In the middle of a Comics Journal thread about writers good and bad, I was happily surprised to find this defense of Bill Mantlo, and in particular, his work on Rom and Micronauts.

No, really:

Maybe it’s just a sentimental thing from my youth, but I have a soft spot in my head for Mantlo. At least on his two Marvel toy books about genocide, ROM and MICRONAUTS. You have to understand that picking up on his admittedly heavy-handed metaphors led me to my fascination with history since, particularly the history of atrocities, totalitarians, and just in general what evil governments are capable of. I think MICRONAUTS in particular is a weird, but interesting comment, brought down to a child’s level, on, of all things, class struggle. I’m thinking of Baron Karza, the wealthy of Homeworld, and the Body Banks. (and Karza was always a much better villain than Darth Vader, whom he was stolen from–an actual personality rather than just a menacing presence that was sort of Stalin and Hitler at the same time, combined with Dr. Doom. Like Doom with a whole universe to play with)

More after the jump. Fans of ’70s and ’80s Marvel should click through.

Which also seems to be lifted a bit from COMA, but a lot of things were at the time–that damn Michael Crichton’s been making things people make references to for about, what, three or four decades now. But that’s another thing: it’s redolent of 70s paranoid SF, and if you compare it to GALACTICA(the original, stupid one–which nevertheless, at least in Walt Simonson’s hands, became kind of a cool comic) or BUCK ROGERS or any other form of serial SF in other pop media outside of movies at the time, it’s much better and more intelligent. Though with BUCK ROGERS that’s not hard.

It also shares the scrappy-revels-against-the-big-empire meme derived from the Vietnam War with STAR WARS. (though the place in SW where that particularly is evident, embarrassingly, is the Ewoks)

ROM is an odd thing and seems to be coming more from the Reagan transition than from a post-WW2 type of tone. There’s a revival of the paranoid 50s fear of invasion–sublimated into aliens–the idea of an “enemy within” that looks like everyone else, and a compacent, trusting population that does not believe the Brave One With the Truth figure, ROM, and allow the evil deceivers to prosper. (I did always dig Sal Buscema on this one book, particularly when the Wraiths smirked) It’s odd because what I just described is the typical structure of a Nazi-era German film as delineated in the book ENTERTAINING THE THIRD REICH. In some ways, and I’m sure this is unintentional, ROM is sort of a romanticized Einsatzgruppen troop. You even have an example of what horrible things happens when Wraiths and humans mix, “Hybrid,” which nevertheless I found a scary story at the time. In retrospect, then, it’s interesting as a sign of some things moving about in the subconscious of the culture at the time, but again, I doubt Mantlo was thinking this. It was kind of the structure that he had to work with. (Interestingly, overt reference is made by a Clairton veteran character to the Nazi 5th column) It seems to me that Mantlo may have just absorbed a lot from reading too much stuff about the Nazi era, and there was a lot of that in the 70s. I do think it’s interesting the way the history influence plays out in his work between those two books, which he was writing simultaneously.

Now, I’m not saying there’s anything “genius” about either of these books. But Mantlo was trying to inject something heavy into them that, perhaps, they couldn’t bear, but so much effort for books that were, after all, toy tie-ins and very much for kids is a little impressive. (I remember a letter in the book thanking him for using the word “heinous,” which helped the kid win a spelling bee, and Mantlo responded about how he’s always felt comics should be educational, so I think his intentions were far from unconscious in some ways) Though possibly also the very definition of pretension. The reason all this stuff can be seen at all is, after all, because of its heavy-handedness.

As far as the writing style itself, it’s typical Marvel phrasing. Karza talks like Dr. Doom, ROM talks like Thor. You see that in almost everything from the 70s from Marvel except Steve Englehart. (I mean, even Marv Wolfman’s Dracula talks like Doom) So it’s kind of hard to really fault it for that.

Not really so much a good writer as one with really good intentions.

I loved Micronauts when I was a kid.

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