Peter B. Gillis Big Comics Readthrough

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...

With the Microverse on the brink of self destruction, the Micronauts return to the epicentre of the madness: their Homeworld. Micronauts: The New Voyages #17 (1986) Pencils: Howard Bender Inks: Danny Bulanadi The first of two late fill-ins from predominantly DC penciler Bender. It's nice clean art, but rather old fashioned compared to Jones. There is a wonderfully inventive four page sequence where the scene splits in two vertically down the page. Huntarr and Mari have a heart to heart on the left, while the action builds on the right, before it joins back up again. The beleaguered Micros return home to finally save their old pal Devil from a broken transporter tube. Unfortunately what they end up freeing is the twisted form of Homeworld's Worldmind in Devil's body. Bill Mantlo established the concept of the Worldmind as a Gaia like soul of Acroyear's ex-planet Spartak. Gillis extended this notion, so that every planet has a distinct Worldmind. As Homeworld was left a f...

Cancellation of New Voyages (due to the impending New Universe or simply low sales, take your pick) was announced before the title even entered its second year. Thankfully a stay of execution enabled them to properly conclude what became an epic 20 issue storyline. Micronauts: The New Voyages #13 (1985) Pencils: Kelley Jones Inks: Danny Bulanadi, Kelley Jones Scion guides the Micronauts to their original intended holiday destination, Fiome. There's little time for chillaxing though, as Scion has his sights on Zodiac Keys that are powering the locals' blob shaped chitin starships. The Keys are mystical MacGuffins from one of Mantlo's sagas, here recast as part of the language of the Makers. More wonderfully odd sci-fi and great character work on display here, beautifully delineated by Jones and Bulanadi. Micronauts: The New Voyages #14 (1985) Pencils: Kelley Jones Inks: Danny Bulanadi Next stop on Scion's magical mystery tour is the planet Aegis, which to the Micronauts ...

Here begins the middle act of the New Voyages saga, where it ratchets up a notch into something truly special. Following their new adventures into the unknown, the Micronauts began to get pulled back into the familiar, with various concepts from the first series making a reappearance. Micronauts: The New Voyages #9-10 (1985) Pencils: Kelley Jones Inks: Bruce Patterson Picking up on Mantlo and Guice's final panel, ex Micronaut Devil finds himself reborn on a desolate ruined Homeworld. Essentially a pink version of the furry Beast, he shares a neverending life cycle with the pixie like Fireflyte, reborn once the other dies. The terrified Devil gets twisted in a transporter tube, psychically broadcasting a distress signal to Commander Rann. Devil's matrix ends up in the latest incarnation of Biotron (yes, Gillis brought the annoying droids back again, presumably chiefly for this plot device). Rann, feeling his thousand year age and full of self doubt over recent errors in judgemen...

Micronauts: The New Voyages #5 (1985) Pencils: Kelley Jones Inks: Pat Redding Following the peril and deathtraps of the opening issues, the Micronauts take advantage of the hospitality of small, friendly, shapeshifting aliens (known as the Children of the Dreaming Star) they met on the mirror world.  Jones draws fantastic alien tech. The impossible science of the Microverse bothered Gillis; Homeworld looks like a model of a molecule, with dowels connecting spheres. So who exactly made this crazy thing became a driving force of the storyline. Here the big cosmic revelation is that from a distance, their galaxy resembles a DNA spiral. Overall this issue is a welcome respite with nice, gentle character building. Each of the Micronauts bear emotional scars from their long battles, and must learn how to live again in times of peace. Micronauts: The New Voyages #6 (1985) Pencils: Kelley Jones Inks: Bruce Patterson Bill Mantlo established a love triangle of sorts between Rann, Mari a...

To reintroduce Micronauts and Moon Knight to newsstand distribution, Marvel relaunched both books from #1, with added subtitles. Nowadays titles often get relaunched on a yearly basis, but at the time it was practically unheard of. Sales wise this gambit didn't meet with success: Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu only lasted 6 issues. Thankfully  Micronauts: The New Voyages  fared somewhat better... Micronauts: The New Voyages #1-2 (1984) Pencils: Kelley Jones Inks: Bruce Patterson The opening scene introducing a sentient asteroid, absorbing periodic energy from its cepheid variable star, immediately establishes that New Voyages is going to be proper science fiction. Some might argue that it's Star Trek level, backed up by the space suited 'nauts and a "Ship's log" recap, but it's still at a level rarely seen in mainstream US comics. The Micros jet off in their shiny new Endeavor starship, seeking new worlds to relax in. A convenient hyperspace malfunction qui...

Following the success of their Star Wars comic in the late 70's, Marvel licensed several short lived toy lines, searching for a similar mass market hit. Bill Mantlo developed Mego's Micronauts action figures into a hit series, alongside the inspired pencils of Michael Golden. This sci-fantasy title clearly riffed on Star Wars, although as Peter Gillis pointed out, the model for the series was closer to George Lucas' inspiration, Flash Gordon (or if you want to travel further back to the root, John Carter). All the archetypes are present; the otherworld hero, the feisty princess, the dashing rogue, the stoic warrior king, and of course the bickering robot servants. Following Golden's departure after the first year, The Micronauts became stuck in a cycle of repeating story arcs and diminishing returns. The title was only saved from cancellation by a pioneering move to direct sales only, along with fellow strugglers Ka-Zar and Moon Knight . The microscopic heroes would p...

Cancellation of The New Defenders was officially announced in Spring of 1985, with 7 issues still to print. So Peter Gillis had time to ensure the title went out with a real bang.  The New Defenders #149-150 (1985) Pencils: Don Perlin Inks: Art Nichols, Dell Barras, Alan Kupperberg, Randy Emberlin Cloud's origin is finally revealed, with a little help from Seraph. Cloud turns out to be a sentient nebula, befriended by the star roaming Cosmic Cube from Gillis' early stories . Surrounding stars begin disappearing, so Captain America groupie the Cube sends Cloud to Earth to find help. Once on Earth, Cloud witnesses teenage couple Carol and Danny crash their car. She decides to take their forms to blend in, but the shock renders her amnesiac. Which is the state the Secret Empire later found her in, implanting false memories of a life on Earth. If this all sounds overly convoluted, that's because it is.  Visiting Carol and Danny in a coma proves enough to restore Cloud's mem...

The New Defenders #145 (1985) Pencils: Don Perlin Inks: Art Nichols The remains of the New Defs take a moment to feel sorry for themselves post battle in Five Women , the flipside of the earlier Three Women. On a side note, this team had an impressively gender balanced lineup by 80's standards. With Moondragon fled, Cloud injured and Angel blinded, the remaining Defenders find themselves at a low ebb and consider calling it a day. Luckily old Champions teammate Johnny Blaze rides in to cheer up the ex-X-Men contingent. It's a quiet, talky issue for reflection and setting up future plotlines, with Seraph returning and the mystery of Andromeda. Departing inker DeMulder is replaced with the mismatched Art Nichols, who rather swamps Perlin in an ugly ink heavy style. The New Defenders #146-7 (1985) Pencils: Luke McDonnell, Don Perlin Inks: Art Nichols The battered Defenders take refuge at Doctor Strange's sanctum, searching for a cure for Warren's blindness. Brunnhilde'...