52: Starfox Adventures

I must confess, Starfox has long been a favourite character of mine, ever since first encountering him in a Stern/Buscema/Palmer Avengers issue in the mid 80's. What's not to like about a fun loving space adventurer with an effortlessly cool outlook, haircut and costume (at least cool by 1970's standards)? Well, his space lothario ways and emotion manipulation powers appear incredibly dodgy in today's climate (see his trial for assault in latter day She-Hulk). However, at that more innocent time, Eros was too cool for school, and Peter Gillis seemed to agree, scripting a trilogy of solo tales for Thanos' big brother.

Avengers Spotlight #21 (1989) - Starfox

Pencils: Tom Artis
Inks: Joe Rubinstein

Solo Avengers got a rebrand, starting with this issue. I vividly remember picking this up from a newsagents, mainly because it had Starfox on the cover. The story kicks off on the planet Rescorla, home to a race of highly repressed warthog like merchants. Eros is there to free on/off girlfriend with a ridiculous name, Heater Delight, who's been sold into slavery for a second time. In her only previous appearance in Jim Starlin's Warlock, Heater was a scheming blue skinned brunette harem girl, but here Gillis and Artis remodel her completely as a blonde ditzy stereotype. Heater's rescue is pretty much the entire plot, but it makes for really fun farce. Artis' backgrounds are sparsely generic, but he draws probably my favourite depiction of Starfox, all suave charm and knowingly raised eyebrows. It's a terrifically entertaining little number.

Marvel Comics Presents #22 (1989) - Starfox

Pencils: Dave Cockrum
Inks: Jim Sanders

This picks up where we left off, with Eros and Heater on the run from the mysterious Black Roger who sold Heater into slavery. They come across a huge transporter ship that's hit trouble; before you can say smuggled dimensional randomiser, an eight foot tall barbarian with a battering ram turns up. For once Starfox has to rely on his wiles, not his feel good powers to deal with the situation. Again, it's short, sweet and moderately forgettable. X-Men legend Cockrum gets to draw spaceships again, so that's more than worth the price of admission.

Marvel Comics Presents #65 (1990) - Starfox

Pencils: Ernie Chan
Inks: Jeff Albrecht

Peter Gillis was a big blues and funk fan, incorporating music references into his stories as far back as the late 70's. In Shatter #8, the heroes meet a travelling Russian blues band and start singing the blues classic Wang Dang Doodle by Willie Dixon, which is also the title of this Starfox short.

Shatter #8

The song was popularised by blues legend Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett), who appears as himself here, having been saved from death by Starfox and wound up playing guitar in a fancy space bar with a suitably alien backing band. Black Roger finally shows up (in grey knock off retro Iron Man style armour). Howlin' Wolf turns into an actual werewolf and beats up the bad guys. It's a weird set up to bring a non fictional character into, especially as the titular Starfox plays a backseat to him for much of the story. It's daft knockabout stuff with a few chuckles, clearly constructed as a homage to one of PBG's favourite musicians. 

Overall the three stories makes up a nice, fluffy little trilogy, with Gillis perfectly capturing the oddly sweet, loving relationship between Starfox and Heater. Sadly this wasn't to last, as Heater sunk back into comics obscurity, while Starfox has been portrayed inconsistently since his 80's heyday.

Later praising Tom Artis' art on Starfox, Gillis said he felt he would've been "completely happy doing Starfox stories with Tom for the rest of my career."

Can't argue with that. 

53: What The Echh--?!