Are you sure we can’t put Louise Simonson in front of all of these people? I pretty much loathe Bruce Jones’ mainstream work. I think Gerard Jones wrote an awesome book about comics and from what I’ve heard a pretty good indy book but he is my personal definition of a mediocre superhero comics writer. And his Wonder Man is the only comic I ever had a subscription to in my life (I was 11), so I’m pretty familiar with his work.

Gerard Jones = Elongated Man’s greatest writer.

I thought that Louise Simonson was credited as Louise Jones on her early issues of X-Factor so I went and checked Comic Book DB and according to them she’s Simonson on issue six and Jones on issue 7. Weird huh? I don’t think one issue would qualify her for the top 5 though! I would’ve consulted my back issues directly but they’re in storage as I’m moving next week…

To anyone slamming Gerard Jones’ writing ability– please read Green Lantern: Mosaic then get back to us.

“Men of Tomorrow” is quite probably the best non-fiction book about comic book creators. Eseential reading for any serious comic book fan (and if you want a giggle and smile it’s hard to beat the “Elongated Man” European tour).

I loved Men of Tomorrow, but hated Gerard Jones’ post Giffen & DeMatteis JLI stuff.

“To anyone slamming Gerard Jones’ writing ability– please read Green Lantern: Mosaic then get back to us.”

Absolutely! One of the best, most tragically cut short DC series of the last few decades. Never reprinted anywhere, so far as I know, but the originals are probably available quite cost effectively. Some of the best “science fiction with a superhero” comics ever!

And to echo Bill Reed, Elongated Man 92 mini. For that alone he earns top spot.

However, if you can ever find it, RA Jones wrote a creepy comic called Straw Men from the late 80s, early 90s. I’ve only read a few issues (somebody once donated a bunch of 80s/90s indy comics to a local library, and stuff like this, Stig’s Inferno, Trollords, and some of the 2000 AD with Morrison’s Zenith was among the stuff), but it’s f—ing creepy as hell. Somebody should collect it, but it was an Innovation book, so who the hell knows who owns the rights (and the photo negatives to print from).

But really, surprisingly, there aren’t many good “Jones” writers.

I loved Gerard Jones’ Green Lantern Mosaic and seem to be one of the few somewhat-fans of his mainstream Green Lantern. Even if he was running out of steam by the end, I certainly preferred his Green Lantern to the the nonsense that came afterward.

I’ve read Mosiac. It’s not something I love. It’s a lot better than the core title, though.. I do think that some of the problems with his core Green Lantern title were editorially driven, but I’m not 100% sure on that. The first year or so is absurdly wishy-washy with wandering Hal (Who’s still a better character than punchy idiot Hal, though not utilized nearly as well). I get what he was trying to do but it really doesn’t work. And the Planet Doiby stuff in year two should have been brilliant and really, really wasn’t. I’m a much bigger fan of the Englehart GL that preceded this stuff and Marz’ stuff with Kyle that came after it.

And yeah, that JL run is pretty bad.

This is a list where I would agree with #1 but only because of a lack of any real competition. Bruce Jones Hulk was okay to start with but the concept grew stale and the story dragged on and on and on and on…. His Nightwing made me drop the book. I would put Gerard Jones at #1 for his Green lantern work which I liked and just pretend that the JLI stuff never existed.

Everyone talks about Bruce Jones Hulk and horror work, but I fondly remember his excellent Ka-Zar series, with Brent Anderson in the early 80′s

My recollection was that Gerard Jones was the Geoff Johns of his day. The go to guy to get a mainstream super hero franchise. His work on Green Lantern (see cover of #1 above) led to the spin off 2 months series (spotlighting Stewart and Gardner respectively) and a quarterly anthology, much as Johns work today on GL has led to 2 spin off series. Of course, he was not always successful (ex: JLA). And it was kind of weird how Gerard Jones seemed to be everywhere and then–poof!–his credit disappeared from DC titles almost overnight.

Tristan Jones ftw. Not only did he do “a few” TMNT comics, he did some of the best of the later years.