain Jim]

Bates is probably best remembered for his Superman and Flash stories, but IMO his best work was on Captain Atom. I never thought most of his other stuff was any better than medocre, but his work on Captain Atom blew me away. Great stuff!

Anybody know what Bates is doing today?

[Calamas]

Before answering the question, let me unapologetically state that I’m am a Cary Bates fan. Along with Martin Pasko, David Michelinie, Bob Haney and David V Reed (or whatever his real name was), Bates hooked me on comics.

I agree that Captain Atom was his best series. I also rank his Silverblade mini-series on the same level.

And while most of my favorites were mentioned by Sir Tim, I’ll add that Bates also did my favorite of the Julie Schwartz tribute stories. The last panel of his Hawkman story said it all--for Bates, for me, and I hope for comic fans everywhere.

[matewan1990]

I think Cary Bates wrote some of comics' best stories, but his best was the Trial of the Flash, which started in Flash 322 and lasted until the series' end at 350. Personally, Flash 323 is my all-time favorite comic and it was written by Bates. The cover is a classic and it brought the Reverse Flash back to the world. Reverse Flash was definitely the Flash's top rogue. You know, it was Bates who wrote the death of Iris Allen. I agree that "Riddle of the Runaway Comic" was one of Bates' best. My first Flash ever was Flash 264, "Golden Glider's Final Fling". It ranks up there as one of my favorite stories and it's also by Bates.
And I also agree that Martin Pasko wrote some darn fine stories. I loved his Saga of the Swamp Thing (pre-Alan Moore) and believe it's a classic run. I was disappointed when this Moore guy took over, but that only lasted one issue before I was blown away by Moore's The Anatomy Lesson. Still, Pasko wrote a creepy Swamp Thing and the story involving demons, vampires, golems and possesed children still brings chills when I reread them.

[T GUy]

Superman vs. the sweet lizard-like aliens in Superman 365 to 368. No. 365 is sort-of build-up only, IIRR, and in one of the later issues - again IIRR - Supes only appears in heavy disguise, in an episode which for that very reason is quite a superb technical achievement.

I regard Bates as one of DC's better Bronze Age writers, and almost certainly the best plotter. Excluding writer-artists, he's in the second division, with Bob Haney (obviously, no-one approaches the mighty genius of Robert Kanigher). I find Bates more consistent, however.

[Paul Newell]

I liked his run on Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes. :)

Did he write the Flash while Irv Novick was on art duties?

[matewan1990]

He wrote the Flash during most of the 1970s and all of the Barry Allen issues of the 1980s, so, yes, I believe he did write Flash while Irv Novick worked on the title.

[hondobrode]

He was one of DC's brighter stars in the mid 70's. I esp liked his Flash but later on his Captain Atom probably passed it. The Trial of the Flash was really good I thought. A comic book great no but not terrible.

[jam]

First of all, I really can't agree on Bill Mantlo or Cary Bates being "bad most of the time".

I enjoyed Bates' work on Superman and the Flash. I perhaps agree that his Captain Atom series was his best work; perhaps he had been let off the leash a bit more and I think he really went to town.

His Superman work is of particular interest, though. Unlike Byrne, whose reboot allowed him to set his limits, Bates was still working within the confines of the pre-reboot Superman with all the continuity baggage that entailed.

And yet, he was still able to deliver consistently entertaining and interesting stories, and on occasion, some rather special ones as well (listed by others in prior postings). I particularly recall the "Mr Xavier" story line which ran for four (?) issues.

[Reptisaurus!]

First of all, I really can't agree on Bill Mantlo or Cary Bates being "bad most of the time".


Yeah, that might have been too harsh. Neither of them were bad. I just think that every other major writer for Marvel and DC during the seventies was better.

I've been reading a buncha Superman and Wonder Woman from periods with no "set" writer... And almost without exception the Len Wein or Elliot S! Maggin stories are better t' me than the Bates.

(I'll definitely keep my eye open for Captain Atom, though.)

And, oh yeah, I *did* think his story in the Julie Schwartz triubte book was really good.

[crankyoldman]

My most fondly remembered Bates story is Flash #300, most of which is an album issue taken up with a career-retrospective for Barry Allen, but the framing sequence involves Barry being gaslighted into thinking that he isn't the Flash at all, but has been in a hallucinatory dream-state and confined to a hospital bed since his accident back in the lab all those years ago. I thought the climax, where he cracks the puzzle and nabs the bad guy, was absolutely terrific.

Several years back, I picked up one of Marvel's "Best of" tpbs, and it featured a Dr. Strange story - by Roger Stern and Michael Golden - using the exact same plot! I've later heard this story referenced as a favorite of many. Now I like Golden and Stern (in fact, I have several Dr. Strange issues by Stern in my collection - just not that one), but the similarity is too great to be a coincidence.

So somebody, please tell me, which issue was published first, so I can resolve the question of which writer pilfered the other's plot? (Even if Dr. Strange did it first, I still like the Flash version better, because I read it when it came out - Man, I need to get me another copy of Flash #300!)

[Sir Tim Drake]

My most fondly remembered Bates story is Flash #300, most of which is an album issue taken up with a career-retrospective for Barry Allen, but the framing sequence involves Barry being gaslighted into thinking that he isn't the Flash at all, but has been in a hallucinatory dream-state and confined to a hospital bed since his accident back in the lab all those years ago. I thought the climax, where he cracks the puzzle and nabs the bad guy, was absolutely terrific.

Several years back, I picked up one of Marvel's "Best of" tpbs, and it featured a Dr. Strange story - by Roger Stern and Michael Golden - using the exact same plot! I've later heard this story referenced as a favorite of many. Now I like Golden and Stern (in fact, I have several Dr. Strange issues by Stern in my collection - just not that one), but the similarity is too great to be a coincidence.

So somebody, please tell me, which issue was published first, so I can resolve the question of which writer pilfered the other's plot? (Even if Dr. Strange did it first, I still like the Flash version better, because I read it when it came out - Man, I need to get me another copy of Flash #300!)

Flash #300 is cover-dated August 1981. Doctor Strange #55 has a date of October 1982. So the Doctor Strange issue was based on the Flash issue, if anything. I never really noticed the similarity between these two issues, although now that you mention it, I do start to see it.

Though it seems to me that both these plots are borrowed from It's a Wonderful Life. :)

[MartinPasko]

And I also agree that Martin Pasko wrote some darn fine stories. I loved his Saga of the Swamp Thing (pre-Alan Moore) and believe it's a classic run...Pasko wrote a creepy Swamp Thing and the story involving demons, vampires, golems and possesed children still brings chills when I reread them.

Thanks for the enthusiastic words, guys. Working on SWAMP THING was a very positive experience for me because Len Wein, as editor, gave me one of my earliest opportunities in comics to show how I **really** wrote at the time. (My very first benefactor in that regard was Gerry Conway.) They did so by not interfering with the plotting unless and until I asked for help, and by not rewriting my copy except for minor tweaks (the kind of supportive mentoring that endeared them to many writers in the same way Archie Goodwin did). In fact, Len rarely touched the stuff at all; he just asked for revisions once in a blue moon, God bless him. (Frankly, having experience as a TV writer, I don't mind being rewritten, but only if it's clear up front that it's part of the terms of the gig. But comics never had such explicit "working rules" and -- from what I hear lately -- still don't.)

Among my personal favorite SWAMPS THINGs was "In The White Room," where I think I pretty much met the creative goals I set for myself: to propose a provocative (and unpopular) philosophy under the sugar-coating of an offbeat and creepy entertainment. Same is true of "Here's Looking At You, Kid," the first story to introduce Bissette and Totleben to the feature (as uncredited ghosts for Tom Yeates) and the reason I later suggested them to Len as Tom's replacement. "Stopover In a Place of Quiet Truths" worked, too, I think, as a deliberate attempt to do a "Len Wein story," but I don't generally remember it as one of my more satisfying pieces because it was less ambitious than the other two.

But the project was frustrating, too, in ways that had nothing to do with Len: we were forced to stick closely to the original property rather than trying to do a retcon -- not because of Len's fondness for his own (and Bernie's) creation, but because DC wanted something they could sort-of position as a movie tie-in. At least, they did until that turkey tanked. And, with his other commitments, Tom couldn't take on a full book, so in most issues we were limited to only 17 pages, an awkward length to be sure for a three-act structure.

It's funny to me that I'm starting to see more and more instances of people claiming that they remember this run fondly and that it "wasn't as bad as generally supposed." You'll forgive me for not turning cartwheels over the astonished exclamations of, "It doesn't suck totally after all," but it's mildly gratifying that some readers see that the comparison with the Moore run is kind of beside-the-point, because Moore and I had very different creative agendas.

Like Len, I was always more intrigued by the tragedy of that bright mind and gentle soul trapped in the body of a monster, and while Moore's reconception of the character as a genuine walking vegetable seems cool to lovers of pure fantasy, it made the feature less interesting to me. I always start to snooze when comics guys write away from the humanity, since my only interest in fantasy is to use it the way Rod Serling did (no equating of myself with him intended or even remotely imagined). By that I mean as a metaphor or objective correlative for elements in a human drama, to make more palatable what might be off-putting to depict in purely naturalistic terms.

And no, I'm not insensitive to Moore's ironic suggestion that a plant with legs might have more humanity than some of the real human beings around him. I simply mean that I can't relate to the protagonist as much if he has chlorophyl where my blood is, if you will. And even if Moore were to succeed in reaching me to the extent that he makes me disregard the fact that this is not a deformed man, and he doesn't, I would still ask of him, "To what end?"

Anyway, thanks for the plug. As ever, it's fascinating to see the way some things go in cycles...
MP

[Slam_Bradley]

I thought a lot of Bates' Flash run was pretty good.

[Sir Tim Drake]

I always start to snooze when comics guys write away from the humanity, since my only interest in fantasy is to use it the way Rod Serling did (no equating of myself with him intended or even remotely imagined). By that I mean as a metaphor or objective correlative for elements in a human drama, to make more palatable what might be off-putting to depict in purely naturalistic terms.

And no, I'm not insensitive to Moore's ironic suggestion that a plant with legs might have more humanity than some of the real human beings around him. I simply mean that I can't relate to the protagonist as much if he has chlorophyl where my blood is, if you will. And even if Moore were to succeed in reaching me to the extent that he makes me disregard the fact that this is not a deformed man, and he doesn't, I would still ask of him, "To what end?"

I've noticed that the loss of humanity is one of Alan's major themes-- it happens to Miracleman (and Miraclewoman and Winter), Dr. Manhattan, V, and William Gull as well as Swampy. All of them become less than human at the same time that they become more than human. They become unable to relate with anyone except their fellow superfolk. Swampy is actually unusual in this regard, in that he still enjoys a relationship with a more or less ordinary human being.

I'm not sure why Alan is so obsessed with this. It certainly helps make his stories more intellectually than emotionally appealing.

[Captain Jim]

Heh, and here I was thinking to myself, "Who resurrected this old thread?" Thanks for stopping by again, Martin. (Wow, I can remember when he was a letterhack nicknamed "Pesky".) I definitely agree that it's unfair to compare your work on Swampy (or any other pre-Moore writer) with that of Alan Moore.

What are you doing nowadays?

[Mike Kuypers]

My favorite Cary Bates story was Flash #350, the wrap-up of Flash's career, as well as the murder trial. With this story Iris "'returned from the dead" and the two retired to the 30th Century. A far more satisfying end to Barry Allen than what was to come shortly after.

[MartinPasko]

What are you doing nowadays?

Returning to the writing life -- at a leisurely pace -- after 10 years on staff at DC Comics. Most recently wrote the SUPERMAN RETURNS movie adaptation due out in June. Also working on spec projects in media other than comics, and building a web site for the consulting business I'm forming.

[CaptChucky]

I always enjoyed Cary Bates work. That whole trial of the Flash was amazing. I'm not sure that everyone liked his work, but he always told a great story.

The only way his work would have been better was if he had a nick-name like, "Pesky."

But seriously folks, I thought Mr. Pasko was vey good too. I miss his writing as well.

[theflyingfrogunderdog]

I've always liked Swamp Thing #1-19 and i still have my ST collection up to #59 after all these years (missed #16, though). I haven't read my collection in years (would buy a TPB if one was available) but i remember in #1 when Swamp Thing tries to communicate with the mute little girl, that was a memorable moment that showed the humanity of ST. I think you and Tom Yeates did a fine job. I prefer Yeates' solid art style over the fluid style of Bissette and Totleben.

Alan Moore is a good writer, but i think he and Frank Miller have unintentionally done a disservice to comics because of all the emulation of their work that's come about in the last two decades. How many comics of recent years examine the good? The focus seems to be all about evil and doing the wrong thing rather than focusing on the good, which is understandable to a point, but when the negative is all that's examined to the point that the good is ignored and even depicted as passe, i think that a good message is lost in all the bad. As far as i remember, your Swamp Thing was good (like Len Wein's characterization) and said "Lord" when thinking, which added realism and humanity to the character, and made me feel that ST had Christian beliefs (a seeming rarity in comics) but Alan Moore changed all that and made ST's humanity nothing more than a delusion in an effort to write a good horror story.

Sadly, trashing virtuous behavior seems to be an agenda in DC comics these days.

Tony Isabella (http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/tony/?read=133825) said:

I've read some of the ONE YEAR LATER books and found three of them really disturbing.

GREEN ARROW: An ex-crime boss turns vigilante, murders some criminals, gets a peppy note from GA telling him "good job, stop killing them."

NIGHTWING: Jason Todd takes on NW identity, murders people while Dick "Slut Boy" Grayson sleeps around.

OUTSIDERS: Black Lightning's alleged daughter sleeps with some genocidal dictator to get information.

Where are the brighter and more noble DCU heroes Didio and company kept promising us?

[J'onn J'onzz]

I think Cary Bates wrote some of comics' best stories, but his best was the Trial of the Flash, which started in Flash 322 and lasted until the series' end at 350. Personally, Flash 323 is my all-time favorite comic and it was written by Bates. The cover is a classic and it brought the Reverse Flash back to the world. Reverse Flash was definitely the Flash's top rogue. You know, it was Bates who wrote the death of Iris Allen. I agree that "Riddle of the Runaway Comic" was one of Bates' best. My first Flash ever was Flash 264, "Golden Glider's Final Fling". It ranks up there as one of my favorite stories and it's also by Bates.
And I also agree that Martin Pasko wrote some darn fine stories. I loved his Saga of the Swamp Thing (pre-Alan Moore) and believe it's a classic run. I was disappointed when this Moore guy took over, but that only lasted one issue before I was blown away by Moore's The Anatomy Lesson. Still, Pasko wrote a creepy Swamp Thing and the story involving demons, vampires, golems and possesed children still brings chills when I reread them.

I consider the start of the story issue 312 because that is when the subplots all started. Though those are only mentioned in the wedding issues they are still important to the overall story line (which I loved, but still need to get number 323 of to complete.) I also liked his Captian Atom. I may need to get "Silverblade".

[Cherokee Jack]

I consider the start of the story issue 312 because that is when the subplots all started. Though those are only mentioned in the wedding issues they are still important to the overall story line (which I loved, but still need to get number 323 of to complete.) I also liked his Captian Atom. I may need to get "Silverblade".


It may sound cliche, but SILVERBLADE was Vertigo before Vertigo existed. I highly recommend it.