I think Newton's Batman suffered from the editorial/writer decision to bring back Robin and the Batmobile, and other more campy characters like Batgirl and the Penguin, and others of the more silly and campy villains, that brought Batman away from the more mature and atmospheric creature-of-the-night of the Robbins/O'Neil/Adams/Novick/Giordano era (circa 1970-1975).
Since former writers who previously wrote great Batman stories in the early 70's era, such as O'Neil and Wein, were still writing the Batman titles that were suddenly less sophisticated, I suspect it was an editorial decision by Schwartz or Jenette Kahn or both, to tell stories that were a bit more childish and closer to the Batman cartoons and TV series, teaming up Batman with familiar supporting costumed characters and less of a lone crimefighter.
Some of the art by Newton in this period I thought was very nice (two I recently re-read were DETECTIVE 496 and 503, and even the colors were exceptional and moody, with very clean art by Newton. But others I'd agree with you were more along the lines of Garcia-Lopez, yes. Swan I don't really see.
Largely because the stories Newton illustrated (mostly by Moench and Conway) went from borderline camp to more sophisticated O'Neil/Adams type stories, Newton's work while clean and consistent is often diminished by the content of the stories he illustrated.
And hell, Englehart/Rogers is a tough act to follow!
All told, I initially didn't like Newton's Batman work, and it's an acquired taste for me.
I'm with you on the Shazam work in WORLD'S FINEST. Newton's work here had the perfect balance between detailed art that portrayed a degree of modern "realism", and still retained a degree of cartoonishness and whimsey of C.C. Beck who preceded Newton's work on the series.
Newton's NEW GODS work was, I think, awful. He was completely wrong for that series. As was Conway who scripted those issues.
It was fun to see Newton's work on TIME WARP 1-5, where he did 7 to 10 pages per issue in that anthology on a variety of S-F stories. As well as other anthology and mystery stories for DC.
