Peter B. Gillis Big Comics Readthrough

By the late 80's, Marvel had new management set on rampant expansion. To increase their market share, more and more new titles were created. Long term, this policy of flooding the market didn't work out so well for them... Cloak & Dagger and Doctor Strange once again went their separate ways, C&D getting a new monthly book, while Doc returned to a bi-monthly. With hindsight this seems an odd decision, especially considering C&D's Mutant Misadventures only lasted 19 issues, while Sorcerer Supreme chalked up an impressive 90 issue run. Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #1-2 (1988-1989) Pencils: Richard Case Inks: Randy Emberlin Now settled back into his regular life, Strange is tricked by a reborn Dormammu, who sends Stephen's astral form on a fool's errand, then commandeers his body. It's revealed that Dormammu has been hitching a ride in Doc's mystic eye socket since his ascension between higher dimensions. Ewww. Bodiless, Strange is forced to t...

In his bid to redress the balance, Strange has been failing to stem the tide, skirmishing against agents of chaos he unleashed. Eventually he realises the only recourse is to take the fight to chaos itself. And to combat that war, he will need an army.  Strange Tales #11-14 (1988) - Doctor Strange Pencils: Richard Case, Dan Lawlis Inks: Randy Emberlin After checking in on Rintrah left minding the temple, Strange and Kaluu's world tour takes them to Glastonbury, home of King Arthur and a very muddy festival. They've come to recruit earth spirits, little gremlin like creatures to serve as their army. There's a long tradition of the likes of woodland spirits and fairie folk in UK titles such as Captain Britain , so this ties in fine. Topaz suddenly reappears fairly inexplicably, trying and failing to tempt Stephen back to the side of light.  Next stop in England, Stephen checks in one of his many old flames, Victoria Bentley, his now fully staffed demon army in tow.  In one ...

Doctor Strange has long had a clear cut sense of morality, viewing good and evil largely as absolutes. Gillis was more interested in shades of grey, making a distinction between good and evil and black and white magic. Even black magic can be used for the greater good, but only at great personal cost... Strange Tales #4 (1987) - Doctor Strange Pencils: Chris Warner Inks: Randy Emberlin Dr Strange's darkest quest begins in Hong Kong. A fedora and white suit garbed Dr Strange and disguised sidekick Rintrah are on the trail of a rogue mystic amulet, The Wings of Needless Sorrow. As the name implies, it brings misery and death wherever it goes. Stephen averts a mass suicide by taking the amulet on himself, as he's no longer pure enough to wear the Eye of Agamotto. It's a pretty somber tale, indicative of the path of no return Strange is heading down. Strange Tales #5-7 (1987) - Doctor Strange Pencils: Larry Alexander, Terry Shoemaker Inks: Randy Emberlin Sadly, issue 4 was War...

Generally since his Ditko beginnings, Stephen Strange had been presented as aloof, all knowing and whenever a suitable occasion arose, all powerful. Gillis wanted to humanise the good Doctor and apply some logic, or at least boundaries, to his seemingly infinite magic. He accomplished this through character deconstruction (before it became fashionable), inching Strange down the road to hell, one good intention at a time. Doctor Strange #79-81 (1986-7) Pencils: Chris Warner Inks: Randy Emberlin Numerous plot threads are gathered together in this three part finale. A preoccupied Strange has largely been ignoring new houseguest Topaz's distress, but his attempts at recovering the lost half of her soul only draw the attentions of something malevolent. Namely alien sorcerer Urthona. Warner draws terrific warlike Predator style aliens, good practice for the real thing which he later became known for over at Dark Horse. Stephen arrives back from Marseille, then heads out on a date with o...

It's fitting that Peter Gillis' favourite childhood character is the one he ended up having the longest association with. When asked recently what appealed to him so about Doctor Strange , he replied "I think the limitless possibilities of it... I looked at Steve Ditko's Dr Strange universes and just said, I want to participate in that. And Strange's stories were different... he was the epitome of cool. He didn't wear shoes. He had a flowing blouse and a cape. And a moustache. And could open doors and space with a gesture." What more could you possibly want? Gillis' Strange stories pretty much spanned the length of his decade at Marvel, starting with this early leftover... Marvel Fanfare #8 (1983) - Doctor Strange Pencils: Carmine Infantino Inks: P Craig Russell Fanfare published a lot of inventory stories, i.e. fill-in issues that were kept for emergencies. Inventory that had passed its use by date often wound up as Fanfare fare. Such is the fate of ...

This is a weird one. According to PBG, the name Blaze Barlow came to him while driving, which sparked a madcap plot spotlighting theological themes he was exploring at the time. The first story arc (which ended up being the only one) appeared in First's short lived anthology series. First Adventures #1-4 (1985-6) - Blaze Barlow and the Eternity Command Pencils: Kelley Jones, Barry Crain Inks: Barry Crain, Keith Wilson An injured guy on the run stumbles into a private eye's office. So far, so familiar. Except here the client is a fallen angel, disguised in a hastily formed body of cake and chocolate, and the P.I. is a hard-bitten chain smoking immortal in the form of an adolescent, Blaze Barlow. Blaze's associate Nocturne is the ultimate femme fatale with seduction powers, while muscle is provided by Spike, who is literally covered in retractable spikes. The angel is pursued by the Apocalypse Squad, gun toting soldier angels, which should give you an indicator of the level ...

On his return to the title, Peter Gillis largely ignored everything that had occurred in his absence, throwing Shatter into a new exotic locale and firmly into the deep end. Shatter #5-8 (1986-7) Pencils: Steve Erwin Digital Inks: Bob Dienethal Herbert Philbrick, aka Shatter (his many aliases make for interesting Googling), is press ganged into a Third World War he was previously blissfully ignorant of. His rescuer of sorts is a 7 foot warrior woman Worker Ravenant, neutered and steroided from birth. The tough as nails Ravenant makes for a likeable addition to the cast, although she ends up relegated to a sidekick role. She also comes with an army of RNA enhanced machine gun toting monkeys. Gillis is quick to re-establish the authenticity of the RNA process, using it as the driving force of the storyline. For plot reasons, RNA skills transfer is temporary on everyone but Shatter, who can absorbs skills permanently. This means he's a very wanted man, with scientists even growing a ...

In the mid 80's, Peter Gillis frequented a Chicago bar, where he bonded with Epic Illustrated artist Mike Saenz over their shared passion for the newly released Apple Macintosh. Saenz was fascinated by the artistic potential of computers, so together they developed an innovative technique which made it possible to produce comics on these rudimentary machines. Before graphics tablets and hard drives, Saenz was limited to drawing with a mouse on a tiny monochrome screen in MacPaint, then printing the results on a dot matrix to colour by hand. The pair put an all digital proposal together called  Shatter , which Marvel passed on, so hometown company First Comics wound up publishing the world's "first computerised comic" . Shatter Special (1985) Art: Mike Saenz The 28 page proof of concept Shatter special was a marketing triumph. Possibly First's top selling single issue, it sold out, even on the second printing. The curiosity factor of a comic produced almost entirel...

The Eternals #5-8 (1986) Pencils: Sal Buscema Inks: Sal Buscema, Danny Bulanadi In this middle act of the story, Kro steals the essence of a Celestial from Ikaris' vault, but it winds up in the wrong scaly hands of Ghaur. Thena rescues her ex Kro from certain death at Ikaris' hands, so the rekindled lovers end up on the run from Eternal and Deviant alike. The mismatched pair make an oddly charming couple, risking all for a forbidden love. Again, the action zips along at a fair old pace, although there's more room here for character introspection. There's a particularly affecting scene where Ikaris recalls his son of the same name. Gillis always seems stronger and more comfortable in these quiet moments. Kirby's Eternals, humans and Deviants can easily be dismissed as counterparts to angels, humans and demons, but Gillis offered a more complex view. To him the divides mirror the class struggle, or to dig deeper, the id, ego and superego. Which is why he was keen to p...

I've covered Peter Gillis' Eternals warm-up here and here . Suffice to say, when What If and Micronauts editor Ralph Macchio was assigned a 12 issue Eternals maxi-series, Eternals expert Gillis seemed the obvious choice to write it... "My feeling about The Eternals, is that this is what I came to Marvel to do. This is my chance to do prime Marvel Comics, with the sense of grandeur, combined with the sense of fun. Sal and I are doing our tribute to Jack Kirby with this book. It's one of the most quintessentially Marvel books that we've done." The Eternals #1-4 (1985) Pencils: Sal Buscema Inks: Al Gordon, Keith Williams Following their mass migration to Titan in the Avengers, only a handful of Eternals remain on Earth. Thena becomes leader after the death of her father Zuras, although Ikaris, Makkari and Kingu are too preoccupied with continuing their neverending conflict with the Deviants to pay much heed. The Deviants are also undergoing a leadership chang...