Peter B. Gillis Big Comics Readthrough

The Eternals #5-8 (1986) Pencils: Sal Buscema Inks: Sal Buscema, Danny Bulanadi In this middle act of the story, Kro steals the essence of a Celestial from Ikaris' vault, but it winds up in the wrong scaly hands of Ghaur. Thena rescues her ex Kro from certain death at Ikaris' hands, so the rekindled lovers end up on the run from Eternal and Deviant alike. The mismatched pair make an oddly charming couple, risking all for a forbidden love. Again, the action zips along at a fair old pace, although there's more room here for character introspection. There's a particularly affecting scene where Ikaris recalls his son of the same name. Gillis always seems stronger and more comfortable in these quiet moments. Kirby's Eternals, humans and Deviants can easily be dismissed as counterparts to angels, humans and demons, but Gillis offered a more complex view. To him the divides mirror the class struggle, or to dig deeper, the id, ego and superego. Which is why he was keen to p...

I've covered Peter Gillis' Eternals warm-up here and here . Suffice to say, when What If and Micronauts editor Ralph Macchio was assigned a 12 issue Eternals maxi-series, Eternals expert Gillis seemed the obvious choice to write it... "My feeling about The Eternals, is that this is what I came to Marvel to do. This is my chance to do prime Marvel Comics, with the sense of grandeur, combined with the sense of fun. Sal and I are doing our tribute to Jack Kirby with this book. It's one of the most quintessentially Marvel books that we've done." The Eternals #1-4 (1985) Pencils: Sal Buscema Inks: Al Gordon, Keith Williams Following their mass migration to Titan in the Avengers, only a handful of Eternals remain on Earth. Thena becomes leader after the death of her father Zuras, although Ikaris, Makkari and Kingu are too preoccupied with continuing their neverending conflict with the Deviants to pay much heed. The Deviants are also undergoing a leadership chang...

The New Defenders #145 (1985) Pencils: Don Perlin Inks: Art Nichols The remains of the New Defs take a moment to feel sorry for themselves post battle in Five Women , the flipside of the earlier Three Women. On a side note, this team had an impressively gender balanced lineup by 80's standards. With Moondragon fled, Cloud injured and Angel blinded, the remaining Defenders find themselves at a low ebb and consider calling it a day. Luckily old Champions teammate Johnny Blaze rides in to cheer up the ex-X-Men contingent. It's a quiet, talky issue for reflection and setting up future plotlines, with Seraph returning and the mystery of Andromeda. Departing inker DeMulder is replaced with the mismatched Art Nichols, who rather swamps Perlin in an ugly ink heavy style. The New Defenders #146-7 (1985) Pencils: Luke McDonnell, Don Perlin Inks: Art Nichols The battered Defenders take refuge at Doctor Strange's sanctum, searching for a cure for Warren's blindness. Brunnhilde'...

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...

During his first couple of years at Marvel, Peter Gillis submitted an assortment of fill ins for Marvel's big guns, learning on the job as he went... Marvel Two-In-One #45 (1978) Pencils: Alan Kupperberg Inks: Mike Esposito A Skrull gangster from an early Fantastic Four lands in New York, impersonating the Thing. Captain Marvel makes a bemused, needless, contractually obliged appearance. Then it all ends in a rushed Scooby Doo fashion. This was presumably aiming for comedic or at least light hearted, but the end result is unremarkable, not aided by some workmanlike artwork. However the script at least shows some personality. Marvel Two-In-One #51 (1979) Pencils: Frank Miller Inks : Bob McLeod A big improvement on the previous fill-in, featuring the fun debut of Ben Grimm's poker game with Nick Fury and lesser Avengers. In the less memorable second half, they fight some faceless goons atop of SHIELD's Helicarrier. At 17 pages, there's not a great deal to the story, but i...