Peter B. Gillis Big Comics Readthrough

After penning 4 What If issues plus 2 backups, PBG was told by Mark Gruenwald that they wanted to give other writers a chance. The situation changed when old friend Ralph Macchio took over as editor in 1983. He happily bought whatever great ideas Gillis threw at him, which resulted in writing credits on 7 of the final 8 What If issues.  What if Dr. Strange had Never Become Master of the Mystic Arts #40 (1983) Pencils: Butch Guice Inks: Guice / Sam Grainger An alternate spin on Gillis' previous Strange What If, this sees the mantle of sorceror supreme go to Baron Mordo, while Stephen returns to a career in medicine. Mordo pretends to be a reformed character to fool the Ancient One, but he's under the thrall of Nightmare. Eventually the good Doctor is dragged into the fight and the universe rebalances to how it was meant to be. It's interesting to an extent to see Mordo wearing the cape and his blunter approach to classic encounters. A story about Mordo redeeming himself migh...

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 heavil...

Peter Benno Gillis was born in New York in 1952. He was a voracious reader of everything he could get his hands on, particularly gravitating towards science fiction and comic books. Bilingual from an early age, Gillis went on to study Medieval German Literature at the University of Chicago. But his heart remained in comic books. As well as an established Marvel letter writer, Gillis become a frequent contributor to the burgeoning fanzine scene, along with friends and luminaries including Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio, Peter Sanderson, Richard Bruning and David Kraft.  By 1977, Gillis had returned to New York and was regularly submitting scripts to Marvel, yet getting noticed by editor in chief Archie Goodwin was proving tricky. Goodwin's assistant Jim Shooter had shown some interest in his scripts, so as soon as Shooter was promoted to the top job at the start of 1978, Gillis knocked on his door. Shooter handed him a fill in on the perennially late Captain America , which Gillis wr...