Over the past couple of days, I have been talking about plagiarism by comic creators. All of this came about because someone put out a video bringing up speculation about Bill Mantlo possibly plagiarizing. Ultimately, I decided against even looking at the video. I based that on there being no evidence, and I have qualms about putting information out there that is unsubstantiated.
Yes, I do acknowledge where Mantlo possibly borrowed things from, for example, Jack Kirby. But, again, who hasn’t? Yet, there’s a difference between paying homage and borrowing ideas and outright pplagiarism Yesterday, I put Roy Thomas into the mix. Manily, to put some context into things.
Let’s be clear, neither creator has ever been found to have done outright plagiarism. And, let’s also be clear, that both creators are two icons whose body of work I greatly respect and whose stories I always seem to reread over the years.
For a final look at this, I want to look at Gerry Conway. Why? For starters, he does have more in common with Mantlo than Thomas did with Mantlo. Both are around the same age and part of the new crop of writers who started at Marvel in the early 1970s. Like, with Thomas and Mantlo, I don’t believe that anything like plagiarism connects to Conway. Yes, all three borrowed things. But, in a way, to me, plagiarism is a kind of dirty word, which shouldn’t be tossed about lightly.
Compared with Roy Thomas or Bill Mantlo, Gerry Conway is far less commonly linked to plagiarism‑related controversies, though there are still a few points that merit careful and accurate discussion. And, as in previous articles, I am not openly slinging mud at creators. It’s just not my style. What I am trying to do is provide a little context to fans before they start tossing ideas about creators around.
And it’s worth remembering that Conway was only nineteen when he began writing comics, so a degree of leeway is reasonable when evaluating his early work. There are no substantiated cases of direct textual copying associated with him, and the criticism that does exist tends to focus instead on his heavy reliance on established genre tropes, structural similarities to earlier stories, and his tendency to rework familiar concepts rather than invent radically new ones. These critiques reflect the standard creative practices of Bronze Age comics, not any form of ethical misconduct.
Some readers have observed that Conway often relied on familiar dramatic frameworks—betrayal arcs, tragic love interests, and redemption‑through‑death narratives—and made frequent use of well‑established superhero story beats. Examples commonly cited include the death of Gwen Stacy, which echoes longstanding tragic romance conventions, and various long‑running Marvel plotlines that mirror earlier Lee/Ditko dynamics. The crucial point, however, is that these are broad, archetypal narrative structures rather than instances of copied texts or lifted plots.
Modern comics historians generally regard Gerry Conway as a solid, professional writer with a strong command of long‑form character arcs, someone far less invested in literary pastiche than Roy Thomas and considerably less reliant on overt adaptation than Bill Mantlo. If Thomas is often characterized as a revivalist and Mantlo as a synthesizer, Conway is best understood as a dramatist working effectively within the system—shaping stories through character and emotion rather than through homage or reconstruction.
Creators and plagiarism? In all three cases, neither is true. It’s unfair to thocreators andand fans to throw out unsubstantiated claims. While there is merit to discussing some of their swipes, it is important to look at Marvel’s culture back then and the background of the creators and what they bring to their writing.
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