3: Bring on the Cube Guys

One Peter Gillis bugbear as fan and writer was the Cosmic Cube, a deus ex machina too all powerful to exist. He and Mark Gruenwald hatched a plan to get rid of it, which took a few years to come to fruition...

Super-Villain Team-Up #16-17 (1979-80)

Pencils: Carmine Infantino, Arvell Jones
Inks: Bruce Patterson

Inside his first year at Marvel, Peter Gillis was handed a regular title. Unfortunately it was regular in the sense that it only came out once a year, and the sole reason for its continued existence was to thwart DC's attempts to copyright the word supervillain. Gillis wound up penning what turned out to be the final two issues of Super-Villain Team-Up, lumbered with the Red Skull and a Hate Monger pretending not to be Hitler. The plot revolves around them creating a new cosmic cube, which they vie for control of. A neat twist sees the Hate Monger thinking he's won, not realising the Skull has trapped him inside the cube.

These issues are a bit of a slog and smack heavily of Naziploitation. Gillis attempts to funk up the dull proceedings by introducing AIM agent George Clinton and SHIELD agent William (Bootsy) Collins. Infantino's typically wild pencils liven up the first chapter, but the finale by Arvell Jones isn't much to look at. Presumably he couldn't find any decent reference for Hitler either. 

Captain America Annual #7 (1983)

Pencils: Brian Postman
Inks: Kim DeMulder

After Gruenwald moved the Cube to Project Pegasus over in Two-In-One, the plan culminated in this Captain America annual. After yet another guy tries to reshape the world with the Cosmic Cube, the actual Shaper of Worlds rocks up at Pegasus to take his baby brother (the Cube) away (at least for the next 5 years of Marvel comics). Gillis shows off his impressive fan knowledge of continuity, stitching the various Cube appearances into a narrative recap. Despite cosmic hippie Wundarr the Aquarian co-starring, it's a decent core Marvel tale, featuring the first and only appearance of Captain Crustacean.

Next, a walk on Marvel's wilder side.