>>Bill Mantlo was a writer that I could always depend on as having written a good story.<<

That's the nut of it to me and what i look for in writers, someone who brings "The Story" -- not the high-concept, not someone in love with their own dialoge, not the plan to take character A and turn him into characer B, but someone who has The Story that must be told, a Storyteller -- and Bill Mantlo certainly was a Storyteller.  In particularly i enjoyed his Micronauts, and certainly do regret he isn't still able to be in the industry telling stories.

It's incredibly sad what happened to him and I wish it had never happened, but...

Sorry, guys, I grew up reading Bill Mantlo books as much as you and thought he was the WORST writer in comics. OK, Rom had some decent stories, as did early Micronauts (I would say that Michael Golden's artwork may have affected my judgement on that) and Cloak and Dagger (same for Rick Leonardi's art), but this is what? 1% of his output?

His Hulk was terrible! I don't understand how people here, so critical of PAD's run, may praise a guy that did a LONG run with "Hulk with banner's mind" and a LONGER one with "Hulk without Banner whatsoever, but don't worry, since we sent him to a place where everywhere he goes, he is a pussy compared to the locals". I mean, that was PAINFUL to read! And his supporting cast on that run? A bunch of bright bubbles, a gremlin and two TOYS! The famous "Banner past" story (cribbed from BWS notes, and that is considered Mantlo's masterpiece!) had a DOLL as one of the supporting cast, for dog's sake! I bought the brazilian Hulk mag to read Iron Man and SUFFERED through the Hulk pages to get to the stories I wanted. He made me dislike the Hulk for years! I actually cheered when I knew JB was taking over, because I would be able to like the character again (and I did).

His Spider-Man couldn't hold a candle to the contemporary Roger Stern Spider-Man. And don't get me started on his Alpha Flight, please!

You guys are frankly seeing the past through pink-colored glasses. Marvel in the early 80s was great, yes, but Bill Mantlo, at least IMHO, was the exception. Was he still active (and I really wish that was the case), he would be another of those writers who have vanished from comics since. Probably a full-time lawyer (his other activity at the time) by now.

Being fair to the guy, his last story I read (drawn by Jean-Claude Gal for Heavy Metal) was very good. But not exceptional.

Mantlo was a solid second tier Marvel writer.  Never at the level of a Claremont, Stern, Byrne, or Simonson, but he could be counted on for entertaining stories.  However, he also did some horrible stories.  I don't mind his Hulk efforts because the Hulk seems to go through "phases."  I thought his Alpha Flight stories were terrible though, and he did not understand the characters.  I loathed them.  Loved his Cloak and Dagger stuff though, and enjoyed his Spectacular Spider-Man run.

I wish him the best.

Pedro Bouca wrote: You guys are frankly seeing the past through pink-colored glasses.

Speaking only for myself, I can say with 100% certainty that I'm not looking through rose-colored glasses when I comment on how much I loved his work on ROM, MICRONAUTS and HULK.  All three.  Hell, I even forgot to mention CLOAK AND DAGGER, another favorite of mine.  Sure, I wasn't the biggest fan of Mantlo's take on ALPHA FLIGHT coming on the heels of JB's stellar run, but every creator has misses.  I'm not gonna hold that against him.  For me, a ton of his work introduced me to characters I love to this day.  I can't give the guy any bigger praise than that.

There were some really good Mantlo stories, but I always thought he did "cliche" stuff a lot, and often repeated himself.  Micronauts was my favorite work of his, but sometimes the story slowed to a crawl.  He was consistently good and apparently wrote almost as fast as Sal Buscema could draw!

Avengers Annual #9, the Arsenal story with the Don Newton Art was my favorite comic for years.

My first introduction to his work was on Rom and The Micronauts, and they're still all-time favourites of mine. I've enjoyed his writing, I can honestly say, on everything except Alpha Flight. Of course, JB's act is a hard one to follow, so I don't hold that against Mantlo at all. He wrote a ton of good stuff, so I don't see why focusing on the odd thing he got wrong negates all the good writing that he did.