Stan Lee was a fan of humour magazines and had tried to get a few MAD style knock offs up and running over the years. One such effort was Not Brand Echh, which, like MAD occasionally did, lampooned superheroes. Here Marvel creators (well, mostly Roy Thomas and Marie Severin) got to work on presumably cathartic parodies of their own creations, in exaggerated cartoony styles. This bi-monthly series only lasted 13 issues in the late 1960's.
20 years later, Marvel decided to revive the concept in the same style as a 4 issue mini, What The--?!. It proved reasonably successful enough to continue on an occasional schedule, eventually clocking up 26 issues over 5 years, twice as many as its predecessor.
By this point Peter Gillis was on the outs with Marvel, when Warp inker Hilary Barta called him up and asked if he wanted to work on a Punisher parody for the first What The. Neither of them had any love for the ridiculously popular at the time and frequently brainless vigilante comic, so it was an easy sell. Gillis went on to pen seven What The stories, many of those with Barta, no doubt aided by the familiar presence of Carl Potts as editor.
What The--?! #1 (1988) - The Pulverizer
Co-plot / Pencils: Hilary Barta
Inks: John Severin
Parodying the Death Wish wannabe Punisher is like Uzi-ing fish in a barrel, so you can probably imagine how this goes without even reading it. The no brain Pulverizer causes mayhem, machine gunning and blowing everything up in sight. Gillis does conclude the strip biting the hand that feeds him, pointing the finger at comics for peddling this fetishism of gun violence to hormonal teenage boys. I guess it was just a reflection of those action heroes with a body count and no repercussions times.
What The--?! #1 (1988) - X-Persons
Pencils: Jon Bogdanove
Inks: Al Milgrom
"When Titans Bunch", another play on that classic title by Gillis, begins as a cosy parody of the X-Men and New Mutants. It quickly escalates to encompass most of the Marvel universe of the late 80's. If you enjoy copious panels introducing heroes with punning comedy names like The Blank Knight and The Fumin' Torch, then this one's for you true believers. It concludes with an on the nose parody of the increasing sales driven trend for hero vs hero crossovers, which eventually strangled the life out of superhero books. I get the feeling Gillis was expressing some of his own frustration about the darker cul de sac Marvel was beginning to drag itself down.
What The--?! #2 (1988) - Doctor Deranged
Art: Phil Foglio
Just like in that recent movie, an overworked Doctor Strange tries to retreat into the multiverse, but ends up regretting it when he's met with the crazy mystics from the DC universe. PBG shows an impressive disregard for copyright, as Cerebus, Asterix and thinly veiled DC characters such as Dr Feet, the Fandom Stranger and Dead, Man all make appearances. The madness concludes with Deranged settling in "a whole new universe", before a white light appears over Pittsburgh. One for the Shooter fans.
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| For those who remember Cynosure. |
Gillis was still regular writer on Strange at the time, so he even got to poke fun at himself in the Fandom Stranger scene. "I really thought you should've kept the eyepatch. Your current writer's the pits though." This strip also has the distinction of being indie and DC creator Foglio's only work for Marvel.
What The--?! #5 (1989) - The Bulk
Pencils: Erik Larsen
Inks: Al Gordon
The Hulk's identity crisis and fading popularity come under the crosshairs next. This was written during the early Peter David years, which lifted the title out of mediocrity, keeping the Hulk fresh by completely changing the setup every year or so. Gillis takes another dig at these increasingly cynical times, represented by the brutish grey Hulk: "This is the eighties! People don't want cute misunderstood giants anymore! They want tough, obsessive, nasty heroes who kick butt and take names!". That's followed by talk of expanding the Hulk's merchandising potential, including a couple of not so high concepts that eventually came to pass: "Teen-Bulk" and "Planet of the Bulks". Finally Bulk settles on his most terrifying form yet, a marketing exec. It's hardly subtle, but gets the point across.
What The--?! #5 (1989) - Sore
Pencils: Whilce Portacio
Inks: Al Milgrom
Thor gets off with a light roasting here, in a forgettable strip predictably poking fun at his ridiculous mannered dialogue and contrived plot devices. When an OTT pneumatic Californian goddess named Bimbeau turns up to tempt the Godda Thunda, you can pretty much guess the level. I doubt this is high up on Portacio's CV.
What The--?! #6 (1990) - Man-Thang
Pencils: Doug Rice
Inks & Jokes(?): Hilary Barta
Man-Thang vs Swamp-Thang, fighting over Abby. It does what it says on the tin. There's some accurate but overdone knocks at the florid, overwrought narration that tended to pepper these monster comics. Although fair play for portraying Alan Moore's Swamp Thing as a bit of a stoner in a mainstream Marvel title. Rice is another long time friend from Gillis' days at First that he barely got to work with, until now.
What The--?! #17 (1992) - Wolverweenie and the Pulverizer
Co-writer / Art: Hilary Barta
Due to What The's incredibly erratic schedule, this story presumably written in '89 or '90 didn't see the light of day until '92, making it Gillis' final published work for the majors. Barta wrote or drew five Pulverizer stories for What The, and the aptly named "Teaming Up For The Money" is the middle entry of three Wolverine/Punisher parodies. The plot, if you call it that, concerns the overly aggressive pair taking down a drug lord in South America. Barta's inventive cartooning keeps things visually interesting.
That peculiar note concludes the main era of PBG's comics career. Next I answer the age old question... "Whatever happened to Peter B. Gillis?"
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