Issue(s): Power Man & Iron Fist #80
Cover Date: Apr 82
Title: "Rich girls"
Credits:
Mary Jo Duffy - Writer
Denys Cowan - Penciler
Ricardo Villamonte - Inker
Denny O'Neil - Editor

Review/plot:
Power Man and Iron Fist are hired to prevent a kidnapping of a pair of rich girls by Montenegro.

It's a decent story with some cute moments.

Denys Cowan begins a run on this series after doing White Tiger back-ups on Peter Parker and some stuff for DC. I'm not a big fan of his sketchy style (it looks sloppy to me) but he does go on to have a long, mostly well-received career and become a founder of Milestone Comics.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• One of the kidnapped girls is the same girl that Danny and Luke rescued in Power Man & Iron Fist #74.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I'm not too familiar with Denys Cowan but the images you posted don't look "sketchy" to me. In fact, looking at the images before reading your review I was thinking "Who is this guy? He's pretty good." I don't recall seeing much of his other work so I don't know if this issue is atypical, but to me it's pretty smooth.

That above is not the best of Cowan. He was excellent on a book he did with O'Neill, THE QUESTION, which was a non-super-powered noir title with elements of Asian culture. Cowan was never the tidiest illustrator, but he had a look and atmosphere that were right for a kind of writing. There was a touch of that Gene Colan moodiness I like so much.

He told a funny story once about surprising fans at conventions when they learned he was an African-American man. They were predisposed to expect mostly white people creating the comics at that time, and they further thought the spelling "Denys" was a feminine variant, so they were all excited to maybe see a cute white chick. Er, no.

Cowan was a big step down from Kerry Gamill on this series. His artwork was chicken scratchy and stiff. I felt that this series really needed an artist who could accurately depict the differences in fighting styles between Luke and Danny, which Cowan couldn't. He seemed really lost in the fight scenes with Iron Fist, reminicent of Don Heck (see the final battle between Cage/Fist and Sabretooth/Constrictor. What should have been a great showdown reminicent of the previous two fights became stiff figures unable to look fluid), IMO of course. But Gamill saved the series when Jo Duffy's plots fell flat. When he left the series dragged on till Busiek.

Oh, fuck, The Question is one of the best comics of all time. Belongs in the same league with other proto-Vertigo titles like Moore's Swamp Thing and Morrison's Doom Patrol

Cowan was great on Deathlok.