wrong turn

The Boisterous One Lives
After a horrific 1992 traffic accident, writer Bill Mantlo has been bedridden all his days since

Above: Bill Mantlo’s senior portrait from the 1969 Prism yearbook, for New York’s Art and Design High School. Inset right: in the ’10s, bedridden Bill Mantlo smiled for the camera while displaying a Hulk Omnibus volume featuring his Incredible Hulk #271 [May ’82] story  — yes, for real, this is the actual title — “Now, Somewhere in the Black Holes of Sirius Major There Lived a Young Boy Name of Rocket Raccoon.” Below: Mantlo on his ten-speed posing with his infant daughter Corinna, seen in baby carriage, at bottom, in 1980.

by JON B. COOKE
I didn’t read a lot of William Timothy Mantlo’s work when he was a prolific mainstay at Marvel Comics in the ’70s and ’80s, but I do recall being impressed with his Cloak and Dagger, enough to call myself a fan and avidly buy the duo’s comics. I also reckoned Rocket Racoon’s name was clever wordplay with that Beatles’ song title, plus I had a weird affection for his Woodgod, a Satyr-like character so strange and so offbeat, I thought it very cool indeed. And, while I wasn’t much interested in the toy tie-ins Micronauts and Rom he wrote, I knew some extolled the titles as fun stuff.
Yet, somehow I hadn’t learned of the tragedy that befell the scribe decades prior until stumbling across a stunning account found while surfing the internet. Bill Coffin’s “A Tragic Tale,” posted two days before Mantlo’s 60th birthday, related the following under a subheading, “Hit and Run”:
“On Friday, July 17, 1992, Bill left work early for the weekend, and made his usual three-mile rollerblade journey through [Bronx] traffic to his apartment near Morningside Park. Just four blocks from home, a car came around a corner and hit Bill. The left side of Bill’s head impacted the windshield. He rolled across the hood of the car, and the right side of his head impacted the pavement. The driver never stopped and was never identified.
“The accident jostled Bill’s head so violently that his brain squashed against the inside of his skull, and his brain stem severed. This did not paralyze him, but it would make it very difficult for Bill’s body — particularly his extremities — to accurately receive and process electrical messages from his brain.
“Bill spent the next two weeks in a coma at Saint Luke’s hospital in midtown Manhattan, after which he remained in critical care for another two months. During this time, he was still on a ventilator and a feeding tube, as his brain was too damaged to tell his body how to swallow or breathe.”
Bill’s daughter, Corinna,  was 12 when she witnessed a dramatic change in her father’s condition at that time. “When they were moving him from one bed to the other in the Manhattan hospital, I was there. They were picking him up on the sheet and the nurses said, ‘One, two…’ to swing him over to the transport bed, and my dad just opened his eyes and said, ‘Three!’ And that was the first word he spoke since the accident and it was amazing!” (Mantlo’s permanent condition was diagnosed as a “closed head brain injury,” in which the skull and membrane remain intact despite trauma to the brain.)
Since then, the tragedy has been compounded due to ruthless treatment by the health insurance provider and there also were issues within Mantlo’s family that took a toll. But, to its credit, there was — though not without prodding! — recognition from Marvel regarding the writer’s co-creation of Rocket Raccoon, a character used in the Guardian of the Galaxy film trilogy, and there was also the short-lived TV series, Cloak & Dagger, all reportedly accompanied by helpful checks from Disney. Plus, in 2017, the CW made use of his Invasion! concept in a super-hero TV crossover event.
Corinna became her father’s legal guardian in 2020, after Mantlo’s brother passed away, and the House of Ideas money (none of which goes to the family and entirely to his care, she insists) has been very helpful. “After Guardians of the Galaxy, my dad, for the first time, got some substantial money from Marvel, however those funds are in a supplemental care trust, and can only be used for supplements to his care.” The funds have gone to hiring three “amazing” aides who attend to him full-time.
In 1985, before he was permanently on the outs at the House of Ideas, Bill Mantlo was asked by a young Kurt Busiek how was he able to be so prolific. The writer replied in that Marvel Age interview, “I don’t know, I’ve been doing it for a long time. I’m very disciplined. I get up in the morning, I go to work, I finish work, I take care of my daughter, I go to school, I fall asleep, I start all over again the next day. As long as I maintain that discipline, I never seem to have a problem coming up with ideas. The nice part is that, because I’m so involved with raising children — I’ve got two kids — and going to law school and studying and working in the court system and working for lawyers — and reading constantly, when I’m not exhausted — the ideas that I bring to comics are all from the world outside,* it’s all filtering back into the format I love the most, which is comic books.”
Maybe that was the first inkling the comics world had about Mantlo seeking a career outside the field but, with dwindling assignments at Marvel as higher-ups disapproved of his attempts to unionize freelance writers, he put himself through law school. Passing the bar in 1987, he joined up with the Legal Aid Society, which provided legal representation to those in need. Coffin wrote, “In court, Bill lived up to his reputation as the Boisterous One, earning numerous warnings from the bench for his fiery brand of delivery, especially while cross-examining police officers. As one justice recalled, Mantlo was the nicest person he ever had to hold in contempt of court. Once, Bill was arrested as part of a sweep against a sit-in by a local school union he was representing. He used his phone call not to arrange for bail, but to order pizza for himself and everybody else in the holding cell.”
Among the meanest of cruelties Bill Mantlo endured was for the accident to have stolen the man’s major method of creative expression — his ability to write. But, however rudimentary the medium, he still has found a way to be creative. Describing the tender care of her father’s attendants, Corinna revealed, “One was able to get him to finger-paint and do paint-by-numbers on an iPad! We have seem my dad blossom in ways we never expected. It’s truly remarkable. He creates art and books are read to him, nutritious fresh food is brought every day and anything else we can possibly buy for him, and we use those funds for while he’s with us. My mission is to spend as much of those funds on him as I can, while I can!” She then emphasized,  “Legally and morally, I cannot benefit from them personally in any way. Ever.”
Corinna continued, “He’s a very good long-term memory, which has always made it hard. For a lot of years, he didn’t understand where he was or why, but short-term is hard. So he’s able to look at old photographs and recognize people. And the more that the aide was able to work with him, a little more would emerge each time. I bought him a record player and a bunch of Beatles records, which is his favorite band, and I was shocked that he sang every single word to every f*cking song, every one! This stirred up his memories from 40 years ago! So there’s just these amazing little things that happen.”
As any diligent interviewer worth his salt would inquire, I just had to ask Corinna if the former Marvel wordsmith,  in his present condition, recalled the words to “Rocky Raccoon,” that Fab Four song which inspired the creation of his most recognized character. With that, Mantlo’s daughter let out a laugh and declared, “Absolutely! Every word!”
The man will turn 75 this year and, though it’s unlikely he’ll ever again receive the same attention as he did when the New York Times and other papers reported about the creator of Rocket Raccoon’s condition, his daughter encourages his many fans to realize that the writer is still with us today. Corinna urges folks to send cards, letters, and drawings to Bill Mantlo at 486 Broadway, P.O. Box 235, Monticello, NY 12701. “I read them to him every time I visit,” she shared. “My father was once famous for answering every letter he received, though this is no longer possible, he does love to hear the stories that people send to him!”
Corinna added, “My father was a deeply moral man before the accident, motivated by his convictions, not money. Just like with his choice to leave writing comics to — in his words to me — ‘Become a real life super-hero,’ as a public defender with the Legal Aid Society of New York.” So what can people do? “Keep him in their thoughts. Write, create, and do it with conviction. Get in the streets and fight for their beliefs, whatever they may be.” No doubt, the Boisterous One would heartily approve of his daughter’s words, most passionately.

*Coffin’s piece, originally a cover story published in National Underwriters Life & Health Magazine, Vol. 115, #21 [Nov. 7, 2011], can still be found online at https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale/.

The Hulk, Rocket Raccoon TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc. Photos courtesy of Corinna Mantlo.

#43 • May 2026 • COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Rocket Raccoon, Marvel Premiere, Woodgod, Cloak and Dagger TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

*And, sometimes ideas were apparently taken from other writers, as Barry Windsor-Smith long maintained that Mantlo swiped his “Hulk-as-an-abused-child” concept, eventually used in BWS’s Eisner-winning graphic novel, Monsters). Plus, Harlan Ellison was gifted with a lifetime subscription to Marvel’s comics line after he complained that Mantlo lifted an idea from an Ellison-scripted Outer Limits episode.

Comic Book Creator • May 2026 • #43

Above: Bill Coffin’s story on Mantlo’s plight was in National Underwriters Life & Health Magazine, Vol. 115, #21 [Nov. 7, 2011]. Inset left: Recognized by movie-going audiences the world over, it’s Rocket Raccoon! Bottom: Two Mantlo-scripted comic book concepts that impressed Ye Ed. back in the day, “The Man Brute Called Woodgod” (seen on a Jack Kirby/John Verpoorten Marvel Premiere #31 [Aug. ’76] cover) and Cloak and Dagger #1 [Oct. ’83], cover by Rick Leonardi and Terry Austin.