Was Steve Englehart the Most Influential Comic Book Writer of the 70s?
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- čas přidán 9. 05. 2022
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Steve Englehart has had a long career in comics and this video specifically analyzes a productive period he had from 1971 through 1977, writing defining runs on Defenders, Avengers, Doctor Strange, Captain America, and Batman. The video analyzes what he does with his writing style and looks at unique things he did - unapproved Marvel/DC crossovers, taking a character with him across 4 publishers, and inspiring many of the live action comic book movies. - Zábava
How are you gonna talk about Englehart and his style without talking about his love for the outrageously convoluted? His revisions to the origins of Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver were a thrilling read, and also made it so you can melt a person's brain by just trying to describe their character histories, lol.
It's mind-bending how many of the stories I read as a kid and loved were written by Englehart.
Maybe Matis represents someone from his real life . Who knows. Seems like attachment.
The Beast's 6-issue miniseries is highly underrated in my opinion. Not only did it introduce Beast as we know him today, but it also showed Marvel that X-Men characters were entertaining during Mutants' darkest days. It is full of action, drama, characters and more that make me revisit that story like few others. I also loved the original Star-Lord stories, and while I enjoyed the story that followed after Englehart left Marvel, I'm curious how his plans for Star-Lord would have been executed. Although I didn't realize it before, I think I have a lot of Englehart in my library.
who are the artists of the Beast miniseries? (4:19)
@@LQuatorze The pages he showed were all Tom Sutton.
That Beast run was my childhood favorite.
Thanks for the recommendation! I was about to skip The Beast's run entirely, since the first and last issue didn't impress me. Now that I know good ole Eagleheart wrote some, I'll slap myself and hunker down for a good night read.
Steve Englehart is one of my all time favorites. He is one of the four pillars of 1970s Marvel. Englehart, Gerber, Thomas & Starlin.
Starlin????
@@jimmy.r.minnelli yes?
@@TaylorTalksComics ok
You forgot about Reimers
@@jimmy.r.minnelliwhat's wrong with Sstarlin?
Steve’s Doctor Strange comics were weird as hell, but I really enjoyed them! He did a great job characterizing Strange and making his series feel truly otherworldly.
He managed to out-weird the stories written and drawn by Ditko, which is no easy feat. Some were so weird they lost me, though.
I love Steve Englehart, but I’ve never understood his obsession with the Mantis character. I’ve never found her interesting (aside from the Gunn version in Guardians 2). Another great episode from the best comics CZcamsr on the platform!
I agree I’m not understanding the obsession with mantis. I was reading the comics at that time and just found her one of the most annoying characters at Marvel. On the other hand, his and Sal Buscema‘s run on Captain America is my “personal golden-age” for the character
He made an OC that he fell in love with. I get that impression anyway.
Ouch. I agree with you on the obsession part but it was a pet character he created and developed. But the movie version was defintely one note. Still glad we saw her. I'm not a huge Mantis fan but I did enjoy some of the stuff Engleheart did with her.
@@jorgem.1564 I mean, I don’t actively dislike the character or anything, I’ve just never really cared about her. The Guardians film version is a bit one note, but at least her origins aren’t unnecessarily convoluted.
@@NerdonFilm I agree about the origin.
Englehart and Brunner's run on Dr Strange has been my favorite comic series ever since I picked them up new when I was 10. Dr Strange's struggle with death itself as an entity and expanding his mind to encompass all of eternity, made abstract spiritual concepts available. Of course I also had a huge crush on Clea, and a love for white/silver hair that still holds true.
The Captain America/ Serpent run was the first time I felt the power of comics to reflect current politics that I could recognize concurrent in real life. I owe Steve Englehart(and other great writers + Artists) a great debt at influencing my adult outlook.
I STILL have a crush on Clea!
Snowflame returned recently in a few fill-in issues of Catwoman written by Sean Murphy 🙂
I really loved his work on west coast avengers, he was able to bring very real problems and mix them high concept superhero stories, like when Hank Pym was feeling suicidal while the Avengers were dealing with a time travel problem. It brought a human element that I really appreciated
He’s up there, but for me it’s Jim Starlin.
Ah,Starlin. He's a beast !!! Writes,draws,creates characters.like-Pip the Troll,Gamora,the Destroyer,updated/changed characters for the better-Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock. And can I forget big-daddy THANOS ??? Even tho he's a rip-off of Darkseid !!! LOL. His artwork back in the 70s still hold-up today !!! WOW,the man's art is on BEAST-mode !!!
I plan on meeting him at a convention at the end of this month.
Steve is one of those guys that you hear his name and you know he did a lot for comics. But when you dig into it and see just how much....Man, it's a lot! He's definitely one of those super influential writers from the 70's who took Marvel from monthly villain fights to the epic, tied-in universe we know and love today!
This is one of those cases, like Bill Mantlo and Steve Gerber, that I sometimes forget how many of the books I read and loved as a kid was written by three or four guys. I loved Steve's run on Doctor Strange, as well as Avengers and most of those connecting books. If you're a Captain America reader, his stories not only defined his era, but caused waves that still strongly effect Cap stories. That run where Cap quits, searches for meaning beyond being a symbol, and comes back when he finds a reason to be Cap again, SHOULD be read by modern writers who are hung up on Steve Rogers being obsolete and trying to constantly replace him.
I LOVED Steve's version of Doctor Strange. He's kind of what is lacking in the movies. Steve Ditko and Stan had Doc being kind of an arrogant, self-assured Master of the Mystic Arts. Steve brought that fatherly quality to him that we saw him portrayed as mostly until the turn of this century. It was the journey that the Ancient One had told Strange he would have to take. Going from an arrogant Doctor, to an humbled man, to a master magician, but finally to a guardian of the universe....And his friends. Doc was the patient member of the Defenders who knew how to keep the disparate personalities on track with each other. And that is how I always remember him. This return to being an arrogant jerk during the Illuminati story at Marvel just rings false to me until this day.
Finally, yes, Steve's ethnic characters could be taken as racist stereotypes. And if you want to see a completely hokey, goofy, so racist he gets in his own way character, you have to read his version of the Red Skull at the tale end of his Captain America run. He's so racist he'll stop what he's doing to torture Gabe Jones and Peggy Carter because he's not into interracial dating. But, in his defense, during the time they came out, these ham-handed attempts at diversity, inclusion, and jabs at racism were important. Someone WAS addressing the situations and trying to bring different kinds of characters into comics in the best way they knew. Sometimes having a person of one ethnic group write a character from another can come across as very stilted. But I believe Steve meant well. It would be like modern readers reading the Remo Williams Destroyer novels. You can take them as racist stereotype trash. Or you can look at them as the writers trying to write about deep situations, but only having a limited amount of pages to do it and doing it in a time when most other depictions of race are totally offensive and hateful. It was a time of change and people with no modern context tend to forget those things and just scream racism. Not realizing the diversity they're so obsessed with now came from those halting steps at writers and artists trying to show there was more to the world than a bunch of white dudes punching each other.
I liked the Nomad storyline from CA. I remember him stepping on his cape during a battle and then ripping it off in frustration.
In Hong Kong King Fu movies, martial arts masters had mystical powers, so I don't see a problem with that aspect. It's a trope, not a stereo type. The other stuff like the Asian seductress, I can see where you're coming from. So many Englehart classics that I grew up on. Good episode though. Keep it going!
This is a good point, lots of Shaw Brothers films have characters flying and shooting beams from their hands.
I think his problem was mainly the generic mystery of it. They just kinda act like it's just a martial arts "thing" and don't really adapt it so it comes off as a bit of a "wacky Asians!" Type deal
I just got into reading old doctor strange comics online and man the visuals are amazing
The title of "most influential" is an interesting concept, and I do agree with your "ruling". Others in the comments mention Marv W, Doug M, etc. and I'd add Denny O'Neill to the list of consideration too, though he straddled the '60s/'70s.
His work with The Vision and Scarlet Witch has been utilized in that fancy talkies medium too.
He had a good run on Green Lantern. Definitely brought a great plot to his run, that pulled on the long history of GL lore.
Except for him having middle-aged Hal creepily date a 16 year old kid necessitating later DC creators to change her character to try to cover that up.
But otherwise I agree - this was a very fun run of GL comics. 'The Predator' reveal was a letdown, IMO, tho.
Englehart's brief run on 'Detective Comics' was it for me. Clayface... the Laughing Fish story with Joker... the return, revamped Deadshot. I had read an old reprint with Deadshot sometime before, and seeing him fresh and new, as well as the art of Marshall Rogers, was exciting and cool.
Len wein did clayface. Steve had just bounced.
@@Tabish29 Okay... time getting dimmed with age
I haven't read much of Englehart's work outside of Batman, but one thing that I thought he really nailed was his characterization of the Joker. He wasn't the first person to do it, but I think he really nailed the fine balance between a Joker that's funny, but still a threat.
Englehart's run on the Justice League of America was light night and day compared to what came before him. He gave life and characterization to each member of the team. Englehart's Malibu team, Strangers was also a great run in my opinion.
When looking at 70s writers in terms of influence it's either him or Steve Gerber IMO. Englehart also brought back the Silver Surfer in the 80s and dealt with Galactus's ban on him leaving Earth imposed since _Fantastic Four_ #50 in the first issue of volume 3 of his solo series, which wound up been his longest running solo title (which featured Marshall Rogers in the early issues). This was the first time that Marvel let anybody but Stan Lee write him on a regular basis or in a solo book.
Been reading his Silver Surfer run, it’s great.
Met Englehart at a comic convention in the ‘70s. Nice guy. Enjoyed his work.
Since Doctor Strange is my favorite character I remember those Steve Englehart stories.
In fact I have several Doctor Strange stories signed by Marshall Rogers who was working at Neil Adams continuity studio at the time and he was being paid a bonus for illustrating Doctor Strange. It’s a great feeling to see original artwork and this was the first time that I had ever saw a light box table that Marshall Rogers was using he was also working on coyote at the time for eclipse comics this video has brought back some wonderful memories for me and I will continue to check in to see what you will do next thank you
When She Hulk finally comes out, I'd love to see him shine a light on her very fun Savage She Hulk, or even the John Byrne Era. I just really hope he does something on her, she is honestly the most underrated character in Marvel.
Just on the cusp of being well known, but still too obscure.
I hope this new show inspires people to go back and read her stories, they range from amazing to batshit. as comics should
I loved her stories. I have read some slam them, but I thought they were great.
It's great to see comic writers actually care about the characters they created. Nowadays creators seem to hate their characters as well as customers.
I love Englehart and his treatments of Cap, Doc Strange, and Batman. It's a pity his multi-part, Zodiac-influenced storyline for Star-Lord never happened. I also wish he'd been able to do more than three issues of Mister Miracle, since his take on the character (with Marshall Rogers) redefined the hero. He also wrote an interesting arc for Green Lantern just before the Crisis. And his JLA run features one of my all-time favorite panels, with Superman lamenting (to Batman) the seeming collapse of the League while he led them.
I wish that back in 1975, Kirby would have consented to have him write the cap book rather then turn his nose up to his cap. Englehart breathed new life into cap.
My first comic was Englehart's Defenders #7 - and everything he wrote for Marvel in the 70s was my favorite.
His run on Detective Comics really solidified my love for Batman when I was a kid
Steve Engleharts run on Batman came out in my country when I was 13 - 14 and is probably the main reason that I kept reading comics and never gave up on superhero comics either. I still try to keep up.
I have heard that Roy Thomas was an influential creator on Doctor Strange. If you ever did an episode on him I think that it would be pretty interesting.
Agreed. Roy Thomas was my favorite writer when I was a kid.
If I remember correctly, Roy Thomas introduced Lovecraftian themes into Dr. Strange stories....
I love these deep dives on writers & Artists. I prefer it when it's books I don't read, like this, because I get to hear about things that I don't know much about but am aware of.
I would also add his Green lantern run up to the end of Crisis. Englehart was also the master of making continuity work rather than discarding it like others would.
Another great video as always!
Another great video!
Amazing video as always 👌🏼👌🏼
His Detective Comics run is legendary yet also somewhat underrated or obscure with the wider audience.
I haven't read any of Englehart's Doctor Strange, but I have read all of Steve Ditko's run, and a lot of the characteristics you associate with Englehart were already in place when Ditko was working on the character.
Great video!!!
Great video as usual.
Great video, I'm a big fan! I love the deep dives on different creators' careers. I'd like to see more videos on your favorite comic runs/collected stories. I found your channel with the fletcher hanks video, and after that I loved the miracle man video. I would have never thought to explore those without the introduction and summary. Knowing where to start with a character can be the hardest part of getting into comics, and you have that knowledge base and great presentation to make the best runs accessible and interesting to newcomers, or in my case an old reader that missed some interesting runs.
Love this series, thank you for your videos. Really appreciated.
Love the video Chris and glad to
See you touch on Engleharts work.
Great video! I remember reading about mantis back in the day and I was surprised she was not a martial artist in the movies. Thanks for explaining some of the backstory.
awesome stuff as usual! thanx for all the research and insights.
As usual Chris, you give a good deep dive into comics.
Another excellent episode, Chris! This is the reason why this my favorite comics channel.
Great video.
I love these creator deep-dives, man, you're really cranking out some amazing content!
Really excellent episode - fantastic research and details, love this channel! 😁👍🙏
Always love to learn more about the storytellers behind the comics, great video!
Love the creator deep dives, great work as ever Chris!
Great episode!
Great video. I've just been having the worst day today but this video was a pleasant surprise. Great Vid👍
Another killer episode 👍
Great video! I loved his run on Batman!
Great depth on this unique writer...thanks again Chris!
Another great one. Light and peace
Enjoyed that. Interesting to hear how characters evolved as a result of his writing.
Thanks!
Enjoyable and informative 👍🏾
Englehart is one of my faves. Great video.
It's my birthday so it's a real treat getting a new episode of Comic Tropes today!
Loved his runs on Cap and Batman, which I bought in the 70s and still treasure. Thanks for this prog!
As someone who’s queer I actually love Extrano. Definitely reminds me of some older gay folks I know, and even if he’s a bit stereotypical, it’s a positive, sweet, and warm one that speaks to an older gay experience.
I'm also gay, and I also liked Extraño.
I really enjoyed his run on West Coast Avengers. Very impressionable time of my childhood. love your content!
First...I just want to say keep up the great work! I noticed where someone pointed out it was Rutland, Vermont and not Rutledge, Virginia for the "secret" crossover...I caught that one small slip up as well as one other...you stated that Star-Lord's first appearance was in Marvel Premiere...but it was actually Marvel Preview #4 along with artist Steve Gan...that being said...I really enjoyed this episode...looking forward to the next one!!
Best comic book contet on the internet / youtube. Thank you for each and every video my man. Can't say it enough.
Englehart is somebody who's work I was always aware of but I haven't read much of. Really glad to have this video. Definitely going to check out his Doctor Strange and Cap
discovered him in the 90s with Ultraverse comics.
The Strangers wasn't the greatest at that time but it really stuck with me. I went back and saw some of his earlier work and developed the utmost respect for him. Excellent writer!
Gerry Conway with his run on Spider-Man, and Roy Thomas with his run on Avengers, and others.
To this day I consider all his 70s work as good as anything anybody’s done sense. His cap, avengers, Doctor Strange, that justice league will run as well. We’re great stuff. I wish today’s writers had the talent and imagination of this guy. My favorite stuff from him by far is his cap run, I was a very lukewarm cat fan who became a cap obsession kind of reader once Inglehart hit the book. His avengers was gonna run as most anybody has ever had, is Doctor Strange outside of Stan and Steve’s original stuff, was better than anybody else’s. This guy is way underrated and deserves a lot more credit than he gets.
West Coast Avengers was the first title I ever collected. The Engleheart issues were so great partly due to the referencing of events and villains from the 1970s. It made me want to seek out those older books and read them too, which I wound up doing!
Fantastic video! I grew up on Englehart's Marvel work. I once got a chance to tell him how much his Avengers work meant to me.
Good video, thanks
As a kid I fell in love with the Avengers issues featuring the Squadron Supreme.
Thanks for the video and I think you hit the nail on the head with Steve. His work with Sal in the 70's is a personal favorite of mine. I agree with you that the Defenders was a very underrated mag for Marvel, and I consider the first 30 issues to be as interesting as anything the FF and the Avengers were doing at the same time.
great stuff
Great seeing Steve Englehart getting his due.
Best comics channel-period.
I love his run on Batman. Some of my favourite Batman stories
one of those names I've seen and heard through the years and also remember reading some old stories of his although I'm not totally sure, so it was pretty interesting to finally learn about him and how important he is.
Loved the Captain America run!
Listen. I say, "By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth" and "By the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak" at least twice a week.
Well yeah, but not every 21 pages! My weeks are at least a hundred pages (unless Brian Bendis is scripting, as that bumps it up to about a thousand), so it's a little different. Still, I really should say it those more often myself. Respect due.
One of the legendary Bronze Age writers , my favorite is his run on Green Lantern in the mid 80s
I was really surprised you didn't mention his silver surfer run at all, I love that one
Great video. Thank You.
I love "The Defenders", I love Avengers West Coast, I hadn't read anything from "DC" and I willl look for it, but the character I didn't like was how he wrote Silver Surfer. Thank You again.
His captain america run is amazing, is my favorite cap run of all time
A great look at a writer that I had only a passing familiarity with. Nowadays, we take for granted that a character may get reimagined or deconstructed as Englehart did with Dr. Strange and Captain America, but it sounds like he really set the precedent for how that would be done in the 1980s and beyond.
Considering the impact of Englehart's run on Justice League of America, it's a disservice that the inclusion of a Mantis pastiche is the only mention made here of it.
Besides creating inspired villains like the Manhunters, Privateer and the Construct, adding Red Tornado and Hawkgirl to the ranks and retconning a new origin that served as a love letter to pretty much the entire DC roster of the late 1950s, Englehart gave the title a sense of direction and maturity that was revolutionary for the times. The heroes came across as smarter, called each other by their civilian names, even while in costume, and were allowed to have disagreements without throwing tantrums (in the midst of which, ironically, the previously established Green Arrow-Hawkman feud was defused -- over an abundance of drinks LOL).
At one stage or another, Englehart highlighted every member of the League -- including the Phantom Stranger, Martian Manhunter and even Snapper Carr (the latter two having been written out of the series for almost a decade). His depictions of Flash and Wonder Woman were particularly noteworthy: he gave Barry, the ultimate everyman, an inferiority complex; while Diana reminded readers she was a princess from a foreign land, demonstrating haughtiness and more formal dialogue absent from her previous "one of the guys" persona -- every WW writer since has run with variations of the same template.
There was no turning back for the JLA. Gerry Conway followed with a long and distinguished run (JLA Detroit notwithstanding) that emulated the Englehart formula.
I agree. I know that this video was 29 minutes long, but maybe devote a minute or so more to Steve's JLA run. I know it's overshadowed by those 8 issues of Detective, but it is considered one of the best eras of the original JLA comic.
that's so cool, wonderful comics!
"Aids vampire" was not a phrase I expected to hear today. Thanks. Fun vid as well.
Not only is the Hemo-Goblin an AIDS vampire, he was a white supremacist hired to eradicate black people from South Africa by infecting them with AIDS.
Amazing!
I have to agree with the premise. So much of what I loved in comics of the 70s were Englehart creations, especially the Dr. Strange run.
I also agree with your premise that one of his greatest qualities was the respect for what went on before. I've always loved it when authors take what would have been a lost character and using them in a new arc that does a major job of developing that character.
One of the things I remember about Englehart's writing is his use of dialogue. He made sure that certain characters had a way of speaking and kept it fairly consistent. It is easy to make all characters speak in plain correct english, but it is more interesting if they have certain patterns or vocal mannerisms ( like Terry Pratchett's characters ) and they consistently use them. It make them more believable.
The only Steve Englehart I ever read was Green Lantern. I thought his stuff with John Stewart was great but then it takes a hard turn when the Hal Jordan and Arisia comes up.
Englehart was the best. I was so impressed with his Dr. Strange work that I went and bought his first novel .. which was also good.
"The Pointman" if I remember right.
Steve is a brilliant writer. What impressed me most as a precocious child was the obvious depth of the occult research he has done to formulate his Shuma Gorath story line and the masterful way he layered his writing. It was very formative and influenced my writing evolution.
Without a doubt. Englehart was my top 70's writer. To this day I still remember his speech about Death in Doctor Strange 4. And as for Fu Manchu, that decision came from above. Neither Englehart nor Starlin planned on using him.
Wow, I'm surprised I'm not more aware of him as I've read a lot of his classic stories. This was some great insight on a surprisingly influential writer. While I can see the problematic depictions of some of his earlier characters in regards to representation, I'd like to think his heart was in the right place. There weren't really a lot of examples to go on, so it's understandable that the first will prove to be...rough. Ultimately, I'd say it's more good than not. Great episode!
I have too many comics to read thanks to you dude
Damn, I'm old. I was reading the Cap to Nomad run as they were coming out.
Love the content. Would love to see something about Ryan ottley
Englehart did a great deal of the heavy lifting at Marvel and created a number of characters when fewer new characters were being created and we still thought Stan Lee had invented all our favorites. I was most grateful that he kept the Avengers going long enough to bring in George Perez to completely revive the series with one of the best Kang (and Two-Gun Kid) stories ever.
(Also making Jim Shooter look really good when he replaced him as writer)