Wednesday, May 18, 2011

'Uncanny X-men' #177 and 'New Mutants' #11

We kick off our look-back at Assistant Editors' Month with a Double-Shot of mutants...and Eliot R. Brown!
As impossible as it seems today, in 1983 there were only two monthly titles dedicated to Marvel's mutants. Heck, a year earlier there was only 'Uncanny X-men'. Assistant Editor Eliot R. Brown was "filling in" for regular Editor Louise Jones (later known as Louise Simonson) on 'Uncanny X-men' and 'The New Mutants' during AEM.

A little background about Brown:In addition to being an Assistant Editor, he also contributed many sketches of Marvel vehicles, weapons and technology to 'The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe' and other Marvel "manuals". You can find examples of Brown's technical sketches at his official site.

We begin with a look at 'Uncanny X-men' #177. The cover is normal, with the exception of the Assistant Editors "warning" on the bottom left.




There's nothing funny or offbeat about the story(it's not very good, but this wasn't a very good period of this title). But instead of the letters page, we get a visit from Brown. He's seen here sketching the X-men's SR-71 Blackbird. Professor X thinks he's taking too long and does something we've never seen him do before:




In 'New Mutants' #11, Brown shows up in the corner box, with antlers drawn on his head!






Here's a closeup:



The story inside is standard New Mutants fare, continuing a story from the previous issue. But at the end, Brown announces a "contest" for the readers:



I wonder if anyone entered that contest?

FYI:In addition to starring in both these back-up features, Brown also wrote and drew them.
Thankfully, Brown wrote and appeared in other titles during AEM, I'll discuss those issues here another time, but that's all for now,

J.A.




2 comments:

Jason Shayer said...

I love those moose horns!

Chris Munn said...

Just found your site, great stuff! I was a kid when AEM first ran, and I remember a lot of these comics. My question concerns the X-Men issues above, I always thought that their part of AEM was Uncanny X-Men Annual # 7, where the X-Men had to go on a scavenger hunt with the Impossible Man. It came out the same month as the rest of the AEM issues, any thoughts?