Bill Mantlo.

[Tawmis]

So I have often said that Bill Mantlo did some VERY serious damage to ALPHA FLIGHT. And I stick by it. His writing in ALPHA FLIGHT I strongly disliked.

But as I mentioned in another thread, I have been collecting older comics, older titles - one of them which I have been getting is ROM, which Bill wrote.

Now I have no idea what happened between ROM and ALPHA FLIGHT, because I find his ROM to be pretty good. (There's some very corny elements which I didn't care for - and it could be because my run starts with #21 and up, so I am currently missing the first 20 issues). But that love circle between Rom, Brandy and Brandy's fiance (whose name slips my mind) is extremely corny (I am on issue #35 right now). But other than that - his stories always seemed very fun and interesting. He even wrote plenty of guest stars (X-MEN, BROTHERHOOD, SHANG CHI, NAMOR, etc - and I know future issues have ALPHA FLIGHT).

So I am puzzled how his ROM is, for the most part, quite entertaining - while his ALPHA FLIGHT just never sat well with me.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I really enjoyed Bill's work on the Micronauts, I just don't why he did what he did with Alpha Flight.

Dana

[Le Messor]

I bought a Power Pack Classics v2 last week (and got to read it yesterday). (As with Tawmis in the Wizard thread, the comics of today are really getting me into the comics of the 70s and 80s.)

Anyway, Louise Simonson wrote the actual issues of Power Pack in the trade, which I loved. Getting to the point: the final issue reprinted was 'Power Pack and Cloak and Dagger', by Bill Mantlo. Which was good, too. Not as good as the main series, a little cliched, but good. (I also got one of the recent Marvel Premiere Classics where she wrote the New Mutants, and the writing sucked. Maybe there's a Power Pack curse? They are jealous kids, and won't let you write anything else well once you've written them!)

The going theory has always been that Bill Mantlo was a once-good (or great?) writer who was burned-out by the time he got to Alpha Flight. I don't know where others got that info, but it makes sense. Apparently, he was asking his editor for story ideas by the end. Which, come to think of it, really doesn't sound like all that terrible a sin, but still isn't how the relationship should work.

- Le Messor
"I enjoy incomprehensible nonsense and completely counter-productive misinformation, but only in small doses."

[suzene]

I think sometimes you just get the wrong writer on the wrong book. Mantlo was an established writer turning out a competent, but generic, superhero team story -- X-Men Lite or maybe Avengers: North -- with all of the trappings that go with it, and that sort of paint-by-numbers work just did not fit Alpha Flight at all.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I agree with you Suzene.

IMO While Alpha may possess some qualities that other teams have (i.e. many of the members having familial relationships, like the FF...Or a mutli-powered line-up, like the Avengers), they have qualities that made them very unique in the superhero world, like not being based in one spot (originally) or being at odds with each other most of the time, etc...

Alpha Flight was originally a very quirky, interesting team...It's really unfortunate that many writers try to portray them in a generic, cookie-cutter way.

Dana

[Tawmis]

Well that's just it... I think Bill was normally good at writing UNUSUAL characters rather than cookie cutter...

All of the Space Knights were a pretty unusual lot. The Micronauts were an unusual lot. Each possessed unique qualities. It may have been that he had no vibe for Alpha Flight. Or he excels at developing things that were new and untouched; and he had no idea how to follow up what happened in Alpha Flight before him.

I am just appreciating him far more than I originally did, when previously, my first "encounter" with him was Alpha Flight (which even then was wrong, as I had gotten the Cloak and Dagger issues he had written; just never noticed who wrote it back then).

[Le Messor]

His Cloak and Dagger was great, as was Rom. Never read Micronauts. (Maybe when I was a little kid.)

- Le Messor
"I guess I kinda lost control, because in the middle of the play I ran up and lit the evil puppet villain on fire. No, I didn’t. Just kidding. I just said that to help illustrate one of the human emotions, which is freaking out. Another emotion is greed, as when you kill someone for money, or something like that. Another emotion is generosity, as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid puppet."
~ Jack Handey

[Tawmis]

His Cloak and Dagger was great, as was Rom. Never read Micronauts. (Maybe when I was a little kid.)

I will say this about his ROM... the whole ROM + Brandy thing doesn't make much sense and is dragged on entirely too long... lol...

If I was Steve Jackson, I'd be like, "Forget this woman!"