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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Dec 17, 2020 16:00:21 GMT -5
8. John Ostrander
Grimjack and Suicide Squad  In the mid 90's I was buying anything I could, but getting bored with the carbon copy mediocrity that Marvel and Dc were delivering. Through meeting a collector while I was at college who introduced me to First and Pacific Comics along with those early players in the indie market, I tried to expand my horizons. Now Im no great lover of literary works, so my tastes were still as they are now, but I just wanted well told stories with COOL art. Grimjack...John's anti-hero with an attitude along with the sheer badass Tim Truman on art duties filled the void. There has always been something about this that has stuck to the gallery in my head, an indelible impression that still leaves Grimjack my favourite book of the 80's. Then there was the Squad, my wheelhouse totally, underdogs, losers, and their kickass boss. Love books where they grab the 2nd stringers and run the gauntlet with them. Hell its what the Avengers were for big periods of time. Strength in numbers and friendship rather than sheer godlike power.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 17, 2020 16:00:26 GMT -5
8. Doug Moench
Comic Resume : MOKF, Captain Marvel, , Moonknight, Batman , Detective ,Spectre, Six from sirius ,Catwoman and more.
Moench wrote many stories for the comic industry but I consider his crowning achievement to be Shang Chi Master of Kung Fu for Marvel comics. His run started with issue # 20 and lasted til the end which was 125. Along the way he did more than a handful of books for Marvel that I really enjoyed Moonknight and a run on Captain Marvel being two of them. The Captain Marvel run started with issue #56 and went to 62 and the series was continued in a relaunched Marvel Spotlight book. It had a story revolving around a revenge plot by a deceased Thanos that brought Marvell back to Titan. It’s a hidden treasure that has never been reprinted to my knowledge, and I re-read it from time to time. Captain Marvel # 60
 The Moonknight series was with Sienkiewicz and was excellent. He was chased from Marvel by JIm Shooter but wrote Batman and Detective with Gene Colan which was also great. He’s a top talent from the bronze age who only missed for me with his Fantastic Four and Thor runs. He would continue to team with his MOKF partner, Paul Gulacy to do mini series and arcs for Batman Legend of the Dark Knight and Six From Sirius. Of course Master of Kung Fu was the book I most associate him with. And who could forget Razor Fist from issue # 29? {More goodness from Moonknight} 
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Post by EdoBosnar on Dec 17, 2020 16:37:06 GMT -5
(...) The Captain Marvel run started with issue #56 and went to 62 and the series was continued in a relaunched Marvel Spotlight book. It had a story revolving around a revenge plot by a deceased Thanos that brought Marvell back to Titan. It’s a hidden treasure that has never been reprinted to my knowledge, and I re-read it from time to time. (...) I had the last few issues of the regular Captain Marvel series, and then the Marvel Spotlight issues. I really enjoyed those, too, and I agree that they should have been reprinted. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 17, 2020 16:53:12 GMT -5
(...) The Captain Marvel run started with issue #56 and went to 62 and the series was continued in a relaunched Marvel Spotlight book. It had a story revolving around a revenge plot by a deceased Thanos that brought Marvell back to Titan. It’s a hidden treasure that has never been reprinted to my knowledge, and I re-read it from time to time. (...) I had the last few issues of the regular Captain Marvel series, and then the Marvel Spotlight issues. I really enjoyed those, too, and I agree that they should have been reprinted. Those issues were the final stories before they killed Marvell off in the Starlin GN. It annoyed me that they claimed they didn't know what to do with the character. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 17, 2020 17:48:12 GMT -5
8. Kurt Busiek I haven't even read his Astro City, which everyone praises greatly, but just his work on Dark Horse's Conan would be enough to secure Kurt's place on this list. It is no secret that I'm very particular when it comes to Robert E. Howard's character and the way he's handled in comics. To please this curmudgeon, a writer must really get it; get why the character is so much more than dozens of other sword-wielding adventurers, why the quasi-historical feel of his made-up world is so important to the series, and what can and can not be done to maintain the essential verisimilitude of the saga. So many writers failed over the years, including otherwise very talented ones. Kurt is not one of them. In fact, Kurt is absolutely one of the very best. "The crown of Tiamat", a standalone story from Dark Horse's run, has one of the most quintessential Conan scenes I've ever read, and that's including the prose work of Robert E. Howard. After Marvel essentially abandoned the franchise in the '90s, I thought that Conan's days as a comic-book hero were done. Not that he would never see print again, no; but I fully expected any further adaptation to be the same kind of generic pap that I had so loathed for most of the '80s. So much so that when Dark Horse restarted the franchise, I didn't bother with it at first. Until a few years had passed. And then I realized that I was missing on something exceptional. Kurt Busiek was crafting a new Conan series that rivalled the heyday of the '70s, and he did so not by imitating what Roy Thomas had done in his most creative years, but by doing his own thing. His own thing, but still a very accurate tribute to Robert E. Howard's work! It was like falling in love for the first time again. Sadly, Kurt's run was turned short. However, the few years that he gave us Conan readers will be treasured for a good long while, and I regularly re-read the whole thing with renewed pleasure.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 17, 2020 19:15:30 GMT -5
8. Kurt BusiekI haven't even read his Astro City, which everyone praises greatly, You and Confessor are on the naughty list. You for not reading Astro City and Confessor for not reading the great Neal Adams/ Denny O'neil Green Lantern/ Green Arrow run.  |
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Post by brutalis on Dec 17, 2020 20:24:01 GMT -5
8. Kurt BusiekI haven't even read his Astro City, which everyone praises greatly, You and Confessor are on the naughty list. You for not reading Astro City and Confessor for not reading the great Neal Adams/ Denny O'neil Green Lantern/ Green Arrow run. Add me to Santa's naughty list as I've never read any Astro City either. It hit at a point where I wasn't really following comics heavily, just a few familiar series and by the time I was monetarily capable it was so far along I put it off. One of those "someday" lists to start if/when the urge strikes. |
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Post by berkley on Dec 17, 2020 23:04:29 GMT -5
I had the last few issues of the regular Captain Marvel series, and then the Marvel Spotlight issues. I really enjoyed those, too, and I agree that they should have been reprinted. Those issues were the final stories before they killed Marvell off in the Starlin GN. It annoyed me that they claimed they didn't know what to do with the character. Yes, I know Starlin's Death of Captain Marvel is highly thought of and it might seem churlish to criticise the writer's heartfelt tribute to the death of his own father, but those two elements, the tribute and the character, always felt shoehorned together and this superhero-fantasy never seemed an appropriate medium for Starlin's tale of a terminally ill cancer patient. Not that the death of a fictional character is anything to get upset about in the face of a real life tragedy, especially comics characters that can be and are resurrected routinely, but just looking at the DoCM strictly as a stand-alone graphic novel or comics story it's never really come off for me, either as a superhero comic or as a serious fictional treatment of the death of a loved one.
Agree about the Moench/Broderick Captain Marvel: a promising new direction and creative team for a character that had been somewhat in the doldrums for a few years following Starlin's departure from the series, so all the more disappointing that it never had a chance to carry on.
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Post by foxley on Dec 18, 2020 2:15:28 GMT -5
8. Max Allan CollinsUnlike many comic book fans, my tastes in literature run far more to crime and mystery than to fantasy and science-fiction. So I am always drawn to crime-themed comics, whether that be street-level superheroes or pure detective tales. And Collins writes the best hard-boiled private eye comic book out there: Ms. Tree. (Arguably Sin City challenges it for that title, but it treads a very different path: going down the ultra-violence route rather than the traditional gumshoe tale of Ms. Tree. Plus as Miller writes and draws Sin City, it is ineligible for this year's list). I could go on at length about what I love about Collins' work, but it essentially boils down to a genre I love being written extremely well. If you don't like hard-boiled detective stories, you won't much to appeal to you. Collins freely admits that Ms. Tree was inspired by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, but I far prefer Collins to Spillane. Collins writes tales I could never imagine Spillane penning. The amazing tale in which a 9 month pregnant Michael tree is targeted by a mob assassin springs to mind. This quote probably sums up why I love the book so much:
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 18, 2020 5:42:54 GMT -5
Those issues were the final stories before they killed Marvell off in the Starlin GN. It annoyed me that they claimed they didn't know what to do with the character. Yes, I know Starlin's Death of Captain Marvel is highly thought of and it might seem churlish to criticise the writer's heartfelt tribute to the death of his own father, but those two elements, the tribute and the character, always felt shoehorned together and this superhero-fantasy never seemed an appropriate medium for Starlin's tale of a terminally ill cancer patient. Not that the death of a fictional character is anything to get upset about in the face of a real life tragedy, especially comics characters that can be and are resurrected routinely, but just looking at the DoCM strictly as a stand-alone graphic novel or comics story it's never really come off for me, either as a superhero comic or as a serious fictional treatment of the death of a loved one.
Agree about the Moench/Broderick Captain Marvel: a promising new direction and creative team for a character that had been somewhat in the doldrums for a few years following Starlin's departure from the series, so all the more disappointing that it never had a chance to carry on.
Comic books are a serious business, they get cancelled for low sales most of the time. Too bad they didn't want to keep the character around. I prefer him to any of the other replacements. Starlin was approached by Jim Shooter to kill him, despite it being a great story, I wish they hadn't done it. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 18, 2020 12:03:11 GMT -5
Astro City is a must ready if you like Superheroes, IMO. You're really missing out!
8. Roy Thomas
I don't think I have to tell anyone here about Roy Thomas. I'm a big fan of continuity references, and Thomas is the master of them... he gets a bit carried away with them, in fact, but that's ok. When done well, there's nothing better in a shared universe.
Then there's the fact that he's the best Conan writer not named Robert E. Howard... Taking the Belit story and turning it into almost 3 years of great comics still amazes me.
If we did this list a few years ago, I'd probably have him higher, but more recently I've found that some of the fun connections he loves to make just go too far, and can make the actual plots of the comics weird.. and some of his Silver Age stuff is pretty meh. No denying Roy's place in comic history, though... I'm hoping he's got one more great epic in him stil
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 18, 2020 12:34:26 GMT -5
Random thoughts on Day Five.
Paul Kupperberg - I haven't read that Archie gets married thing. So I can't speak to it. But what I remember of Kupperberg from DC I don't remember fondly.
Brian Azzarello - Azzarello is one of those guys that I like, but I don't love. I liked the first few arcs of 100 Bullets but it never propelled enough to make me want to finish the run. I liked but didn't love his run on Hellblazer. He'd never make me avoid a book. But he's not enough to cause me to read a book until I'm ready to do so.
Robert Loren Fleming - I didn't think of Fleming. I do like me some Ambush Bug. And Thriller was WAY ahead of its time. Neat.
Peter David - I'm not sure that I've actually read anything by David. I probably have, but I don't remember it. He broke in at Marvel at a point that I was really pissed at Marvel. And he's just never worked on anything I've been interested in reading, for all that he was/is incredibly prolific. I honestly know him best from the massive flame-wars between he and Joe Rice/DaDaAmerican on the interwebs in the very early 2000s.
Steve Gerber - Gerber may be one of those guys who suffer from my recency bias. I love Howard the Duck, but it's been at least 23 years since I've read it. I thought Nevada was underrated and Hard Times was pretty darn good. My reading of Defenders was always spotty and I haven't read any of them since they were published. So I'm sorry Steve...but I'm glad to see you here.
Jim Starlin - Anyone who pays attention knows I'm not a fan of Starlin. I just never read any of Marvel's cosmic books. Dreadstar doesn't count, but it was a book that started strong and was then sacrificed to the altar of sales. I think his Batman is among the worst ever written. So...yeah.
Archie Goodwin - I'm really glad to see Archie here. He was one of the later writers to fall off my list. I love Manhunter and his work on Blazing Combat. I think the reason he fell off is that those are the only books of his I've read even semi-recently. He was pretty great though.
Doug Moench - Moench is a guy who well could have made my list 20-30 years ago. But it's been a long time since I've read it. Still I loved his Batman work at the time. And Master of Kung Fu was great. I just don't know how it would hold up after all these years.
We're getting less and less names that aren't repeats.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 18, 2020 19:58:20 GMT -5
I'm digging all the love for David Michelinie. For me, the work of his that stands out is Unknown Soldier, which I haven't noticed being mentioned by those that have listed him. It was a huge loss when Michelinie was replaced by Bob Haney. Those stories he did with Gerry Talaoc were little masterpieces.
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Post by MWGallaher on Dec 18, 2020 20:12:11 GMT -5
8. Steve Gerber (from Hard Time Season Two issue 7) I was a Defenders fan before Gerber arrived, and remained one after, but he was the one that really defined my favorite Marvel team book. And though I tired of it, his Howard the Duck fascinated me from the first throwaway appearance in a Man-Thing story. What really stood out to me in the early 70's were Man-Thing and Tales of the Zombie. I'm a sucker for well-done features that focus on entirely un-human characters, where you're generally removed from their thoughts and emotions, where the writer is forced to be inventive to keep the unthinking being in the lead. An unspeaking swamp monster and a walking corpse? As easy a sell to me as a Godzilla story! And no one did it better than Gerber! But even when the lead was inhuman, the stories were very human, and some of his best and most inventive series, like Omega the Unknown Hard Time, were simultaneously down to earth and far-flung in concept. And I can't forget his criminally-interrupted Marvel series, Void Indigo and Freddy Krueger's A Nightmare on Elm Street. Their too-short runs hurt me, but I appreciated the glimpse at the alternate universe where these were published for extended runs.
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Post by Icctrombone on Dec 20, 2020 11:59:58 GMT -5
8. Harvey Kurtzman (Mad, Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat, Humbug, Trump) Wally Wood's Lois Pain looks way better than Lois Lane ever did. Actually, this would probably be my pick as the greatest Super(duper)man story ever told. Wally Wood drew women are good as any artist ever. There I said it. |
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