So I was thinking about this the other day and figured it would be good to get opinions on here. So who do people to be some of the consistently best writers in comics?
While there's of course going to be the usual few who are always suggested (Moore, Morrison, Gaiman etc), I figured people might have some other ideas too. Especially as there's definitely room for debate about how consistently good people think some writers are rather than simply having a couple of outstanding stories among many average ones.
One of the first people who came to mind for me was Warren Ellis, it terms of both how high quality any given one of his works are but the fact that he pretty much consistently writes on that level (I can't think of a poor title he's written, but haven't read everything).
Kurt Busiek, Gail Simone, Mark Waid, and Greg Rucka come to mind. Like, if I see those names, I know it's going to be solid stuff, to flat-out great.
Mike Mignola may almost exclusively write Hellboy-related stuff, but I'd still toss him in. It does kinda feel like a cheat to use people who've worked on what's effectively one gigantic story....
Those are popular names, but there's a number there I wouldn't call *Consistent*. Loeb did Ultimatum and the Red Hulk stuff, Byrne has both his famous X-run with Claremont and plenty of misses, Millar has his share of flops, Miller isn't what he used to be (Holy Terror anyone?), etc..
Loeb was consistent until his family tragedy, so I give him a pass tbh.
Mine:
David Mack
Geoff Johns has far more hits than misses
Mark Waid
Simonsen(s) was/were awesome
Chuck Dixon
Paul Dini
Gail Simone
Dennis O'Neil
Stan Lee
Chris Claremont was consistent for a very long time before he went off the rails
Same with John Byrne
Loeb's comics don't hold up to scrutiny imo. His Marvel and Superman stuff is straight up garbage. Even most of his Batman stuff, which I really liked, doesn't look that great in retrospect. I really enjoy the character Hush, but it's not that great an arc.
Batman The Long Halloween.
Dark Victory.
Hulk Grey.
Daredevil Yellow.
Spiderman Blue.
Our Worlds at war.
Superman for all Seasons.
Emperor Joker.
Hush.
Superman/Batman for over 2 years (including the Supergirl and Public enemies storylines.).
Fallen Son.
Heroes Reborn.
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Some of those on the list are great, some of 'em are merely ok (I mean, I like OWAW, but it's not exactly a classic. And the Public Enemies Superman story has some big holes, like 'why are so many heroes listening to Luthor just because Kryptonite showed up'), and then off that list are really trash, Ultimatum and all that.
With consistency the question, 'puts out stories across the entire spectrum' is pretty much the opposite!
So are many of his weak ones.
Picking up a random Loeb story is really a roll of the dice.
Good one.
Also, even his misses tend to be of the 'haven't I seen this from Johns before....?' phoning it in rather than trainwrecks.
On the flipside, they've made so much stuff after that point.
Post-X-men, I find Claremont hit and miss but still putting out some good stuff, and I don't even remember the last time I read a good Byrne story.
Remember the time when Byrne had a Justice League story where the villains were crappy vampires, and the whole thing was just a backdoor launch for a crappy doom patrol reboot...?
James Roberts has been an amazing writer for More Than Meets the Eye.
Ever since Last Stand of the Wreckers, he's been hitting them out of the park. MTMTE isn't just one of the best Transformers series, imo it's one of the best comic series, period.
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Mar 29th, 2015 04:01 AM
