Mary Skrenes (pronounced skree-neez) (born November 3, 1947), sometimes credited as Virgil North, is an American comic book writer and screenwriter. She may be best known as the co-creator of Omega the Unknown for Marvel Comics (along with Steve Gerber), although she also worked on other Marvel characters such as Defenders and Guardians of the Galaxy. She got her first professional work for DC Comics in the early 1970s, writing horror and romance stories under the tutelage of editor Dick Giordano.
Skrenes wrote five episodes of the Jem animated series that aired from 1985 to 1988.
Career[]
Skrenes attended Nevada Southern University (now the University of Nevada at Las Vegas). While working on the student newspaper, she became friends with artist Alan Weiss. In the summer of 1969, she accompanied Weiss and his girlfriend to the Comic Art Convention in New York, where she made contacts in the comics industry. By 1971, she was writing horror and romance stories for DC Comics under the tutelage of editor Dorothy Woolfolk. She also published a number of horror stories for DC under the name Virgil North, and began a long collaboration with Steve Skeates. According to Skeates, a number of his mystery stories were actually co-written with Skrenes, but she insisted on submitting them under Skeates's name alone because of bad blood between her and editor Joe Orlando. Due to a combination of this arrangement with Skeates and DC's practice at the time to not always credit creators in anthology books, her first solo byline did not appear until 1974, on "The Casket of Hsien Hang!" for Marvel's 1974 series The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #5.
She began collaborating with Steve Gerber at Marvel. In addition to co-creating the titular character of Omega the Unknown with Gerber, Skrenes created the supporting characters Amber Grant and Dian Wilkins. She was also the creator of and inspiration for Beverly Switzler, the companion of Howard the Duck, another of Gerber's creations. She also worked on other Marvel titles such as Defenders and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Skrenes wrote several episodes of Jem, G.I. Joe and The Transformers in the 1980s. In 2004, she reunited with Gerber to write the short-lived comic Hard Time. For contractual reasons, she was credited only on Season 2; however, the first issue stated that she had been involved with the series from the beginning.
Jem episodes written by Mary Skrenes[]
- The World Hunger Shindig (1986)
- In Stitches (1986)
- Island of Deception (1986)
- Scandal (1987)
- Mardi Gras (1987)