CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO SEE A FULL SIZED SCAN OF THE ART
Flushed from his success at DC and Black Lightning, Trevor made overtures to Marvel Comics in the late '70s, with a postive result. Marvel were more than happy to poach an up and coming artist from DC and promptly placed Trevor on the book, Power Man & Iron Fist. The irony was, as Trevor had been hired at DC to draw a black character mainly due to his own skin colour, at Marvel he was again assigned one of the black characters.
"The PowerFist jobs were fun to do," says Trevor, "Yes, I literally did walk down the street from DC and into Marvel's offices and picked up a job that same day--that was one of the perks of being the "500 pound gorilla" that "DC Comics' first Black artist" carried. Small compensation for the incessant (and annoying) stereotyping that also came with it. I also walked right back up that same street, after Shooter fired me for drawing in my own style, and got a job from DC Comics the same way, too. Security was considerably more lax in major office buildings back then, so I didn't need an appointment, either way."
Contents & Editorial © Copyright & ™ 2009 ACAB
Art & Text © Copyright &™ 2009 Trevor Von Eeden
All characters © Copyright &™ Marvel Comics
Trevors run on Power Man & Iron Fist saw him inked by three very different inkers. His first two issues saw him inked by Frank Springer, a very good artist in his own right but a man who just didn't seem capable of inking Trevors pencils. His next two inkers had excellent results - the seasoned Dan Green, who had made a name for himself by inking John Byrne on Marvel Team-Up and Iron Fist, and Al Gordon, who would go on to be one of the premier inkers of the 1980s and 1990s.
Trevors first two issues, #56 and #57, saw him drawing an early cross over with the then 'new' X-Men, albeit a reduced version of the team in the form of Cyclops, Storm and Nightcrawler, all of whom appear both in an out of costume. The storyline revolved around the return of the Living Monolith, and while the art was good on some pages, on others it fell flat. These issues would make one of the few times that Trevor would draw the X-Men professionally.
RIGHT: The 'New' X-Men, in street clothes, appear for the first time in issue #57.
BELOW: Same issue, last page, the 'New' X-Men, in costume.
"A few years ago, Bob Shaw introduced me to a couple of twin brothers at a Big Apple convention in NYC, named Guy and Ian Dorian--also artists," recalls Trevor. "Turns out they were fans of my work, and the first book of mine that they'd both liked was PowerMan and Iron Fist #57. Here's the 11x17 drawing of PowerMan, Iron Fist, Storm, and The Living Monolith, that'd I did specifically for these two guys."
RIGHT: The splash page to Trevor's third issue, inked by Dan Green. This issue saw the introduction and first appearance of a character that would eventually slip into obscurity when the title folded, El Aguila. El Aguila's origin and design was clearly intended to mimic that of Zorro and there was some outcry over the non-realistic depictions of Spain provided by Marvel in the title - Madrid was often shown as being a small village populated by donkeys, as far from the truth as could be.
BELOW: El Aguila's first appearance.
LEFT & BELOW: For his last issue, Trevor was paired with Al Gordon. This art team saw one of the best Marvel issues that Trevor has produced that wasn't inked by himself. The shame was that he wasn't assigned Gordon again at Marvel, thus the potential shown in this story was never fully realised.
