As I’ve spoken about several times as we’ve looked at assorted issues that I bought over the years, DEFENDERS was a series whose best days were behind it by the time I started reading it. For a long stretch of time, it simply wasn’t very good–yet, as a dutiful Marvelite, I kept on buying it every month. I honestly could not tell you why, it’s just one of those crazy things that comic book readers do. But matters began to look up as the title neared its 100th issue and a new writer, J.M. DeMatteis took over the series. Partnered with the reliable-if-not-exciting Don Perlin, DeMatteis began to shift the book in the direction of the supernatural, and invested more attention into the characters. The mystery of the Six-Fingered hand caught my attention and kept me reading. And now, a year or two later, while the thrust of the series was beginning to ebb a bit, it was still on solid footing. But that didn’t stop me from coldly cutting it when my pull list had grown too unwieldy to afford.
The first issue of DEFENDERS that I ever read was this GIANT-SIZE one that was bought for my younger brother Ken. It’s a really good comic book, but I was a bit creeped out by it. In the course of the story, supporting player Trish Starr loses her arm, and I found that unsettling–that wasn’t the sort of thing that was meant to happen in super hero comics. So while did eventually end up with the book, I didn’t give it a whole lot of mind. As a kid, I didn’t even really like looking at it, so disturbing had I found that moment.
The first issue of the series that I bought was this one, a fill-in story written by Chris Claremont that was crafted such that it could have run in any of a number of series, including Chris’s own MS MARVEL. I have no idea why I picked it up, apart from maybe having some extra loose change that week and deciding to give it a shot. It was an entertaining enough outing, but I wasn’t interested in any of the mainstay characters enough to keep picking it up, at least not yet. That would take a few months still.
I came on board as a regular reader with DEFENDERS #60, although this was seemingly less a decision and more a case of manifest destiny. As I was growing more and more enmeshed in the Marvel Universe, it seemed somehow blasphemous to not be following a Marvel super hero series, even one that I wasn’t all that wild about. So purchase it I did, for years and years afterwards. The tail end of writer David A. Kraft’s run was pretty fun and the issues that I enjoyed the most. His successor Ed Hannigan’s stint…not so much.
Cut to some sixty issues later and writer J.M. DeMatteis was using the book to explore his own thoughts on spirituality through a number of characters he’d brought into the series. These included the Gargoyle, who was an elderly man whose spirit had been housed within a demonic bods, and Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, a character introduced during Marvel’s big monster/horror push of the early 1970s who had lain fallow pretty much ever since. They both joined the orbit of Valkyrie, Nighthawk and Hellcat, who were still the core of the title.
By the time of this final issue, the series was also regularly including Hank McCoy, the Beast of X-Men and Avengers fame, and the Overmind, an obscure Fantastic Four villain whose body had been inhabited by a sextet of disembodied telepaths. Don’t worry about it, strange concepts always seemed to follow the Defenders around. What’s more, in a daffy but compelling plotline, Hellcat was revealed to be the daughter of Satan, a development that was thereafter revealed as a ruse. But the aftermath of this storyline put Patsy Walker and Daimon Hellstrom together romantically as a couple, and sealed her fate for the next two decades.
In tis particular issue, having realized his feelings for Patsy and unable to divest himself of the Darksoul that is his heritage as the Son of Satan, Daimon Hellstrom seeks out a Monatery run by an old friend who has been a help to him in the past. There, he attempts to get in touch with his true self, to let the human half of Daimon Hellstrom find itself and have dominance over his more sinister aspect. While doing so, he befriends another seeker such as himself called Joshua, an amnesiac. That’s always a bad sign in comics, and this is no different–as Joshua is really the obscure Fantastic Four foe the Miracle Man, and once his memories are reawakened, he winds up sucking the Darksoul right out of Daimon’s body, leaving the hero stricken and himself bursting with dark power. Elsewhere, Patsy has felt Daimon’s anguish through her returning mental powers–and so the issue ends with the Defenders racing to the rescue. To Be Continued!
It isn’t a terrible issue by any means, and it’s a damn sight better than a lot of the earlier DEFENDERS yarns that I’d partaken of. But still, it simply wasn’t enough to justify by sixty cents a month going forward. Don Perlin’s artwork was always straightforward and competent, and he was an extremely nice man. But it wasn’t exciting. it was very much in the spirit of the sort of diagrammatical storytelling that Editor in Chief Jim Shooter preferred. (Perlin was one of a small number of creators to shift over to Shooter’s new venture, Valiant, when it was first starting up, so he was clearly sympatico with Jim’s approach and aims.)
There wasn’t any return for me to DEFENDERS. Shortly after I’d stopped following it, the series was retooled as NEW DEFENDERS, a group built around the three discarded X-Men: The Beast, Iceman and the Angel. But it still hung on to a couple of the classic Defenders such as Valkyrie and Hellcat, and so it was a schizophrenic entity that wasn’t all that satisfying. In the end, the book was cancelled to make way for X-FACTOR, a series reuniting all five of those original X-Men. I did pick up the final issue of NEW DEFENDERS, #152, to see how it all came out. Dully. It all came out dully. But DEFENDERS was a thing of the past. It wasn’t until years later, after which I was already working at Marvel, that a new incarnation was brought back, SECRET DEFENDERS. It too was not great, and went through at least three changes of direction in its 25 issues. Myself and my writing partner of the time, Mike Kanterovich, wrote the last eleven issues of the book. And we didn’t do anything better with it than any of the many other people who came before us had done.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Probably a good time to leave Defenders. Right after this one, it’s starting the transformation to New Defenders, which I quite like too, but I always think this tail-end of the DeMatteis era is the last time it was a really great comic.
Not that I was reading it at the time, but as a teenager in the early nineties Defenders was one of the first comics (along with Alpha Flight) I went out of my way to collect in back issues, and I’ve always loved it. When Secret Defenders came out (I’ll have been 16) I bought it excitedly, thinking it would be the start of a new run of the same kind of thing. I stopped buying it after six issues, and I don’t think I even read the last couple of those. I didn’t even know you’d ever written it – sorry!
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I think the Defenders would work as Earths other mightiest, but unsanctioned, heroes. Loose alliance of high powered individuals, not the “non-team” nonsense. They don’t ask for permission. Only compromising when absolutely necessary, when they’re own initial efforts don’t succeed. Not just leftovers, or outcasts, but heroes that outclass most of their contemporaries. They’d make a lot of people nervous. And it distances them from (or in some cases sets up opposition with) the more widely tolerated, even celebrated, Avengers.
It’d be best if the original three and their early, cosmic recruit were included. Dr. Strange, the Hulk (w/ Banner), Namor, & the Silver Surfer. Then add in the current or new versions of the three other most frequently associated members. Nighthawk, from the most recent “Heroes Reborn” Squadron Supreme, & Jason Aaron’s last Avengers arc. And whatever incarnation is being used of the Valkyrie. Jane Foster, or the Val that resembles the actress Tessa Thompson.
And I’d suggest having Ava Ayala as Hellcat. How many feline heroes does Marvel need? “White Tiger” to me sounds more appropriate for someone from where the namesake animal is associated with. So, northeast Asia? I could see them taking on that Russian creep, Kraven the Hunter. But “Hellcat” doesn’t seem anchored to one specific geography. I’d scrap the yellow suit. Tom’s said before that the dark blue Hellcat suit failed. I disagree, but I think a black suit with red (and maybe a very few yellow) accessories might work better for the name. A red full-head mask. And maybe the amulet that gives Ava her powers is actually tied to some demonic force. Come on, work with it.
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I like non-Americans doing the same thing US heroes do and not worrying about geography. The Bengal, for example, is a Vietnamese villain — but if the Bengal tiger is what represents deadly stealth and power to him, why shouldn’t he use the name?
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I’ll admit I’m narrow-minded that way. And I was wrong about white Tigers only living in the wild in the Asia’s northeast. They’re found in India. But since the word Bengal, & Bengali are culturally & linguistically tied to India, & there’s hardly an abundance of Indian superbeings in the Marvel Comics Universe, it makes more sense to me to have that name be used by someone from where the animals come from. It could be a source of local pride. Tigers are the largest of the great cats.
I realize Tigers, even the Bengal, are mascots for American sports teams, & tigers aren’t indigenous to N. America. But we have other, smaller, “big cats”. I think it’s cool there was a Native American Puma. He was killed off years ago. Maybe there could be a new female Native version.
It’s just a personal preference. But DC’s Bronze Tiger’s a tougher case for me. Ben Turner’s such a cool character, I’d hate to mess with that. I know that’s arbitrary & inconsistent.
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I liked J.M. de Matteis’s work on The Defenders, but did not buy it. I would read it at book stores when I was in undergrad.
I had liked Engelhart, Wein & Gerbe’s runs, probably Gerber most of all. de Matteis (and Kraft were really talented and the Gerber legacy on The Defenders seemed to inspire them to be really audacious (if not quite featuring murderous Elves).,
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The main thing I remember from this era of DEFENDERS is how relentlessly depressing it was. That last panel is a good representation of the mood — the entire cast seemed to be in a perpetual state of existential despair. Which is kind of funny in retrospect, since DeMatteis would later be known as the scripter for Keith Giffen’s “Bwa-Ha-Ha” JUSTICE LEAGUE.
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I wanted to say this the last time but forgot: Defenders#126 ( December 1983 ) proved there was nothing wrong with Captain America’s Timely Comics origin [ Captain America#1 ( March 1941 ) Cap as a Super-Agent meant to be Captain America and not a Universal Soldier ( film ) ] — PROJECT OLYMPUS –Caribbean-based original version of SHIELD operation dedicated to the development of a new breed of superhuman answerable directly to the President of the United States. Seeing that during Timely Comics he wasn’t the only Super-Agent with U.S. government links: Excello ( U.S. Naval Intelligence — Mastermind Excello is his version of Incredible Hulk ), Fin ( U.S. Navy ), Merzah the Mystic ( worked for U.S. government ), Defender & Rusty ( U.S. Marines ) and the Fighting Yank ( U.S. Operative ). Plus Timely has a number of Heroes whose origins could be linked to Project: Rebirth even if their creation or empowerment didn’t take place there ( Had I input on The Marvel Project ( 2009 ) I would have had a scene in it like the one in Amalgam Comics’ Spider-Boy#1 ( April 1996 ) with Marvel & DC scientists at Project: Cadmus but with Timely Comics scientists: Professor Reinstein ( I hate the Erskine name ), Professor Albert Horton ( Timely Comics first name given in the last issue of Marvel Mystery Comics ), Professor Jordan ( Captain Wonder — wonder serum — he must have worked with Reinstein ), Professor Goettler ( Dynamic Man — Goettler must have worked with Horton — they should be Volton’s real co-creators and Dr. Nemisis should be booted over to Vita-Ray creation on Captain America’s origin ), Professor Philo Zog ( Electro’s creator — he and one of Flexo’s creator’s should have been identified as 2 of the 3 Scientists’ Guild members who came to see Horton about the Torch and not Enclave member who don’t resemble them ), Doctors Joel & Joshua Williams ( Flexo’s creators ), Professor Schmidt ( Microman’s shrinking serum ), Doctor John Storm ( whose serum empowered the Terror and also must have worked on the Vita-Ray since he some how used radio waves with the serum ), Professor Raymore Davis ( Top/Human Top’s origin ), Gary Gaunt ( who’s formula turned him into Throwback ( name taken from the title of his story comics.org gave it ) — Marvel Adventures Super Heroes#21 didn’t ignore his orgin or re-write his origin but explain why he experimented with rabbits — studying aggression — which makes sense if he was working on a chemical solution to Super-Solder Serums given to people minus the Vita-Ray ) and maybe Dr. Emil Frank ( Whizzer’s father ) or Dr. Gade ( Invisible Man ).
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Here is the Timely Comics scientist trying to create Universal Soldiers : Doctor Paul Atwell { Young Allies Comics#12 ( Spring 1944 ) 1st story — see his profile under the Japanese disembodied head The Head at marvunapp.com past eras WWII ] — Vitamin X supposedly able to make soldiers better.
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I forgot the Lil’ Prof ( creator of Rudy the Robot — has profile at marvunapp.com — the Lil’ Prof had no name but he could either be named after his creator Frank Pretsch or a legacy roboticist related to Dr. Oliver Broadhurst ( Machine Man ) or the Smythe family ( Spider-Slayers ) or the chubby Scientists’ Guild member in the original Human Torch first appearance could be a Smythe ) as a scientist who would be connected to Project: Rebirth had The Marvels Project been done right. As for the Defenders there are Michael Golden covers I just loved.
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Once I heard a theory, and it does not sound bad that the new defenders since they haven´t any of the original defenders (sure they had Gargoyle and Valkirie, but no Hulk, no Surfer, no Namor, no doctor stange) and they included many of the original X-men, they looked more a new reincarnation of The Champions more than a Defenders team.
Anyway, in my country they were published as a 11 pages complement of west coast avengers, so it was a slooow series and with some odd episodes (some of then not in a superheroic tone at all) But overall I liked them.
Sadly the Defenders after Kraft, including all the Demateiss era was never published in Spain, and it was one of these series I always wanted to read.
A few years ago finally I could do it and it was a good time, I don’t dislike Perlin, I grown accustomed to him, but I really think that the series could had more attention with a more Flashy artist. I remember reading episode #100 and thinking: “Man this is a really disturbing and psychological story, its almost like something from Vertigo, but since is penciled by by good old Perlin the tone seems more comical than it should.
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My sense of the DeMatteis/Perlin DEFENDERS was that J.M. wanted to do a sophisticated series for older readers a la X-MEN, while Perlin, while he had an interest in horror, simply couldn’t manage that. With another artist, this era of DEFENDERS could have caught a different audience and sold better, but I gather that wasn’t an option — during Carl Potts’ editorship, he was recruiting a fantastic set of artists that appealed to the more sophisticated audience, but it was still Perlin inside, which seemed to indicate that Perlin had a contract, he was an artist Shooter liked, and he was going to be on one or two Marvel books a month somewhere, so it might as well be here.
Conversely, Perlin with a writer who was more interested in slam bang action and appeal to a younger audience who wanted to see superheroes biff up bad guys, that could have worked out, too.
I keep thinking that if the horror-adventure group idea spun out into its own book with the right artist, it could have been a hit, while DEFENDERS could have been retooled around popular characters and straightforward adventures. And you’d wind up with two good books rather than one struggling one.
Luckily, there’s no way to test this idea, so I can’t be proven wrong!
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Hi, Kurt. I’ve read elsewhere that JM & Perlin became good friends while both worked on this series. Don having a contract would’ve kept him on “The Defenders”, regardless. And also after Peter B.Gillis started writing it. Maybe the friendship helped keep JM on it for however long he did.
I think I liked Perlin’s work more than I did Herb Trimpe’s. If I remember right, I saw Perlin’s work inks over Sal Buscema’s work somewhere, & I liked it.
But the New Defenders was being published, I rarely bought it. I’d associated the Defenders with Nighthawk, and he was long gone. And the interiors never seemed to match the striking covers. The pages’ visuals suffered by comparison.
It wasn’t until the series you and Hi Duffy wrote decades later, drawn by artists like Ivan Reis and Tom Simmons that the characters looked as good as I’d hoped for earlier.
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I don’t for a moment doubt that they became friends — Don was and presumably still is a very affable guy, and working together with congenial partners can be a wonderful experience. I just think the writing and art were a mismatch. It’s funny how that can work — Claremont and Byrne didn’t get along but produced very commercial work, and the same can be said for Kirby and Lee, and even moreso Ditko and Lee. But friends enjoying working together, there’s just no guarantee it’ll work. Nor that it won’t, of course.
I wish there’d been a place for artists like Perlin to make a solid living even as comics became more of a direct-market product that wasn’t excited by their work. Books for young readers, I dunno.
“It wasn’t until the series you and Hi Duffy wrote decades later, drawn by artists like Ivan Reis and Tom Simmons that the characters looked as good as I’d hoped for earlier.”
I just wish we’d managed to have one penciler on that series, but sadly, such was not to be.
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Is there a bright side, in that readers got to see 2 different but really good styles? I hope the communication didn’t suffer, or ideas lost. Just for me, my enjoyment of the book didn’t suffer from those 2 artists’ takes.
Nighthawk was a favorite, so I enjoyed as many good interpretations as I could find. I still have a shirt with the great Carlos Pacheco’s drawing of Nighthawk. One of the best images of the character I’ve seen.
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“Is there a bright side, in that readers got to see 2 different but really good styles?”
For my part, at least, I don’t think so. While it’s possible for two unlikely collaborators add up to more than the sum of their parts, in this case I think de Matteis’s stories didn’t get the visualization they deserved, and in turn Perlin didn’t get to draw the kind of thing he was best at.
I think if you teamed, say, Perlin with Mantlo, and de Matteis with Brent Anderson (not that both of them weren’t busy on other stuff), you’d have gotten more effective finished comics.
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Sorry, I meant Ivan & Tom S. on the Defenders series you & Mary Jo wrote.
But I hear you on the rest. JM & Brent would’ve made a fine team on the Defenders. Same for Bill & Don.
Thanks.
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“Sorry, I meant Ivan & Tom S. on the Defenders series you & Mary Jo wrote.”
Ah. I’ll mention that I don’t know who Tom S. is — our pencilers were Ivan, Matt Haley, Dan Jurgens, Chris Batista and Luke Ross.
And while having a variety of artists can be fun, if you’re doing an anthology book or a set of short stories or something, it’s much less fun when you’re telling a single 6 1/2 part story, and you want the characterizations and attitudes and costumes and such to be consistent from issue to issue. And since the artists were being brought in to save a book that was badly behind schedule, none of them had the time to work their way into the job, just to hit the ground running and draw pages as fast as they could.
Any one of them, for the whole series, would have been good, and some would have been great. But 5 pencilers over 6 issues (and a prologue) is a recipe for a mess. It was a miracle it came out as well as it did.
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My, fault! Sorry, I blanked. Tom Simmons was Matt Haley’s inker on your Defenders. Thanks for the explanation. Good points about consistency, characterizations, etc. Yeah, I can only imagine the challenges that would bring.
I also forgot there were 3 other people drawing the other issues. Dan’s rings a bell. Chris & Luke’s I’d have to dig up, though I think I remember what Chris’s style looks like.
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“Tom Simmons was Matt Haley’s inker on your Defenders.”
Dan Panosian inked Matt on THE ORDER.
But now I’ve placed him. He inked Matt on GHOST, and various other projects.
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Dan, “he comes from the land of Panosia”. “Drink & Draw”. Only seen a few. The episode with Klaus Janson was very good. The each inked a gorilla drawn by Siminson. Was great to hear them talk about Giordano, Joe Kubert.
Ace artist. Writing a Western series, now. I think. I bought it months ago. Pretty true grit.
sorry I flubbed on Matt’s inker. Your memory’s way sharper.
Tganjs!🙏
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I actually always liked Perlin on Defenders because his style was not tailored to the bizarre and horror. I think he added something by making the eldritch evil prosaic rather than fantastical. That’s just my personal taste since I know I’m in the minority about it. It’s also why I liked Calmee when he did Alpha Flight.
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I read the J.M era last year, finally because it was not published back in the day here, and I clearly remember reading number 100 and thinking: “Man this is practically Vertigo stuff, but since is penciled by Perlin, there is a mismatch in what they told and the presentation 😦
Also Kurt you have any idea what was behind the relaunch with the new defenders? because that team with no original defenders and with half the original Xmen looked like a second try of the Champions. But I don’t think that was intentional.
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I’d long given up the Defenders by this point. Mixed view of Gerber, hated everything after him. Didn’t hate DeMatteis but I didn’t like him enough to start buying.
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Tom, your experience with this era of the Defenders closely parallels my own. I jumped on board during the Six-Fingered Hand saga and periodically continued to follow the title until this issue (#120).
I’ll suggest that the trend towards supernatural or mystical adventures were convenient pretense for DeMatteis’ interest in the spiritual (issues of the soul). Dr. Strange confronted the pure supernatural. Iron Man dealt with capital. Daredevil was ostensibly “legal” issues. Fantastic Four focused on science. The Defenders under DeMatteis seemed interested in the care and nurturing of the soul; St. Augustine via Marvel Comics. Possibly why all of the characters were spiritually “lost” in ennui. But you can only maintain that ennui for a short duration. Even Shang Chi, the series closest in spirit (pun intended), showed a rising of the soul. It isn’t a good sign when Mrs Sassafrass (the team dog) embodies the joy of the series. I certainly thought Hank “the Swinger” McCoy was going to enliven this bunch.
I think Don Perlin rose and fell depending on his inker. Perlin’s art looked stronger when he inked himself on Werewolf by Night. Yes, his characters were always a little stiff and his character designs were never exciting. An inker with a strong, expressive line would give his art greater depth and balance. Abel and Demulder never gave him the power his pencils needed.
By issue #120, I remember wanting the title to a win. It needed an apotheosis that lifted the spirit. It is was a decent series but it felt like it was never going to get better. Hence why I dropped out at this point.
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Perlin’s work was straightforward and not without its charms, and while he makes some sense on paper for a superhero/horror book this era of the Defenders didn’t hook me.
On a separate note: GIant-size Defenders #4 is a favorite of mine. I think it’s a great showcase of the talents of Gerber and Heck….and its perhaps my favorite depiction of Hank Pym just before he (with Wasp) returns to the Avengers after a long hiatus.
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Having finally tracked down a cheap copy of Essential Defenders V1 I had begun rereading the whole series just as Covid hit. My feeling going into was it was a book that Marvel published out of rote and not of out of any strong affection or high sales numbers. I pictured Marvel editors meeting every month to discuss what books to keep publishing and when no one objected, well, not loudly anyways, another issue was produced. Rereading the series just reinforced that belief. The low point was the period around the Hulk TV show when the title became Kyle’s Kooky Quartet with just Nighthawk, Valkyrie, Hellcat, and the aforementioned Hulk. Just so bad. BTW, I was under the impression that the book was ultimately cancelled not so much because of X-Factor but because of Shooter making room for the New Universe.
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In the first half of the 1980s, Marvel’s cancellation threshold for the standard-size color newsstand titles was 125k unit sales per issue. (There were exceptions, but that was the rule.) The Defenders had been hovering around the threshold for a while when it was dropped.
No titles were cancelled to make room for the New Universe or anything else back then. Marvel was for sale in 1985-1986, and output was cranked up to the breaking point to maximize revenue. One of the first things Shooter did when New World bought the company was to push for output to be reduced. New World wasn’t sympathetic, and it contributed to their decision to side with Marvel president James Galton when the Shooter-Galton conflict had become untenable.
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#152 wasn’t great, but the rest of the issues written by Peter B. Gillis are some of my favourite Marvel comics. He did a couple with Groucho Marx as a taxi-driver, but mostly, it was reasonably serious. #150 was especially rip-roaring, and would have been a much better last issue. #152 felt like they’d told to cancel the series… now. It was abrupt, and just out of keeping with what came before.
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I started regularly reading the book during the Squadron guest shot in the #112 range. I liked the book as a pre teen and enjoyed the New Defenders (Ex X Men) up until it was canceled l, even though it got odd (with Cloud, etc).
I’ve def come to appreciate JM’s stuff more as an adult.
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I did a big reread of most of the late DEFENDERS stuff, and the nicest thing I can say about the DeMatteis run is “not for me.” I particularly did not like his Gargoyle character, whose “land sakes” persona rang phony to me.
I liked Peter Gillis’s scripts better, and for me a particular standout was the Red Wolf crossover. I admired how Perlin could use comparatively simple linework to make the Asgardian Trolls look extra grotesque, in contrast to the meaty way Kirby drew his Trolls.
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For a great Defenders revival, I would point to the group in Ultimates 2 no. 6 (that later got actual powers, which was fun too). Whatever you think of Ultimates, this part was a hoot.
Pym: “Are you really Satan’s son?”
Son of Satan: “Are you on crack?”
The Alternates comic from Dark Horse is also very much in the spirit of the classic Defenders IMHO.
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I have some “Alternates” ready to read. “Minor Threats”, too.
I saw there was an “Ultimate Defenders” back then. But despite Hitch’s art, I disliked the writing so much, & perceived these Defenders as an insult, I couldn’t stick with the series.
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