Favorite Bronze Age Writer (April 70-Sept 86)

I expect either Claremont or Sim will take this poll depending on who reads it or maybe Frank Miller -- & I gotta hand it to Claremont, at his best he can write scenes than burn into the brain & stay there -- but Jim Starlin, man -- that was my dude

Englehart > Gerber >>>>>> Moench >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all the rest

I gotta hand it to Claremont, at his best he can write scenes than burn into the brain & stay there

he can write dialogue so cramped and tedious that you put the comic down and never finish the scene until you try again as an adult and find out it was shit all along, morelike

voted Sim, might have voted Levitz or Giffen as being more in the spirit of the poll if offered

aero have you read D0uglas' great article on Starlin's Warlock in Comic Art?

no, didn't know about it - Starlin's Warlock basically owned my life when I was a young comic reader! gotta get that

man say what you want about Claremont. that first big X-men run when he was making his bones, that had some amazing stuff. Magneto infantilizing the X-men. so bitchin.

I'm tempted to say Walt Simonson because his Thor run might be my favorite super-hero run ever. Have to mull it over.

And I too would have been tempted by Levitz.

Booger...I figured I would leave someone off, I forgot Paul Levitz. I tried to think of some of those DC writers that I did bunches of comics but I didn't know as well, which is why I put Cary Bates and Maggin.

At least as a writer, most of Keith Giffen's work really was to come.

I put Miller and Simonson in this poll, but neither of them had wrote the boxes of comics that some of these guys had done, at least to this point their writing is based on one run with one character for the most part.

Archie Goodwin wrote some comics, but if you cover this period "Manhunter" is going to get listed, but I would say he is more important as an editor.

Jim Starlin and Mike Grell are interesting as they were both artists that were allowed to become writer/artists, which was kind of a rarity and both went off and did their own comics (Dreadstar & Jon Sable Freelance/Starslayer).

JM DeMatteis is another one that had a bunch of comics out by this time, but his most popular comics really were to come.

Poll is fundamentally flawed by the omission of Jack Kirby, who wrote more brilliant comics for Marvel and DC during this time than just about anyone on this list. Stan Lee should be on the list, too.

I don't believe Dave Sim belongs here - aside from a few scripts for Warren, dude never wrote for any mainstream company, and if you're gonna include him then you might as well have Jack Katz, or Wendy Pini, or R. Crumb, or Richard Corben, or....

I voted Gerber, the only man who can give Alan Moore a run for his money as the greatest non-drawing comic book writer of all time.

At least as a writer, most of Keith Giffen's work really was to come.

Giffen co-wrote his 1980s run on LSH with Levitz (the post-86 one too but ykwim), co-wrote 90% of the Ambush Bug shorts, co-wrote Ambush Bug, co-wrote Son Of Ambush Bug, co-wrote the Subs special, co-wrote The March Hare...

agreed that Sim doesn't fit but hey, I can only vote on who's offered

Alan Brennert probably does

aero: I think the text is in D0uglas's collection, but the essay works better with the full-colour illos in original form. you're looking for this:

http://www.comicsreporter.com/images/uploads/comicarteightcover.jpg

some Amazon resellers have it

and here's the publisher talking about it:

W0lk positions Starlin as a true auteur with an overriding aesthetic that extended to every aspect of this sideways and strangely pessimistic epic -- which is of course extremely rare in superhero comics; it's comparable in terms of personal vision, if maybe not scope, to Kirby's Fourth World stories. The essay explicates beautifully Starlin's particularities and recurring motifs/themes, wherein, W0lk argues, he weaves in the specific period of mainstream superhero comics as subtext. Fascinating stuff. That was such a strange time for mainstream comics -- the Marvel mashing of superheroes with what was currently popular in other realms of popular culture (i.e. science-fiction) gelling with this residual Ditko and Kirby trippy-ness...which actually seems pretty relevant right now. So yeah, his text moved me quite a bit.

After reading the essay and in turn the comics themselves, I also became more interested in that brand of maximalist cartooning, where so much angst, explication, and drama is packed into every panel...it actually seems a little strange to call that chaos "cartooning"! Certainly, the article gave me both a new plane on which to see Starlin's work and also made me think much more about that whole weird moment. D0uglas is not only an excellent, interesting writer, but the subject matter also worked quite well within both the context of this issue specifically, and the types of work I've covered before -- I think the subject and his approach play off expectations, in many senses, nicely.

it's, like, the secret origin of Frank San+oro's "fusion c0mics" theory

I wld like to hear more abt fusion c0mics.

Other ppl MIA:

Robert Kanigher. John Warner. David Anthony Kraft. Nic Cuti. Bill Dubay. T Casey Brennan. Mike Friedrich. Joe Gill. They probably wouldn't get any votes, and some of them are terrible, but they have a greater claim to inclusion than Sim.

Yeah, because I agree in principle that Sim shouldn't be in there I don't think I should vote for him.

An early post by Sant0ro on his notion of fusi0n comics:

http://comicscomicsmag.com/2010/07/new-comics-riff.html

An Inkstuds episode with him, B Graham and M DeForge talking about it:

http://www.inkstuds.org/?p=3037

Notes he made for the discussion that didn't get used:

http://comicscomicsmag.com/2010/07/fusion-notes.html

His best of 2010 is a wealth of self-defined genres:

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/frank_santoro_names_a_best_of_2010/

and if you're gonna include him then you might as well have Jack Katz, or Wendy Pini, or R. Crumb, or Richard Corben, or....

or Beto, everyone out of the pool

actually up to 86 includes a shitload of Crumb's Weirdo work right? which is probably his strongest period ever, though 86-88 might have been when it came into strongest focus, in reaction to the full yuppification of America? idk, I don't own any so don't have the particular chronology in my head, just used to read them in comic shops after the fact in the 90s

Hmm, no Frank Robbins? He did a lot of his most interesting work in the 70s.

No Bob Haney, no credibility.

yeah, haney

frank robbins was mostly a (great) comic bk artist rather than a comic bk writer in the period covered

while i think this poll is a bit... flawed... congrats to earl for the idea. god knows ilc needs something to keep it ticking.

sic, thanks for the links, will check em out

Bob Haney:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HDLEycm-LIE/RarXCI3uJLI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/LY8U56DUq2I/s400/pillow+fight.jpg

Yeah, this is a great poll/great poll idea. I've already forgotten who I voted for, ha ha.

I know Robbins is known more for his art, but he wrote some great stories in that period! He created Man-Bat! I consider his late 60s/early 70s Batman as good as anything O'Neil did.

voted roy thomas.

I didn't put Bob Haney, Bob Kaniger, Gardner Fox or Stan Lee into the list, as really I would say even though they were still active in this time, I'd file them under Silver Age (or heck even still Golden Age writers with Fox and somewhat with Lee). Stan was still somewhat active writer in the early 70s, but after about 71/72 it was more of a rare thing.

I'd acknowledge that Jack Kirby didn't stop creating new things at DC and then later with Marvel when he came back in the 70s, so I can see that one, but he's the King and pretty much with super hero/adventure comics pretty much you vote for 2nd when he is around. You can kind of file Frank Robbins in the same, as he did do some big Batman stories creating Man-Bat with Neal Adams, but he is also one of those guys whose career kind of stretched over a big chunk of American comics.

I guess putting Sim probably muddies the water but I guess my thought was that Cerebus at least for the first 25 issues or so was a much different comic than where it ended up. Sim also did some of the Star Reach stuff that some of the other writer/artists like Starlin, Chaykin etc did and was kind of the first one to go do his own thing on his own terms...albeit in a comic that was at least initially greatly influenced on one of the big comics of the Bronze age with Thomas/Windsor-Smith's Conan. Some of those same Star Reach related guys like Starlin, Chaykin and Mike Grell were some of the first to jump off and be involved in the next stage of popular comics with the coming of the indies.

Alan Moore, Pat Mills, Wagner/Grant were active and Moore had done some DC work before 86, but I would say that what they were doing was from a different comic culture and when combined with the guys that broke the mold like Chaykin etc. was tied with the big change that stylistically happened with comics in the 80s. Same would go with Los Brothers Hernandez who came from a totally different comic angle and never made any real foray into the mainstream stuff.

As for the Warren writers like Dubay, which the black and white mags are a definite part of this comic culture, I got to say, I never knew that stuff near as well. Corben did some Warren stuff and some early graphic novels like "Boy and his Dog" but he went through more of the Heavy Metal/Hurlant comics.

Jim Steranko is another one that kind of straddles the line too. One, he never did that many comics, but I would say that the Nick Fury stuff is a stylistic step away from the silver age into something else and he was a rare one that was a writer/artist at Marvel, but it came a bit earlier than the date.

earl, i don't think we're ever going to agree on yr version of comics history (in terms of periodisation and categorisation - i mean, kanigher was still writing for DC well into the 1980s!), but, just to nitpick at one particular error of fact you make, 'boy and his dog' was initially a two issue comic book series (actually called Vic and Blood) that was first published in 1987. corben of course made his name in underground comix well before he published in warren or heavy metal.

uh yeah this

Sim also did some of the Star Reach stuff that some of the other writer/artists like Starlin, Chaykin etc did and was kind of the first one to go do his own thing on his own terms...albeit in a comic that was at least initially greatly influenced on one of the big comics of the Bronze age with Thomas/Windsor-Smith's Conan.
[...]
Same would go with Los Brothers Hernandez who came from a totally different comic angle and never made any real foray into the mainstream stuff.

...does not compute. Los Bros didn't "go do their own thing"? and weren't greatly influenced by mainstream comics?

Alan Moore, Pat Mills, Wagner/Grant were active and Moore had done some DC work before 86, but I would say that what they were doing was from a different comic culture and when combined with the guys that broke the mold like Chaykin etc. was tied with the big change that stylistically happened with comics in the 80s.

oh yeah wait, Moore had done Swamp Thing, Marvelman, V For Vendetta, Halo Jones, DR & Quinch, THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA, For The Man Who Has Everything, Mogo Doesn't Socialise, Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow, Watchmen #1 and all the Time Twisters by Sept 86, COME ON

Claremont's X-men excluded, I guess I haven't really read much from this era. Any gems/recommendations? I keep meaning to read Starlin and Gerber's 70s stuff, but I've been put off by the wack reprint formats.

Having said that, I voted Marv Wolfman for Crisis and the early Titans books.

Sorry, going to have to vote for Sim. Specially as it's pre-batshit Sim.

Co-signing with Chuck_Tatum - - - I'm a Claremont loyalist but I also am only just beginning to explore the wider world of this period... since I started blogging about the 70s X-Men it's really reminded me how much is out there. Just started chewing through an Essential volume of Power Man which has some great entertainment from Don McGregor (caption melodrama that would put Claremont to shame!).

Doug Moench- He wrote tons of comics in the 70s and 80s. I’d say the best run is the one that is hardest to find is the Master of Kung Fu run, as it probably for licensing problems it won’t be reprinted. Moench created a few Marvel/DC characters that have hung around like Moon Knight, Deathlok, Sgt. Harvey Bullock (who was a two panel character in a Len Wein Batman story that Moench brought back and turned into a regular Batman character) and Black Mask.

Steve Englehart- Englehart was arguably the most popular comic writer in the 70s and 80s. He had classic runs on many titles for both Marvel and DC including The Avengers, Captain America, Dr. Strange, Detective and Justice League of America. At the peak of his popularity, he quit comics for about 6 or 7 years. I’d say his Avengers run some of which was illustrated by George Perez and his run in Detective in Batman with Marshall Rogers and Walt Simonson are his comics that are still known and read today. I think those Batman stories are some of the best ever done and are some of my all time favorites.

Michael Fleisher- Fleisher wrote some classic tales for DC in the 70s including being the main writer for Jonah Hex and doing a classic run with the Spectre in Adventure Comics with Jim Aparo. The run with the Spectre while totally tame by modern standards was really controversial for the time, as you had The Spectre turning some bad guys into a candle and melting them. Both those Spectre and the early Jonah Hex stories have been reprinted. The Jonah Hex stories look really good in black and white in the Showcase edition.

Gerry Conway- Wrote bunches of comics for Marvel and DC including Spider-man, the JLA and Batman among many others, but the Death of Gwen Stacy/Green Goblin and the creation of The Punisher are probably the ones he is most known for now. He also created Firestorm, Killer Croc and Jason Todd (whose origin was later changed).

The Hernandez Brothers didn't come up in the DC/Marvel axis, which is what I was meaning. They pretty much started out doing their own style comic from the start (outside of a couple of issues of Mr. X, which were also still way different than almost all mainstream 80s comics. I know they were influenced by Ditko, Archie, etc., but Love & Rockets wasn't like any mainstream comic at the time from format to content.

Alan Moore as a writer was kind of the tip of the spear for the UK writers that came over and had such a huge impact on mainstream comics. Moore could definitely make a classic superhero tale, but I think tales like Swamp Thing and Marvelman really opened up what could be done in a mainstream comic. Some of those also while being originally published before 86 really didn’t see publication in the US until later on. Warrior and 2000 AD wasn’t something easy to find in the US in the 80s. I found that stuff when it was reprinted by Eagle and Eclipse. Alan Moore wasn’t the legend in Sept. 86 that he is now. At that point, in the US, people ‘might’ know the first 20 issues or so of Swamp Thing, a few issues of Miracleman and a couple of stories in DC annuals.

I could have had the bronze age cutoff date being before the first issue of Watchman and perhaps I should have, but I thought that was a good date for cutoff. The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen really was a big change for main stream comics, as a whole lot of things that didn’t seem possible, kind of became possible.
It might have been more accurate to date it to when the US indie comic companies got rolling in the early 80s or when Marvel and DC started to sell certain titles to the direct market, but that was more about distribution than content. I'd say at that point is when the DC/Marvel really changed who they were writing the comics towards an older audience across the board and the popularity of those 80s indies expanded out what type of comics were out there.

Can we do a Chromium Age poll after? I need a good cry.

The Hernandez Brothers didn't come up in the DC/Marvel axis, which is what I was meaning.

neither did Dave Sim

Can we do a Chromium Age poll after? I need a good cry.

Larry Hama? Andy Helfer? Mark Gruenwald? J. M. DeMatteis? Scott Lobdell?

NOW YER TALKIN'

A+++ post earlnash, thank you!

Lobdell not so bad... surely Gruenwald is of an earlier vintage!

Soft spot in my heart for DeFalco on Fantastic Four which was really godawful but was the first comic I ever bought on the regular.

Also, Louise Simonson.

I always thought of Gruenwald as a bronze ager, but looking at his bibliography he had a similar career arc to Alan Moore, bridging two eras. I have the Squadron Supreme TPB that had his ashes (!) mixed in with the printing ink.

I think the only Fleischer I've read are some awful stories he wrote for 2000 AD in the early 90s. Kind of a bizarre trade-off - we got him, the yanks got Moore, Morrison and Milligan.

huh I have never heard this referred to as the Bronze Age before

Chuck, if you nothing else you should def get the Gerber Defenders issues collected in Essential Defenders Vol 3 - it's one long saga that is prob my favourite 70s superhero comic, taking in brain transplants, killer elves, bambi, self-helf groups from outer space, lesbian prison riots etc etc

earlnash otm about those englehart/perez avengers - that was the shit that got me hooked

man, I thought I was the only person here who cut Scott Lobdell a break

dude wrote some bad stories, but he also wrote some good ones, and half of the crimes ppl say he inflected upon the X-universe were actually done by his co-writers

Co-writers, editors, and/or general confusion in the immediate wake of the entire creative team for two best-selling comic books disappearing overnight. You can imagine it was pretty rough going there for a while. He's forever damned for underplotted, confusing, arbitrary crap like Uncanny 304 (Magneto crashes funeral, becomes pure evil permanently) and X-Men Unlimited #4 (Rogue and Nightcrawler find out they are related while battling over a gigantic waterfall on the Mississippi). But on a month-to-month basis he did nice enough character work, and I REALLY liked Generation X, at least the first couple years with Bachalo on art.

Maybe he just needed good artists to play off of - his Uncanny was best with John Romita Jr. back on board.

I don't remember exactly how #304 was written (came out during my hiatus) but I thought the point was less "Magneto is pure evil" and more "Magneto is a full-on separatist"...?

not going to and will never defend XMU #4, that was seriously terrible, but it's kind of a shame that writing that gave Mark Waid carte blanche to ignore years of New Mutants/X-Force characterization with Cannonball and have him sulk in a tree, safe in the knowledge that everyone would assume Lobdell wrote it

earlnash otm about those englehart/perez avengers - that was the shit that got me hooked

Perez was only onboard for the last 7-8 issues though, and imo the Englehart Avengers run was at full weirdo steam ahead with the Avengers-Defenders war (Bob Brown art, mostly) and especially the Celestial Madonna stuff (Sal Buscema).

bob brown 'art' (quite like the sal buscema/joe staton combo, tho)

englehart's captain america run w/ sal buscema is gd too (even if colletta does far too much of the inking), and i love the issues of doctor strange written by englehart and drawn by gene colan and tom palmer, utterly gorgeous and cosmic comics, englehart really knew his spacey occult shit

Awww, I liked Bob Brown. Brown/Chiaramonte especially was a good combo.

There's a direct line from Englehart to Bendis -- self-confident, prolific, in love with the Marvel U., and willing to try just about anything.

It's kind of a shame that writing that gave Mark Waid carte blanche to ignore years of New Mutants/X-Force characterization with Cannonball and have him sulk in a tree

I can just imagine that's the sort of book DC would put out these days--22 pages of some Teen Titan character sulking in a tree, with dead birds occasionally dropping past him through the branches

re: Lobdell, Mags, Uncanny 304 - - - the art and dialogue are both absurdly melodramatic, and I mean, the story revolves around Magneto crashing a funeral with a bunch of armed goons, killing one of said goons on the spot for disagreeing with him or speaking out of turn or something, threatening the X-Men with his armed-to-the-teeth space station (which it's established he must have built by stealing technology from them when he was a good guy - - - so he was NEVER a good guy after all). And after all this, Colossus decides to sign up with the guy.

POB argues, maybe a bit too forcefully, that this wrecks everything interesting about Magneto as a guy who offers an almost-convincing rival viewpoint: http://web.archive.org/web/20080610065752/www.thexaxis.com/indexes/uncannyxmen/304.htm For the preceding several years there had been clear editorial interference trying to make the guy a villain again, and I could accept that having him reform and just be an X-Man like any other would not have been a really interesting payoff in the end. So I'm okay with the idea of, y'know, he tries out the X-Men for a while, it doesn't fit him, he retreats to Asteroid M and campaigns for mutant separatism. But basically the dial got overswung back to the raving terrorist from the 60s, which I think was a real loss for the character.

I just want to say that I'm cracking up giggling at seeing my name anti-search-engined. That is all.

you don't have groupies you're trying to avoid?!

Steve Gerber- Gerber wrote a bunch of comics for Marvel including The Defenders, Man-Thing, Omega the Unknown, Daredevil and most popularly known for Howard the Duck, which he co-created. There is definitely an edge of satire in some of his comics which were unique for the time. Howard the Duck was a comic and character of its time, popular enough to be used in advertising among side the usual Marvel stalwarts like Spider-man and the Hulk. Gerber had a pretty big falling out over ownership over the character.

Chris Claremont- Claremont seems to be still one of the most well known mainstream comic writers for that long run on the X-men, but the guy did some other cool stuff at Marvel when starting out in Marvel Team Up, Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel and a bunch of other tales littered through the 70s and early 80s.

Marv Wolfman- Wolfman was one of the most popular comic writers of the early 80s mostly tied to the comics he did with George Perez at DC with the New Teen Titans and the original Crisis on Infinite Earths miniseries. Wolfman did a bunch of comics at Marvel with runs with Spider-man, Fantastic Four, Daredevil and the most popular being Tomb of Dracula usually paired with Gene Colan. Tomb of Dracula was a comic from the Bronze Age, in that the comics code lightened up in that time to allow Marvel and DC to do some monster comics. While Tomb of Dracula is of its time, I think it is still an enjoyable read and the artwork looks pretty killer in black and white. This was one of the classic comics from that time I didn’t read until a few years ago, as they were always too expensive and never reprinted back in the 80s. Quite a few of the characters from his run on New Teen Titans he has created have remained, including Deathstroke the Terminator which has become one of the most popular DC villains (even if design wise it does owe quite a bit to George Perez’s earlier creation The Taskmaster from his Avengers issues with writer David Michelinie).

David Michelinie- I’d say Michelinie is best known for his two runs with Bob Layton on Iron Man, which includes introducing Jim Rhodes and villain Justin Hammer to the series and Tony Stark becoming an alcoholic. His career kind of bridges into the ‘platinum era’, as some of his more popular comics came in the later 80s run on Amazing Spider-man eventually paired with Todd McFarlene, which brought in the villain Venom and the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.

Chuck, if you nothing else you should def get the Gerber Defenders issues collected in Essential Defenders Vol 3 - it's one long saga that is prob my favourite 70s superhero comic, taking in brain transplants, killer elves, bambi, self-helf groups from outer space, lesbian prison riots etc etc

I've always wanted to read this, but is there anywhere (legal) to get them in colour? The black-and-white in the Essentials books kind of kills things for me -- especially considering everything in the 70s is so wordy, I'm never sure where to focus. (Perhaps I'm too easily confused.)

It doesn't look like they are up even on the Marvel digital comic site.

Eventually they might put some in a Marvel Masterworks, as they started The Defenders in those, but it looks like for now it is either original issues or Marvel Essentials for now.

Gerber, Gerber and Gerber.

And I'm pretty sure that run doesn't exist in color (and if it did, it'd be pretty expensive, since Marvel saw fit to charge thirty bucks for 12-ish issues of OMEGA THE UNKNOWN.) You might be able to put together the run out of back issues/dollar bins, but that'll test your patience.

sweird, i grew up reading british marvel comics reprints which were always in black and white, so the lack of colour in the essential volumes has never bothered me. and i was just reading the first Tomb of Dracula Essentials and thinking that the lack of colour actually helps you appreciate what a fuckin' amazing inker tom palmer is - his mastery of brush and spot blacks and zipatone is just stunning

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I'd also say that TOMB OF DRACULA is one of the few comic books (as opposed to B/W magazines) of that time that would be improved by dropping the colors.

Weren't there a lot of those UK reprint comics that came out with black linework and a spot color? I remember seeing some scans of maybe some Kirby X-MEN pages like that and found it pretty weird (but the right tone artists might be able to work wonders.)

yeah, the earliest brit marvel reprints were generally black & white and ONE spot colour (eg green for hulk, red for spiderman). For the most of the seventies it was black and white with added on zipatone or grey shades, with the occasional 'original' splash page produced by the marvel US bullpen for the overseas market.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

yay!

I was the only one who voted for Walt Simonson? His Thor run is the best comic run from this era (that I've read), especially considering how long he managed to keep the quality up. Jim Starlin's Warlock is awesome and all, but it's only a handful of good issues. (Admittedly, I haven't read anything else by Starlin from this era, but his later writing on stuff like Batman and the various Infinity minis is very uneven.) Claremont, of course, was the king of the Bronze Age, and I love many of his stories to death, but when he was bad he was much worse than Simonson.

So much of this stuff was before my time that I ended up voting for Len Wein based on the animation work he did, much of which was a big deal to me when I was a kid.

aside from a few gd issues of the JLA, and that Swamp Thing run (for which Berni Wrightson deserves the lion's share of the credit), Len Wein's comics are the v definition of mediocre

simonson barely qualifies as a 'bronze age' writer and claremont's best work on the X-Men was co-written w John Byrne. away from the X-Men, most everything claremont wrote was p terrible, so i dunno how he qualifies ("of course") as 'king of the bronze age' ahead of gerber or englehart, both of whom wrote tons of amazing comics often drawn by some p undistinguished artists

"King" in the sense that he was probably the most prominent and most popular writer of that era.

for most of the bronze age, claremont was far less popular and 'prominent' than roy thomas, gerry conway, len wein, etc - he was a junior hack on things like 'war is hell' and was never let anywhere near the top-line marvel titles like Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Avengers. X-Men was a bi-monthly title at the time claremont took over as writer, and it's incredible popularity only came towards the tail-end of the bronze age

I don't think I ended up voting. Like I said, I was leaning toward Simonson, and should have voted that way had I remembered.

Gerber FTW!

Len Wein did co-create Wolverine, Swamp Thing and the Giant Size X-Men issue which re-introduced the X-men with the new cast (Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Thunderbird), although of course many others added to the characters down the line.

Walt Simonson also did the artwork with Archie Goodwin on Manhunter, which is definitely one one of the 70s classics from DC. It is really good and holds up quite well for a comic from 74. They have a trade with all of the stories.