The Heart and Soul of Marvel: Mark Gruenwald Appreciation

[gurkle]

It seems like Gruenwald really underestimated how hard Roger Stern would be to replace. The Avengers in the '80s were not blockbuster popular, but Stern kept them solid despite not having access to many star characters.

And when you remember what a bad place the Avengers were in when Stern took over - they'd gone through issue # 200, then a year of mostly filler stories, and then Shooter's infamous second run - it's even more impressive how Stern managed to right the ship.

Of course, to bring this back to saying good things about Gruenwald, that's also a tribute to his editing, since he started editing Avengers just a few months before Stern started writing it, and he managed to turn the book around and even make it strong enough to get a spinoff.

[tliscord]

Yeah, the Stern firing is probably the worst thing Grueny did. Basically, Stern had spent years developing Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau) from a novice to an experienced hero ready to lead the Avengers. Grueny wanted Captain America back as the leader, so he told Stern to have CM screw up as leader and have CA come in to save the day. Stern felt that this went against what he was writing and didn't want to do it. Stern thought they could work out a story that they would both be happy with. Instead, Grueny fired Stern and hired Walt Simonson to write the direction he wanted. Ironically, Simonson left the title early because he was told that he was told he couldn't use Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman after he had already written the story where they joined.


And Simonson was replaced by John Byrne, who quit when Grueny quashed his Scarlet Witch storyline that the WCA editor had already approved. The late 80s through late 90s was not a time of editorial/writer compatibility.

This is just fascinating to me. All of you seem to have some great insights into this period.

I agree, as I read through back issues of the Avengers ( I dropped all comics by the late '70's ) I thoroughly enjoyed Stern, and of course the great John Buscema/Tom Palmer duo as well. The Nebula story with Monica was quite good. The book did seem to flounder after Stern left, rebounded with Harris, and of course bloomed with Busiek and Perez.

Mark's run on Cap was indeed a mash up of the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I'd say his early work was his best. Perhaps he simply stayed on the book too long. Honestly, the artwork was hit or miss in general. If Mark G. Had Ron Garney it'd might've been more robust.

I will say there was a nice short run of 2 or 3 issues Sal Buscema stepped in for with Kim Demulder as inker ... might've been Sal's best work.

I loved Gruenwald's Skull.

[Nomads1]

Do you mean on the main Avengers line? Because it was Roy Thomas who came in and completed the Immortus storyline that Byrne started in West Coast Avengers but dropped when his ideas were vetoed (and to the best of my recollection, it wasn't Gruenwald that was the editor that nixed them; it was DeFalco, the EIC at Marvel at the time.)

Yes, I did mean on the main Avengers book. Nicieza did write the story that directly followed Byrne's leaving (there was a couple more fill-ins before or after Fabe's issue. Don't recall which) with art by Tom Morgan, giving Thomas and Paul Ryan time to gear up for their run. However, I personally think WCA wethered much better the departure of Byrne than the main title (which, IHO, was also getting the short end of the stick in line-ups and storylines even when Byrne was writing it). In fact, Thomas' run was my favorite of WCA, followed by Byrne and then Englehart (I know, the opposite of most fans, but what can I do?) Fabe finished writing a story of the Avengers against Nebula that Byrne left incomplete when he left.

Peace

[Lee Stone]

Mark Gruenwald was one of my favorite editors from the '80s. Up there with Jim Salicrup (the Avengers titles right before Gruenwald and FF titles), Dennis O'Neil (the street-level heroes titles), Al Milgrom (the Defenders and offbeat sci-fi heroes titles), Louise Simonson (the X-Men titles) and Carl Potts (who took over the Defenders titles after Milgrom).
That Bullpen was probably my favorite era of Marvel.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

Finger crossed of seeing an era like that in 2018!

[Phoenixx9]

Finger crossed of seeing an era like that in 2018!

I Hope we get New Hardbound OHOTMU books, especially with all these new characters and character updates! That is very Mark G-like!

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

http://michelfiffe.com/?page_id=7337

From Captain America #377 written by Mark Gruenwald

[Kaled]

I loved his Captain America run with John Walker replacing Cap being my favorite of his runs. I believe he was good friends with Tom Defalco and I think there was a friendly rivalry to see who could tell a better story with Thor or Captain America. His Quasar was great but I felt it was several issues before it really took off. I remember the whole thing with Roger Stern and John Byrne because it played out in the Comics Buyers Guide's letters pages when John Byrne took over writing the Avengers. I felt Gruenwald was wrong for firing Stern and later for not letting Simpson do what he wanted with Avengers. It worked out in the end because he took over the Fantastic Four. I also remember how the comics industry was waiting to see what Gruenwald was going to do when he stepped down from writing Captain America and his position as editor because the rumor at the time was DC was courting him to come write for them and that they were waving Batman at him.

[Nomads1]

I would have loved to have seen Gru over at DC. I don't see him as a good fit for Batman, but it'd have been fun to see who he'd do. His Quasar was the Marvel version of GL Kyle Rayner.

Peace

[Rincewind]

I would have loved to have seen Gru over at DC. I don't see him as a good fit for Batman, but it'd have been fun to see who he'd do. His Quasar was the Marvel version of GL Kyle Rayner.

Peace

That would have been a very interesting alternate history. This was the period when the Marketing department had more say in the content of the titles than editorial. Gruenwald was next in line for Editor in Chief, but got passed over for the 5 EiC plan. When that failed, Bob Harras was made overall EiC.

Grueny overseeing Green Lantern, Flash, Superman, JLA , et al would have been wonderful to see. He started out as a DC fan, but felt loyalty to Marvel and stayed.