For client Damon Owens I inked his 65th commission over my 11th Darryl Banks image for Damon’s “Cage Match” theme, this being my 4th. This event in Marvel history was so cool as Eric Josten had been the first Power Man since Avengers#21 (1965) and appeared as a recurring villain over the years, even joining the Grim Reaper’s first Lethal Legion. Luke Cage appeared as a new hero at Marvel in 1972 in Hero For Hire as Power Man and after the series was changed to Power Man, in the 21st issue the two met to fight over the right of the name. Eric lost and after fighting the Avengers again in Count Nefaria’s Lethal Legion under the PM alias, he went through an identity crisis to rival Hank Pym. He was briefly The Smuggler when he confronted Spider-Man a few years later and then the next Goliath when he gained growing powers and fought Iron Man and subsequently became a nemesis of the Avengers again, joining the Masters of Evil twice. He later went straight and became the Thunderbolts member Atlas originally formed by Baron Zemo. The ironic thing is that after decades as PM, Luke Cage stopped using that title and was known as simply Cage, with another fellow using the PM identity recently and working with Cage’s old partner Iron Fist.

This 8.5X11 art on 2-ply board was inked with brush, micron markers, Pitt Marker and a Pitt brush marker. It was completed on 9/25/11.

Damon’s 66th piece was my 4th effort in his “West Wing” themed gallery pieces…I’ve done a few western commissions for him previously but didn’t list them for this theme name.
Gunmaster is one of the more obscure characters from that gallery and unlike Cage and Josten, I don’t know his history. But I do know that this was my 12th time inking Banks and the 8.5X11 image was rendered with the same tools as above and completed on 9/27/11.

Darryl Banks’ CAF gallery: http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerydetail.asp?gcat=11377