It was announced last week that legendary comic book writer Gerry Conway has passed away at age 73. I posted something resembling the following in a thread on the subject at the MARVEL MASTERWORKS MESSAGE BOARD, where I do most of my comic book opining these days under the name "MCRE" -- but I wanted to publish my brief (yet ever so slightly expanded) thoughts here as well for posterity, because while I've frankly read relatively little of Conway's massive comic book output over the decades, what I did read left a big impression on me. Obviously there was his BATMAN/DETECTIVE COMICS run, which I wrote about in-depth here as my last major project before going into semi-retirement. I think anyone who read those posts would come to the conclusion that, while there may have been bits and pieces I didn't love, overall, I found it an exceptional stretch of Bat-stories.
But a few decades before I read those Batman comics (yet a few years after they were originally published), there was another Conway run that made a massive impression on me. If you were to ask me what formed the foundation for what I think Spider-Man is "supposed to be" when I was a child, I'd easily rattle off Roger Stern's Hobgoblin stories from 1983 (which were some of the earliest comics I owned as a child when I could barely read), the Lee/Romita newspaper strips I had via the 1986 BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book I mentioned numerous times when I looked at the strips years ago, the Lee/Romita AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues circa the "Petrified Tablet Saga" (issues 68 - 75) which I owned via digest reprints circa 1987-88, and Gerry Conway's WEB and SPECTACULAR from 1988 - 1990, which I was reading as it came out.
I was around 10-12 years old when that combined WEB/SPECTACULAR run was published, and having returned to it some years ago as an adult, I think it remains a high watermark for Spider-Man (and is my number one vote every year in the "Most Wanted Omnibus" polls). When discussing that run with Tom DeFalco for the COMICS CREATORS ON SPIDER-MAN book, Conway said that his editor allowed him to write the books as a soap opera about Peter Parker and his supporting cast. In other words, per Conway, he came up with all the sub-plots first, then wrote the superhero stuff around them. As far as I'm aware, this was a pretty novel way to write a superhero comic at the time (though perhaps Chris Claremont had beaten Conway to it by a few years), and it's really the best way to write a series like Spider-Man, in my opinion. And that isn't to say the superhero stuff was an afterthought in those issues! To this day, because of their influence on me when I was a child, the sagas of Tombstone (in SPECTACULAR) and the Lobo brothers (in WEB) remain "iconic" Spider-Man storylines in my mind.
So I'm pretty bummed about this, but nonetheless thankful for all the joy Conway gave me over the years.
ReplyDeleteI share that last sentiment.
Gerry Conway wrote a lot of stuff in my personal Golden Age of Comics — for me, due to being an early reader (credit my parents, mutant genes, who knows), just 5 to 6 years old. And it wasn’t simply because of an extended stay on a single title like with Roy Thomas on The Invaders, although that was certainly true of his JSA All-Star Comics revival.
The introduction of the Punisher was one of my earliest comics ever and remains how I see the character, literally and figuratively, having a widow’s peak and being a mercenary. I was reading his Amazing Spider-Man run intermittently through the memorably covered #158 with Jackal and Tarantula chucking Spidey off a bridge.
DC had the edge over Marvel for me and Conway’s output during that magical era also included Freedom Fighters (which brought back the Quality characters first reintroduced in a JLA/JSA epic) and Hercules Unbound, the powerful issue of Action Comics where Superman confides his secret identity to an old friend’s son, and of course Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man.
The amount of landmarks from just a few years of his storied career that belong in the first paragraph of his obituary, it’s kind-of crazy.
Wrong link after all that, although I did have #150 too. Here’s the one I meant.
DeleteOf course it's #148, not #158. Sigh. I’d like to tell you it’s been that kind of day but it’s been that kind of month so far.
DeleteThanks for your thoughts, Blam! Conway was certainly far more prolific in comics in the 70s than in the 80s and beyond, due mainly, it seems to his success working in television. It's not surprising that he's so entwined with your Personal Golden Age.
DeleteI miss the Punisher's widow's peak!! He was a lot more distinctive in those early days. (I also miss when he didn't have his own series and was generally presented as antagonist or, at best, a very uneasy ally, whenever he appeared.)
I've been intensely busy this past fortnight so have only just seen the news.
ReplyDeleteGerry Conway wrote the first super hero comic story I ever read, "Requiem for a Hero" in Batman #342 written about here on this very blog.
https://notahoaxnotadream.blogspot.com/2024/04/batman-342.html
He wrote so much more in his career with much of his Marvel output reviewed on my old blog looking at the Essentials. His original Spider-Man run still holds up well all these decades later with a lot of great stories, many of which have been subsequently adapted. And of course he did the unthinkable and killed Gwen Stacey.
So a major impact both on the medium and for me personally.
RIP.
Thanks, Tim -- I just went back and read that comment you left when I posted about BATMAN 342. I remain fascinated that you were reading Conway's Batman and Byrne's Superman side-by-side!
DeleteI liked a lot of Conway's original AMAZING run. I know my post above focused on his late 80s WEB/SPECTACULAR because those were some of the earliest Spider-Man comics I ever read, but I have of course read all his AMAZING as well, and I generally liked it quite a bit. It's especially good when you consider how unbelievably young he was when he wrote it!!