Power Man & Iron Fist 78 page 6 by Kerry Gammill & Ricardo Villamonte

Sweet Christmas!

To celebrate my recent reading of this 80s hidden gem of a run, I'm uploading this amazing page.

Greatly written by Mary Jo Duffy, this buddy book was a truly excellent read offering the longest run by Kerry Gammill ever had on any title. In my opinion, it's probably his strongest work as well. Despite producing close to 350 pages over the course of his run, pages from him rarely surface (just check the usual sources) so I'm super glad to own such a great page, from the latter part of the run (Gammill's penultimate issue, a very strong one on all fronts called "Slasher") where he had mastered the characters and made them his own.

Kerry Gammill is a super strong artist and exceptional storyteller (John Byrne level in my book) who has often not been blessed with the more suitable inkers for his style. Proof of that is the unique issue of the run which he penciled and inked, which is simply gorgeous. That being said, Ricardo Villamonte who inked him on most of the rest provided inks that ranged from rushed (sometime with the help of D.Hands, many friends pitching in to save deadlines with the expected results) to suitable and very nice in many cases. This issue falls in the latter category.

This page is particularly fluid as it only offers 5 panels whereas most Gammill pages on PM & IF can count up to ten of them. In the later part of his run, his storytelling breathed a bit more with 5 or 6 panels per page. I suspect M.J.Duffy's dense scripts had a lot to do with that but short of asking either of them, we'll never know.

The first panel shows us Cage down for having had his head smashed by a portable radio (bits of which you can see falling from his head). He's super tough but he obviously felt that.

In the second panel we have the former owner of the abovementioned radio. It offers a typical Gammill face and the way he very often uses hands to convey emotions through body language.

Cage is out for revenge in the third panel. Even though he is still kneeling on the ground, you can perfectly tell of his intent and his adversary's surprise.

The fourth panel is the obvious money shot with Cage doing his thing. It offers Gammill's usual super strong figure work and great sense for action.

And in the last panel, the woman the heroes prevented from being rapped is becoming prey again from one of the tugs recovering. Again, strong figure work and attention to body language. Plus, that last panel cliffhanger prompts you to turn the page to see what will happen.

You will notice that 3 panels showcase great detailed backgrounds that never get in the way of the figure work. A lost art like I wrote last week. One could even argue that Gammill's only fault was to be overzealous in that regard as the earlier part of his run would offer similar backgrounds in every panel. I find that this page is better balanced for the lack of it in two of them, certainly in the splashy panel which doesn't need any.

Now the only defect of the page is the absence of Iron Fist and I certainly wouldn't mind to add a Gammill page with both of them down the line, despite owning several great sketches with him or both heroes by Gammill.

To sum it up: What.An.Artist!

2023 update: that 4rth panel is seen in pur pencil version in the art of Gammill artbook published by Vanguard.