There were some odd combinations in the mid 80s, like Bill Sienkiewicz inking Arthur Adams' already tight pencils. What's the point of that? Sienkiewicz's strength is creative layout and character design.

Was Bill having trouble getting work? It seemed to me that he was one of Marvel's go-to guys in the mid 80s when they wanted "awesome cover to sell mediocre interior."

I just imagined a line of editors hoping Bill could squeeze in time do a full cover for them, rather than Bill having to go begging for inking work because there was no market for a full fledged Sienkiewicz cover. But my industry knowledge is miniscule.

Even just this week, Sienkiewicz's thirty new pages from New Mutants: War Children sold at NYCC in a flash. Given that he's asking $5,000 a page for old pages on his web site, the new pages probably went for the same amount, which would mean $150,000 for the set in addition to whatever Marvel paid him. Not a bad haul!  Seems like John Byrne would want to get in on that with his "Neverwhen" project. But it does suggest that Bill could have more comics work if he wanted it; he's just making more money doing watercolors of women in red caps and calling them "Elektra." Nice work if you can get it!

I suspect that the market for pages is cresting and will fall off in the next 20 years. Well-heeled Boomers and Busters heading into retirement with spare cash are paying top dollar for artists, and especially pages, that evoke their childhood. I doubt future generations will be as passionate about that same work, or pay as handsomely to decorate their walls and portfolio books with it.

I've always loved Bill Sienkiewicz's art - from his early stuff to what he down now, including posting portraits on facebook

A few  -

I came in "late" (but not that late). I first picked up the 2nd half of the SPOTLIGHT 2-parter. LOVED it!! Then I quickly found the 1st part. I'm not sure how long it took, but eventually I got the 2 WBN issues.

For several years, I had a hand-drawn reproduction of his MK cover on my wall (I did it with markers). I wonder if there was ever a "real" poster of that made?

Following the 4 Perlin episodes, Keith Giffen tackled MK next (in DEFENDERS). Then there was a 2-parter in SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, but oddly done by 2 different artists-- Jim Mooney, then Mike Zeck.

MK seemed to be averaging a story per year. At the time, several of the newer, more obscure (and perhaps more "personal") heroes, I found more interesting than the ones who'd been around since the 60s. They were still "fresh".

To me, it was a sign of editorial chaos when MK was given his own series in the back of THE HULK!, and the 1st episode was done by Gene Colan-- and the 2nd chapter by Keith Pollard. That's my usual question-- HOW do you start a series, without having secured a regular creative team first?

And then, the story goes, Bill Sienkeiwicz walked in off the street with his portfolio... and walked out with the 3rd MK episode job. 3 pencillers in a 4-part story. (sheesh)

Marvel Graphic Novel #18



Byrne's been reading muscle magazines.

Creative Team:John Byrne-writer & pencils, Kim Demulder-inks, Janice Chiang-letters, Petra Scotese-colors, Mike Carlin & Michael Higgins-edits

Synopsis: The faceless bosses of SHIELD have ordered Director Fury to bring in She-Hulk. Orders from the president. Yeah, like those are never way outta whack. Fury argues (like the DOD); but, Turkey is allowed to invade.....er, SHIELD will go after She-Hulk, while Fury goes on "Vacation."



Meanwhile, She-Hulk is depressed because tomorrow is Bruce Banner's birthday and she is depressed about what happened to him, when the Hulk was born. Wyatt Wingfoot cheers her up and they go out on a date. Meanwhile, Dum-Dum Dugan leads the SHIELD operation. Wyatt and Jennifer go out on the town, with She-Hulk dressed like a stripper. guess we know the audience for this.

Jennifer and Wyatt are interrupted by SHIELD agents in Mandroid armor. They are there to arrest her. Jennifer demands a warrant and they say they don't need one. Jennifer decides she can protect herself against illegal search and seizure. Wyatt and some civilians call an agents bluff when he says anyone interfering will be subject to Federal prosecution. Jennifer is kicking ass and taking names, when the SHIELD agent calls for a transport beam and She-Hulk ends up in a SHIELD facility, surrounded by armed agents.



Jennifer clears a path by swinging a mandroid and rips out a section of wall. She and her friends run through corridors and maintenance tunnels. They escape gas and sonic attacks, while some weird looking guy, dressed like a wino, shambles on his own route. The refugees finally learn where they are, when they end up on the Helicarrier deck, surrounded by more agents and nowhere to go. Wyatt is separated from Jennifer and she is ordered to strip...



Dugan breaks it up and puts the agent in charge, Dooley, in hack (confined to quarters). he apologizes to jenn and explains, and gets an earful about due process. Dugan agrees and laments what SHIELD has become. he then gets a call and finds himself ordered back to Washington and Dooley is back in charge. Wyatt is jailed and Jennifer taken to Sydney Levine for examination. Dooley orders her to strp, again, despite Levine's protests. Later, she is brought back, semi-conscious, to their mutual cell, with safegaurds, including a weight sensor that will release cyanide gas if they leave the cell. She-Hulk transforms to Jennifer Walters, squeezes through the bars and turns off the sensor (slight problem, to be covered later). Wyatt is still trapped. Jennifer moves on to try to get them out, hoping that she can get away with looking like a tech. She is spotted by someone who notices her bare feet and alarms go off.

The weird wino encounters Dooley, plants a kiss on him and steals his life. his body is now controlled by some entity. Meanwhile, Jennifer finds a control room and sees that Dooley had been watching tapes of her "examination." Suddenly, the Helicarrier lurches to port...



Aircraft slide off the flight deck and She-Hulk finds the dead wino. An agent shoots her, before a cooler female agent stops him, saying it was Dooley, not She-Hulk who sabotaged the carrier. She-Hulk is fine and wants Dooley. The agent gives Jenn the 411 and helps her with a purple leotard and she goes after Dooley. She is forced to go outside the hull to smash into a locked control room, via an observation port. She runs into Dooley, who is filled with an intelligent colony of cockroaches. She-Hulk smash and lets in SHIELD. They try to stabilize the carrier and a boobytrap blows off a lift assembly. They all head for the lifeboats...



Gaffer cuts the starboard rotors to right the carrier, as it plummets. he uses the vortex beams to push against the ground, but, the ground isn't level and they crash, at an angle...



Jennifer, Wyatt, gaffer and the SHIELD agents survive, but, the carrier's reactor is reaching critical and only She-Hulk can stop it.

Jennifer plays Spock, at the end of Wrath of Khan, and gets swarmed by cockroaches (ewww...) She saves the day and smushes some roaches.

Reed Richards examines She-Hulk and declares her free of radiation; but, she is now permanently She-Hulk. Byrne swipes from Dave Sim (and others) with repeated shots until she asks what the bad news is.

Thoughts: She-Hulk, by this point, had been an Avenger and, after Secret Wars, joined the FF. She appeared in both of the previous two graphic novels; so, big things were in line for her. She continued in FF, until her own series was revived, with Byrne.

Quite frankly, this is a glorified mini-series one-shot. It pretty much shows that there is no real plan to create anything of an outstanding quality in the graphic novel line, anymore (if there ever was) and just use it as a vehicle for the same old stories as in the other comics, with maybe some odd bits of nudity or language, outside the Code.

The story requires both Nick Fury and Dum-Dum Dugan to act out of character. Fury defies the order; but, does nothing to aid Jennifer or expose who is behind the order. That's not the Nick fury I know. Dum-Dum tries to minimize things but accepts his exile too easily. However, Byrne needs them off the board, so they aren't the villains in this. Byrne also makes a meta-commentary about the change in SHIELD from world protectors to dirty deeds squad. This happened across the 70s, as liberal writers like Steve Englehart used SHIELD as a metaphor for CIA crimes. Many lamented the loss of SHIELD as Law Enforcement. Here, they violate due process, by executing an illegal arrest (they have no warrant from a judge, nor probable cause). An executive order cannot issue a warrant; only a judge can issue that, after being petitioned by the DOJ. She-Hulk was not read her rights and a case could be made for excessive force, in the arrest. Upon seeing the lack of warrant, Jennifer is justified in resisting. Being a lawyer, jennifer is well aware of the excesses going on. Wyatt is there to keep her in line, as a hostage.

The cell escape doesn't work. The cell has a mechanism that records the overall weight in the cell and if it changes by more than a pound or two, it triggers cyanide gas. Jenn has Wyatt climb on objects and press the equivalent of her weight. Um, no....... regardless of how hard he presses, the mass of the cell remains constant, until She-Hulk switches to jennifer Walters, whose body has less mass (which should cause a massive release of energy, as that mass has to be converted to something. Byrne should have said it was a pressure sensor that required a same level of pressure on it, which might work with the pressing against the cell.

This GN established that Jennifer Walters is now stuck as She-Hulk, though that would change later, as she could switch again when she had her revived serie, in the 00s. It also brought an end to the SHIELD Helicarrier, which would lead into the Nick Fury vs SHIELD mini, in 1988, where Fury uncovered that SHIELD was a front for the Deltites, advanced LMDs that became self aware and replaced SHIELD personnel. Fury had to defeat them and create a new SHIELD, leading ot the 1989 series, whose characters appeared in the Fox tv movie, with The Hoff. SHIELD got a new carrier and then some.

I kind of agree with Byrne's commentary, about how SHIELD was so much better in the 60s, as the good guys. Making them a stand-in for the CIA ruined them, as an organization, as we got years of rogue SHIELD agents doing dirty things, before being caught by Fury or someone else. However, even Fury was shown to be manipulating things by trying a hostile takeover of Stark international, to force them back into weapons development (contributing to Stark descending into alcoholism). For me, SHIELD was more of a military/police outfit, governed by stricter laws, operating out in the open. Such organizations have good and bad; but, too many writers wanted to use SHIELD as a broad metaphor for corruption, which ignores the past of the group, defending people against HYDRA and other threats. Also, the corruption got to be a cliche. The later series never really corrected this, which is part of why they didn't last terribly long (though the 1989 series lasted 4 years, which beats past efforts, though more on the speculator boom and momentum than great stories).

At this point, I am dropping the question of whether the graphic novel is warranted as few of these projects will be. Most of them are one-shots that could have been done in a special or mini-series, or in the regular series. Shooter didn't care about art and it shows and DeFalco didn't either. Archie Goodwin and a few others had ideas, grew frustrated and went to DC and elsewhere. By the same token, DC wasn't exactly using the format in a better way, though they did experient more, with their sci-fi graphic novels. however, when Dark Knight hit, they went whole hog for Prestige mini-series and one-shots, rather than album formats, then trade collections. Art would be reserved more for the inde crowd, who were more open to experimentation, though DC still managed the odd one that rose above the norm. Marvel less so, except at Epic and its days were becoming numbered, by this point. Epic's output would steadily decline until Archie left for DC, in 1989. After that, Carl Potts mostly oversaw it being put to sleep.