Mark Hazzard: Merc #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMark Hazzard: Merc #1 is the opening chapter of one of Marvel's most deliberately grounded Copper Age experiments — a superhero-free war-and-espionage title set within the New Universe, Marvel's ambitious 1986 attempt to build a shared reality completely divorced from its established mythology. The issue introduced a protagonist defined not by powers but by moral compromise: a Vietnam veteran turned mercenary navigating the collision of professional violence and paternal responsibility, a character archetype rarely centered in mainstream superhero publishing at the time. As one of four New Universe titles conceived by Archie Goodwin, the series represented Peter David's earliest work steering a monthly Marvel title, and his four-issue run established a tone — family estrangement as a cost of the soldier's life — that set the series apart from the more straightforwardly action-oriented books that followed. The title holds a minor structural footnote in New Universe history: alone among the four first-year cancellations, it earned and published an annual before the plug was pulled.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 12 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
CGC 9.8 ▾ $154–$165 2 listings
Raw — VF/NM ▾ $0.99–$8.5 4 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $1–$22.99 20 listings
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The series was conceived by veteran editor Archie Goodwin as part of the eight-title New Universe launch, itself the centerpiece of Marvel's 25th-anniversary celebration under editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. The New Universe was designed from the ground up as a pre-planned shared universe — the first such formal attempt in Marvel's publishing history — premised on a 'world outside your window' realism with no magic, hidden races, or supertechnology. Budget crises caused by parent company Cadence Industries' threatened sale of Marvel dramatically curtailed Shooter's original plans to recruit top-tier talent, forcing the line to rely heavily on newer or less-prominent creators; Peter David, still early in his Marvel career, was handed the inaugural writing duties on Merc, with Gray Morrow providing pencils and inks for the first two issues. Christopher Priest, then working under the editorial credit 'Jim Owsley,' served as the book's editor, with Shooter holding the editor-in-chief credit.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Mark Hazzard (Marcus Hazzard), Mal Rossi, Louis 'Treetop' Barrington, Scott Hazzard, Joan Hazzard, Leonard Hazzard, and Margaret Hazzard — all introduced in this single issue.
- Written by Peter David; interior art (pencils and inks) by Gray Morrow; cover by John Buscema with inks by Josef Rubinstein.
- Edited by Christopher Priest (credited in the issue as Jim Owsley), with Jim Shooter as editor-in-chief.
- On-sale date: July 8, 1986; cover-dated November 1986 — one of eight simultaneous New Universe launch titles marking Marvel's 25th anniversary.
- Story title: 'Bad for Business!' — the inaugural chapter sets Hazzard up as a mercenary who broke a contract, leaving him struggling to find work and establishing his estrangement from his ex-wife and son Scott.
- Exists in two editions: a Direct (newsstand) edition and a Newsstand variant, both from 1986.
- Peter David wrote only the first four issues (#1–4); Doug Murray took over for the remaining eight issues (#5–12) and the Annual, shifting the book's focus away from family drama toward pure mercenary action.
- The character received a 20th-anniversary revival in Amazing Fantasy #18 (February 2006) as an eight-page backup, part of the Untold Tales of the New Universe event serving as a preamble to Warren Ellis's newuniversal relaunch.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Magnum Spesial #4/1991 (1991)
Variants (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.