The Heart and Soul of Marvel: Mark Gruenwald Appreciation

[electr1cgoblin]

I wanted to start a thread for one of my all time favorite creators, Mark Gruenwald. Several things really appealed to me about Mark as a writer:

1) He had an encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel Comics, and he loved to draw from it's rich history and use continuity in very creative ways, which always seems to reward longtime fans and bring them into the character's world so much more;

2) He was great at making changes in storylines and characters while retaining the essential core of the character and their world, a skill that I'd say is in short supply these days, and

3) He wrote characters that seemed so darned human and real. That doesn't mean they swore or slept around or killed someone every five minutes, but rather that they struggled with the same stuff we all did and still came out seeming heroic. I read Mark's stories and felt like I really knew and understood the folks he was writing about.

Beyond all of this, and more importantly, Mark seemed like such a great guy. He wrote one of my all-time favorite series, D.P. 7, back in the late 80's and early 90's, and many of my letters were printed in those 32 issues. When the book was nearing its end, he asked everyone to write in and tell him how he did on the final issue, and since he knew those letters could not see print due to the lagtime, he promised to send a personal note to everyone who did so. Of course, I wrote in and waited for a reply. Months lagged by, and nothing came. Finally, over a year later, a postcard from Mark came, with an apology about the extreme lateness explaining that the book had had an assistant editor who was famous for disorganization, and that person had misplaced the book of letters that came in. He found the box during a cleaning session or something, and took the time to reply to me, and addressed many of the points I made in my letter.

I suppose his most famous and well received work will always be the 12 issue Squadron Supreme series from 1985 to 1986, and it was admittedly a wonderful read, echoing the issues of the more famous Watchmen, and written at about the same time. I got in at the last couple of years of his Captain America run, and enjoyed that very well. Also loved his five year run on Quasar's monthly...but I'll always remember that quirky and I think, very personal, D.P. 7 series most, I think.

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[weezer17]

Cool idea and well-deserved; appropriate, too, since just yesterday I picked up the Captain America Epic Collection "Society of Serpents" which starts out his run!

Anyone wanna reminisce over favorite stories by Mr. Gruenwald? I gotta go with "Captain America No More" as my all-time favorite of his. Legendary!

[electr1cgoblin]

Cool idea and well-deserved; appropriate, too, since just yesterday I picked up the Captain America Epic Collection "Society of Serpents" which starts out his run!

Anyone wanna reminisce over favorite stories by Mr. Gruenwald? I gotta go with "Captain America No More" as my all-time favorite of his. Legendary!

Aw, I'm getting old! Didn't Mark write a lot of the VERY underrated "Marvel Two-in-One" stories (with Ralph Macchio, I think) and basically create Project Pegasus? There was some good stuff in those issues; Wundarr, Thundra, Quasar, and more!

[THANOSRULES]

My favorite Gruenwald series was the John Walker Saga/Captain America no more....I thought it was one of the most underrated runs ever on Marvel..

I actually wanted more stuff over the years between Walker and Cap, they really have not had much history since, and other characters like Battle Star have not stuck.

Gruenwald had good and bad moments...but he was truly a definitive Captain America writer.

Its funny , because the Walker Saga has me wonder all the time why I liked that, and why I don't like other legacy replacements such as Sam Alexander. Guys like Gruenwald and GIffen were really talented enough to make you swallow a legacy, because they were also the guys who wrote the guy they replaced the best. (GIFFEN example would be Ted Kord/REYES Blue Beetle)

People hated Walker at the time, but the stuff was gold. It was one of the first arcs I recall following.

There were a few things I disliked Mark did with Cap, notably Cap's reaction to killing Supremor in Operation Galactic Storm (I felt it was out of character and silly)...but so much much more I loved. I was a huge fan of the Squadron Mini series.

Some of the plots were so funny, like Cap Wolf, Cap to a woman, Cap to a boy, the bloodstone hunt (Yeah He created CROSSBONES!)

So much good stuff, so many great Cap memories of being a kid and enjoying comics..no internet, no bitching and griping.. just me walking to my LCS every couple of weeks and getting comics with my paper route cash.

I'll never totally understand some marvel execs when they think teens need teen heroes to buy comics. As a teen I bought Gruenwald's Captain America. . I didn't need to "identify with him" I wanted to read about his great adventures, and they were so great.

[fmvgamer]

Here's one from marvel two in one 60 with Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio and artist George Pérez.

[weezer17]

Here's one from marvel two in one 60 with Mark Gruenwald, Ralph Macchio and artist George Pérez.

OMG I've never seen this haha! This is great! "Baloney?!"

[weezer17]

Its funny , because the Walker Saga has me wonder all the time why I liked that, and why I don't like other legacy replacements such as Sam Alexander. Guys like Gruenwald and GIffen were really talented enough to make you swallow a legacy, because they were also the guys who wrote the guy they replaced the best. (GIFFEN example would be Ted Kord/REYES Blue Beetle)

...dang. That's so true!

[Torpedo]

Mark Gruenwald's 1983 Hawkeye limited series is one of the absolute treasures of my collection and is why I am a Hawkeye fan for life. Thank you Mr. Gruenwald for that story, and so many others!

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[hawkeyefan]

Mark Gruenwald's 1983 Hawkeye limited series is one of the absolute treasures of my collection and is why I am a Hawkeye fan for life. Thank you Mr. Gruenwald for that story, and so many others!

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Yeah man! I second that. Issues 2 and 4 were among my first comics, and I still have them to this day. Took me a few years to track down 1 and 3. The story still holds up, too...even if the dialogue is a bit dated. It's still a decent read. And he did the art too....pretty crazy.

Other than that, I also agree on Squadron being brilliant. And his run on Quasar, in retrospect, was really really good.

His Cap run is mostly solid, with a few low points, but when it was on it was as good as it gets.

[The Odd Man]

His Squadron Supreme limited series still ranks as one of my all-time favourites.




If I had to choose just one Marvel writer above all others for sheer enjoyment and strong storytelling skills, it'd be Gruenwald.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Hear, hear!

[Phoenixx9]

I always like Mark Gruenwald. He seemed like such a nice man. I mourned his passing and felt terrible for his family.

In addition to all the above mentioned works, my favorite would be the Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe. I know many people hate the "100 tons" limit/confusion, but I think in time Mark would have corrected and enhanced the numbers. These books were outstanding, especially at that time in 1982. Mark was a true pioneer! Thank you, Mark Gruenwald!

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

I much appreciated Mark Gruenwald's encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel Comics. I believe Kevin Feige also has this.

[gurkle]

If Roy Thomas was the writer/editor who built the idea of a coherent Marvel universe (built it out of what Lee and Kirby and others created, of course) then Mark Gruenwald was the one who did more than any other to create the illusion that everything was interconnected.

In one of his old CBR columns Steven Grant had a reminiscence of Gruenwald and how they plotted the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch retcon story ("The Yesterday Quest") together:

Problem was: the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch back story was a sodding mess, a horror show of contradiction on contradiction left by successive monkeying with or ignorance of established continuity. By that point, continuity had become an obsession with many fans, and they even had their own advocate inside Marvel’s halls: Mark Gruenwald, who’d come to prominent with a fanzine called OMNIVERSE, whose central thesis was that all comic book universes ran parallel to all others, so all were equally “real.” (Mark also confided on more than one occasion that he felt this was an accurate model of the structure of the real universe, and that – he was half-serious about this, half-not – all comics universes existed somewhere in reality alongside not only other comics universe but ours, a philosophy since enshrined in the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS–INFINITE CRISIS–52–COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS–FINAL CRISIS arc currently running at DC.) Though not yet a full editor – I think he might have been editing WHAT IF? solo by then – Mark was doing some writing here and there and was unofficially the keeper of Marvel continuity, and continuity was his obsession.

Sometimes the obsession with continuity could be a little over-the-top, but one of the things that makes people nostalgic for Marvel in the '80s and early '90s is that despite a large and growing line, most writers and editors tried to keep the history right and maintain the illusion that all these stories were part of the same story, and that's in large part due to Gruenwald.

[Nomads1]

One of the greatest. Nice tribute (and more than well-deserved). Hard to pinpoint my favorite work of his. There were so many. The Pegasus Saga, The Squadron Supreme, Quasar, Captain America No More, etc...
And, intrestingly enough, this last one brings me to one of, IMHO, Mark's few and greatest mistakes. His muscling in on Roger Stern's run to bolster up Cap (resulting in Roger Stern leaving the boo and ending what was probably my favorite Avengers run ever). I so would have liked to have seen what Mr. Stern had planned for the book, including the addition of Luke Cage, Power Man, to the team, years before it happened.

Peace