Which BA writer do you think had the biggest impact on the medium going forward? 2 2

[MisterX]

I'm procrastinating today, so why not throw out a general discussion question on the boards?

I can think of a few writers who had a significant impact on the medium (that is, writing comics), but which one, in your opinion, had the greatest?

What does "impact" mean? You decide!

Some contenders:

Roy Thomas

Gerry Conway

Denny O'Neil

Chris Claremont

Steve Gerber

A few dark horse candidates:

Archie Goodwin (Although I think of him as an SA guy for some reason. Maybe because of the Warren magazines?)

Jack Kirby

Marv Wolfman

Len Wein

Some of my favorite BA writers aren't on the list, but I can't really see someone like Doug Moench, or Michael Fleischer exactly changing how comic book stories were told. 

[Funnybooks]

Frank Miller

[MisterX]

On 10/14/2021 at 2:38 PM, Funnybooks said:

Frank Miller

I guess I think of him as Copper Age, although the BA years seem to keep creeping into the 80s.

[Funnybooks]

I think Roy Thomas from your list, especially if you also consider his stint as EIC at Marvel. He guided many of the BA book to prominence. If you discount his stint as an administrator and judge his significance based solely on his writing, then he falls behind Claremont. Love him or hate him, Claremont's stint on the x-books revived the title and put the Xmen on the map.

[steveinthecity]

On 10/14/2021 at 12:55 PM, Funnybooks said:

I think Roy Thomas from your list, especially if you also consider his stint as EIC at Marvel. He guided many of the BA book to prominence. If you discount his stint as an administrator and judge his significance based solely on his writing, then he falls behind Claremont. Love him or hate him, Claremont's stint on the x-books revived the title and put the Xmen on the map.

Somewhat similar to what Mr. Thomas did with Conan. I believe he brought that character to an audience that otherwise May not have ever picked up a Howard book.

[alexgross.com]

On 10/14/2021 at 12:47 PM, MisterX said:

I guess I think of him as Copper Age, although the BA years seem to keep creeping into the 80s.

i thought bronze age goes to 83-84?  

frank miller for sure, for the latter part of bronze age comics. prior to that, i dont have a strong view. 

 

[fett]

On 10/14/2021 at 2:55 PM, Funnybooks said:

I think Roy Thomas from your list, especially if you also consider his stint as EIC at Marvel. He guided many of the BA book to prominence. If you discount his stint as an administrator and judge his significance based solely on his writing, then he falls behind Claremont. Love him or hate him, Claremont's stint on the x-books revived the title and put the Xmen on the map.

he had a ton of uncredited co-plot from John Byrne at the time too 

[Spider-Variant]

I think Gerry Conway changed the entire trajectory of the Amazing Spider-Man universe with ASM 121-122.  

[BabyAteMyDingo]

Denny O'Neil and Bob Haney.

 

[Zonker]

I'm going with Denny O'Neil (big surprise given my current avatar).  Roy Thomas was more of a middle-1960s late-Silver Age guy, initially extending Stan Lee's vision into perhaps an even more fan-friendly, continuity-rich direction.  Certainly by the time of Conan the Barbarian, Roy was out from under Stan's shadow, and Conan was very influential in promoting an anti-hero as comic book protagonist.  Lots of 1970s writers followed in the wake of Roy Thomas, including Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Steve Gerber, Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway.

Denny O'Neil, though he also arrived on the scene in the late 1960s, I see as more of a tone-setter for what we came to see as the Bronze Age.  He's less continuity-focused than Roy-- he's concerned more with telling some truth as he sees it in his comics' work.  Denny didn't mind ignoring the last 20 years of Batman stories to take the character in a new direction, yes partly back to its Golden Age roots, but partly one of Denny's own making.  And he certainly didn't mind grafting a new personality on ace test pilot Hal Jordan to make him the foil for Denny's alter ego of Ollie Queen / Green Arrow.  All in the service of what he saw as the stories he needed to tell.  

Roy wrote some very good comics in the 1970s, and nurtured a new generation of comics-scripting talent.  But I see Roy as more of a steward of Stan Lee's and Robert E Howard's creations, while Denny was going off in a new direction.  

[Readcomix]

My first thought was Thomas too, as Marvel’s Bronze Age was pretty much built on his back. Claremont’s massive contribution is narrow and deep in that it’s one slice of Marvel bronze, but it’s not that narrow in that it is one of the widest slices. Everything Lee brought to a single teen with Peter Parker, Claremont brought to an entire team/family of teenish heroes.

Conway’s impact is a great call too, as is O’Neil. Hard to argue with revamping the Dark Knight and the GL/GA run. And how many new characters at Marvel and DC came out of Kirby in that era?? 
And Miller if you don’t count his as copper sure he’s right in there too.

I’d even put Michelinie in there with Demon in a Bottle.

You could maybe group them, but whoever is #1 is hard to put head and shoulders above everyone else. It’s a fertile era.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Readcomix

[Gatsby77]

Denny O'Neil.

His work on Batman alone qualifies - as he put the cheesy sci-fi stories of the 1950s and campy TV-show'esque stories of the 1960s firmly in the rear view nearly from the jump, with Batman 217.

Batman moves from Wayne Manor & the Batcave to Wayne Towers down-town so he can be better positioned to tackle white collar crime; Grayson leaves to go to college; and the actual mystery - "One Bullet Too Many" is about as Sherlock Holmes-y as you can find in a comic book.

He made the Joker scary again, brought back Two-Face, gave us Ra's Al Ghul and Talia, and even gave us the tragic character of Man-Bat.

Green Lantern - it's easy to forget now in the CGC era but for 20+ years Green Lantern 76 was considered more notable for its story - and overtly confronting American racism - than for its cover. And over the next dozen issues Green Lantern and Green Arrow tackled everything from cults to drug addiction - to say nothing of introducing John Stewart.

Superman underwent a similar modernization - with Perry White fired, Clark moving from newspaper reporter to broadcast TV anchor, etc.

O'Neil made a concerted effort to bring superheroes into the modern "real" world of the early 70s - and gave the template for the type of "realistic" superhero portrayals we'd see in films decades later. See also de-powering both Oliver Queen and Diana Prince.

This doesn't even count the work he'd do in the '80s, ranging from helping develop The Transformers to editing all the Batman titles for 15+ years.

[Pat Thomas]

No love for Steve Englehart?

[shadroch]

Jim Starlin.

[steveinthecity]

On 10/14/2021 at 6:14 PM, Pat Thomas said:

No love for Steve Englehart?

Loved his stint on Captain America and to a lesser degree Captain Marvel, but beyond those two and some JLA issues I can’t recall what else he was writing.

[Albert Thurgood]

On 10/15/2021 at 4:05 AM, steveinthecity said:

Somewhat similar to what Mr. Thomas did with Conan. I believe he brought that character to an audience that otherwise May not have ever picked up a Howard book.

I think Barry Smith deserves the credit for that. His artwork created a world that fired the imagination like none of his successors could. No Smith, no Conan/BA S&S explosion, IMHO

Edited October 15, 2021 by Albert Thurgood

[divad]

Roy Thomas (from your list)

Jim Steranko (a must)

Steve Gerber  (HTD)

Jack (although the greatest) really did his best in the SA (even if Stan took credit for everything)

 

[divad]

On 10/14/2021 at 11:38 AM, Funnybooks said:

Frank Miller

Copper all the way - in fact, he really established the CA. 

[steveinthecity]

On 10/14/2021 at 8:39 PM, Albert Thurgood said:

I think Barry Smith deserves the credit for that. His artwork created a world that fired the imagination like none of his successors could. No Smith, no Conan/BA S&S explosion, IMHO

I’ll have to disagree here.  Not downplaying BWS’s impact on Conan or comics in general, but I’ll give the nod to Thomas scripting 150+ issues and working in tandem(often) with Buscema(150+ issues) and Ernie Chan(175+) issues had a more far reaching impact.  

Edited October 15, 2021 by steveinthecity
Giving artists credit

[namisgr]

This is an interesting topic, and it's tough to select just one writer.  But having to choose I'd go with Roy Thomas, too.  His adaptation of Conan did such a great job of bridging the gap and offering something imaginative and richly detailed for both young and mature readers.  But it was his work on multi-book story arcs that broke the mould, foreshadowing the rise of continuous story epics spanning 8 and 12 issues that followed.  My favorite long story arc in all of comics was Marvel's first, the Kree-Skrull war plotted and written by Roy and spanning 9 issues of Avengers.  Using multiple artists and containing excitement and twisting plot advances that made every issue a must read, it was Roy's innovative bronze age tour de force for me.

Honorable mention to Denny O'Neil, whose modernization of Green Lantern and Batman/Detective made those titles must reads at the time for any of them scripted by Denny, even for a Marvel zombie like me.  

Edited October 15, 2021 by namisgr