Peter B. Gillis Big Comics Readthrough

Spurred on by larger than life movie action heroes, gun toting vigilantes became all the rage in late 80's comic books. Peter Gillis mused one day what new twist he could possibly put on the clichéd futuristic vengeful cyborg, that the likes of Deathlok and RoboCop hadn't already covered? Well, imagine if the aforementioned was carrying his daughter's disembodied brain on his back, as his literal tailgunner? And to keep her still conscious brain from going insane, Cyborg daddy constructs an elaborate fantasy world for her consciousness to inhabit? Yep, that's a very PBG spin alright. Gillis originally mooted Tailgunner Jo (named after Joe McCarthy's war nickname) for the short lived Hot Comics. However, Mike Gold had been leading an exodus from the cash strapped First Comics to DC, and Peter Gillis was on his recruitment radar. Gillis offered Gold this sci-fi maxi-series, which ended up assigned to veteran DC editor Barbara Randall/Kesel, who was keen, despite ex...

The New Defenders #140 (1985) Pencils: Don Perlin Inks: Kim DeMulder The Heartbreak Kid is a very odd story, even by PBG's standards. Half the team investigate a disturbance on the small town of Abbotsford. Danny Shepard, an unrepentant teenage boy is awaiting trial, accused of raping his black teacher. The Defenders arrive to find rifle wielding racists in unsubtle Nazi outfits attacking the crowd gathered outside. In the ensuing court case, Danny comes clean and admits what happened; his (presumably mutant) power had kicked in to absorb bad memories, or heartbreak, from people. Danny had taken the pain of a forced adoption from his teacher, which left her confused and feeling defiled. He then walks out of court, taking everyone's secret emotional pain with him, like some revered faith healer. The Defenders play a mostly passive role again, with newly reformed Moondragon taking the lead, worryingly gung ho with her mental control. She sports a fetching new costume in black an...

What can be difficult to get across on capsule reviews is the nuance of character interaction that makes New Defenders special. Peter Gillis rarely wasted a line of dialogue without revealing some aspect of a personality or how they interplay with others. The early focus on their personal lives was on the unusual love triangle between Iceman, Cloud and Moondragon. To understand that, we need to first delve into some complex backstories. Cloud is a new DeMatteis character, first appearing in #123 as a brainwashed agent of the Secret Empire, alongside Seraph and Harridan. Once freed from their control, she joined the New Defenders, although her past and origin remained a mystery. Maiden, Mother & Crone Moondragon has a much more complex and morally ambiguous history. Heather Douglas first appeared in an early Iron Man as a bathing suited mad scientist with a submarine, calling herself Madame MacEvil. Which as supervillain names go, is right up there with Boaty McBoatface. Steve Ger...

Not only had Peter Gillis inherited a team of little known oddballs for his Defenders run, he also had to contend with their lack of agency. Beast had transformed them from a 'non-team' who banded together when required, to a more traditional outfit living together in a hero headquarters. Bizarrely, just before the end of his run, J.M. DeMatteis had relocated them to Angel's holiday home on a clifftop in New Mexico. Although this made for a unique setting, there are a whole lot less supervillains (roughly zero) in New Mexico than New York. Gillis got around this flaw by making them a passive team, where trouble came to them every issue, the majority of it self inflicted. This had the knock on effect of making the team seem aimless and redundant. Their enemies were largely supernatural in nature, and certainly on the weirder end of the spectrum. I'll look at the first few setup issues individually, until it becomes more interwoven.. The New Defenders #131 (1984) Plot: J...

Ever since Steve Gerber's classic 70's run, The Defenders  have been known as the oddball team of the Marvel U; the gang you hang out with when you don't fit in anywhere else. J.M. DeMatteis played up the supernatural aspect in his lengthy early 80's spell on the title. Towards the end of his run he wrote out the big hitters and turned this 'non-team' into a more conventional outfit. The lineup was anything but conventional though: three of the original X-Men, Defenders stalwarts Valkyrie and Gargoyle, former Avenger and villain Moondragon, and a teenager who turns into a Cloud. Peter Gillis' series for First were attracting attention over at Marvel, in a "why is our guy working for someone else? Let's give him more work" way. Around the end of '83, Gillis heard DeMatteis was leaving after only half a dozen issues of the re-christened New Defenders, so threw his hat in the writing ring. As PBG put it: "I was pleased that they asked me ...

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...