Welcome to Defenders December (and early January)! Most of my Defenders stuff is in Essential volumes, so it's black-and-white for the next several weeks. Marvel decided they should have another team book, except all the remaining popular characters - Hulk, Namor, Doctor Strange, and the Silver Surfer - are unsociable weirdos. Hence the alleged "non-team".
Steve Englehart's workaround in the first year of the book seems to be having missions or crises that flow into one another and force those four to hang around. Namor is nearly sacrificed to the Nameless Ones in issue 1, narrowly saved by Strange and Banner. Namor claims he was ambushed by the Surfer, so they go hunting for him in issue 2. That leads to the Nameless Ones, and ultimately Strange's (and the Hulk's) attempt to help Barbara Norris, which leads to both Valkyrie's recreation, and eventually the Black Knight being cursed to become a statue. Which leads into the Avengers-Defenders War.
Basically, there aren't many breaks for any of them to say, "Nuts to this, I'm outta here!" Namor does, eventually, take off, and Strange drags him back with magic. The sea king takes that with as much grace and good humor as you'd expect.
Englehart also tried to combat this by adding characters that really didn't have anywhere else to go. Banner, in the moments where he's in control rather than the Hulk. The Surfer, occasionally. But mostly Valkyrie, who isn't sure who or what exactly she is. Len Wein does the same with Nighthawk not long after, who nearly dies standing against Nebulon the Celestial Man and the other members of the Squadron Sinister. Hawkeye, too, for a hot minute, during one of his stints being angry at the Avengers but having no real drive.
Sal Buscema's the penciler, with a variety of inkers over the course of a run that extends beyond Englehart or Wein's tenures. And you pretty much know what you're going to get with him. The art's clean and straightforward. Big, dynamic poses and punches, combined with conventional layouts and in-panel staging. Nothing flashy, but he makes sure you have all the information you need to have as a reader, and that it's easy to follow.
5 comments:
The comic itself was absolute 90's garbage, but the premise of Secret Defenders was a quite decent stab at the "non-team" thing. As I recall, Strange casts a spell that summons whoever is the best fit for that particular crisis, so every issue has a different random team-up.
The idea was better than the execution.
Yeah, I think the first mission's roster was Darkhawk, Spider-Woman, Wolverine, and Nomad. I got a couple of issues of it, although it'll be years before I get to the "S" titles.
Busiek and Larsen's Defenders run, which I'll get to in a few weeks, took a different approach, by having external circumstances force them together, and for them to all hate each other's guts.
I remember quite enjoying the Busiek/Larsen series but I also remember that it got panned at the time.
They put a quote from Comics International calling it 'the worst comic ever produced' on the cover of issue 8, which is kind of strange, but whatever floats their boats.
I was writing for CI around then and I'm pretty sure that wasn't me!
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