I Can't Believe I Missed This

A day late! A freakin' DAY! (Well, now two days since it's past midnight).

Two days ago, August 12, was the tenth anniversary of the death of a very important person in my life. I never met him, didn't know his voice, or his family life. But I did know a good deal about his professional life.

I was introduced to Mark Gruenwald after reading Iron Man #215. There was nothing really special about the comic book, but it hooked me. I had read comic books before-- as had most kids before the '90s-- but this one stood out to me, and I consider it one of the three most important issues as it pertains to my enjoying this hobby.

This issue opened up an entire universe for me. It issue prompted me to buy West Coast Avengers, which led to to Avengers and then to the other Avengers-related titles of the time (including Thor and the Gruenwald-written Captain America). And that all led me to try every other Marvel title published at the time.

Anyway, Mark Gruenwald edited most of those early favorites as he was the Avengers-guru at the time. I could never write what he meant for me (or all of comics, really) in this short amount of time, but I did want to pay recognition to him. Saturday was a pretty significant day as it reminded me how I got into this addicting hobby that I've never been able to completely abandon-- no matter how broke I was.

As I noted earlier, Gruenwald was the editor of my favorite line of titles, wrote wrote some of my favorite titles, and he actually spoke to me (okay, the fans) in his letters pages, which I found to be pretty cool.

At the time, I actually took him at his "word" that being a comic book editior was the coolest job in the world because he got to read comics all day. I thought it was so cool, that in a seventh grade speech assignment, I declared I wanted to be an editor because they sat and read comics all day. That was my only rationale. I didn't mention a thing about hiring writiers, pencillers, inkers, colorists, letterers, working with Marketing, making a direction for the books, working to simplify continuity, or any of the myriad of other duites an editor is responsible for. I think the only reason I didn't get an "F" was because one of my classmates declared he wanted to be a lottery winner...

As the years passed, and I grew to be an even more passionate comic book reader, I realized some of the above duties of an editor, and then got to see all of what Mark brought to the table as a creator.

He edited the Avengers titles for years.
He created the Marvel Handbook series, which is pretty remarkable (even convincing his bosses that an encyclopedia for comic book characters must have been a heckuva sales pitch).
He wrote Captain America for ten years (completely unheard of in this day and age-- and ten years in the entire history of comics has not been achieved many times)-- including the amazing "Cap No More" storyline where Steve Rogers stepped down as Cap and the government brought in a borderline psychotic to wear the costume).
He wrote the vastly underrated Squadron Supreme mini-series (thankfully, this title has been getting more and more respect as the concept of super-heroes taking over the world gets addressed more often).
He also co-created and wrote the nearly forgotten about "New Universe" title DP7, which still holds a special place in most people who actually read it's hearts. (yeah, that was a clumsy sentence, forgive me).
And, finally (at least his major works), he also wrote the complete five-year run of Quasar.

Pretty remarkable for a guy who really held Marvel continuity together. [For those of you who don't know, continuity is a concept many larger comics companies use to acknowledge that their various characters live in the same universe/world. People who abide by continuity try not to contradict what came before. Because Gwen Stacy died in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, she doesn't show up in comics books relating tales of Spider-Man after that event.]

Mark tried to keep everything together for the company as it related to continuity, and he really shaped what Marvel became in the '80s and '90s.

I could write so much more about this man, and maybe I will when I have more time.

I just wanted to acknowledge the anniversary of his passing, and to give a "shout out" to him, if he's out there in Comic Book Heaven with the other greats.

Thanks, Gru. You are missed.