47: Morituri Post Mortem

Gillis and Anderson's departure from Strikeforce: Morituri did not spell the end. It lumbered on for another year and a later miniseries Electric Undertow, under the new team of James Hudnall and Mark Bagley, plus some underwhelming fill in artists. Two cornerstones of the Gillis run were quickly dispatched: the Horde were removed from Earth by a new race of aliens, and a cure was found for the Morituri. Hudnall wanted to push the book in a more cyberpunk, government conspiracy direction, something Gillis had deliberately avoided. "Now that I've finished tying up the threads left by Peter Gillis, I can really go wild", Hudnall told Amazing Heroes.

In 1998, Marvel editor Tim Tuohy planned to launch a revival line of old science fiction titles: Seeker 3000, Micronauts, Deathlok and Strikeforce: Morituri, with the latter to be written by Ian Edginton. Peter Gillis got wind of this from Peter Sanderson and paid Tuohy a visit at the Marvel offices. The meeting went cordially and Gillis "walked out with a Morituri miniseries". Tuohy left Marvel later that year, which ended this line before it barely started, with just Seeker 3000 published. 2 issues of Micronauts by Shon Bury and Cary Nord were drawn and previewed, before it became clear that Marvel no longer owned the rights to the MEGO characters. Interestingly, this team line up was the core group from the New Voyages.

According to Brent Anderson, Peter Gillis had raised the possibility of a Morituri graphic novel, but the sticky issue of ownership soon reared its head... In 2002 the Sci-fi Channel announced a series based on Morituri, entitled 1000 Days (guess they planned to increase the lifespan limit). Gillis believed that as he never signed his rights away to Morituri, that made him co-owner of the property, with Marvel owning the at the time under contract Anderson's half. Marvel responded with a "lowball rights offer" and ultimatum, which Gillis refused. Marvel then claimed he had signed away rights, but Gillis disputed the veracity of alleged proof. The TV series fell through, but the dispute rumbled on...

In a reverse move, Waterman Entertainment signed a Strikeforce: Morituri movie deal with Peter Gillis in 2011. Gillis was to co-write the script. Predictably Waterman couldn't secure the rest of the rights from Marvel, so the project went nowhere. Marvel swiftly re-staked its claim to complete ownership by reprinting the first issue of Morituri in 2012, followed by trade paperbacks of the entire series.

As far as anyone's aware, the dispute was never settled or went to court. Seems a real shame ownership wasn't made clear from the outset. As previously discussed, they could've gone with creator owned Epic imprint instead, although the series may not have lasted half as long or had the impact that it did.

The Omnibus cover is ironically from one of the house ads Brent Anderson reportedly did for free to drum up interest in the internally ignored series.

With lousy insensitive timing, a few weeks after Peter Gillis' death, Marvel announced an Omnibus collection of the entire run of Strikeforce: Morituri. It's all a sad footnote to what remains a remarkable series.

48: Red Teen Machine