BHOC: DEFENDERS #74

Another issue of DEFENDERS came out, and this one was a bit more to my liking. It was Earthbound, for one, and it introduced me to Steve Gerber’s creation the Foolkiller. I wasn’t familiar with the character prior to this–I hadn’t much read MAN-THING or similar monster/horror titles. But I immediately understood his shtick, and he looked like a costumed super-villain, which was all i asked for. I don’t know why the decision was made to color hold portions of his figure in blue on this cover, but it certainly did make it stand out, even though it looks to my eye to be a misprint. That red color of his bodysuit doesn’t match his established attire either, nor what he wears in the book, so I assume that somebody figured that he’d stand out better here in primary colors. It grabbed my attention, so it worked.

Ever since Steve Gerber had taken over DEFENDERS a few years earlier, his trademark zaniness and bizarro approach had become the default setting for DEFENDERS. As opposed to the first year or so of the title’s existence, when it was just a typical Marvel super-team title with an eclectic cast, under Gerber the stories got aggressively weird. They were at once more unlikely and absurd and yet also had more direct meaning than the typical adventures then being published. So it’s no surprise that those that followed after him tried to continue things on in his spirit. The flaw in this approach was that nobody else was Steve Gerber. Nobody else had his cracked viewpoint on the world or his particular finesse for satire and commentary. As a result, DEFENDERS became a title that was simply weird for the sake of being weird. This was one of the factors, I think, which kept me from embracing it, though I continued to purchase the book month after month regardless. I was that kind of stupid comic book reader.

New DEFENDERS scribe Ed Hannigan was no exception to the Gerber influence, and so he proceeded to bring in Gerber characters one after another in an attempt to tap into that author’s personal zeitgeist, to diminishing returns. All of which brings us around to the Foolkiller, a vigilante killer dedicated to wiping out those who do not live an artistic or poetic life. He was a bit of a strange concept, one that Gerber revisited twice with two separate individuals behind the mask, altering and widening the parameters of the second’s crusade to avoid the limitations of the first’s. On the surface, he’s a decent sort of a foe for the Defenders. However, Hannigan doesn’t really have a whole lot to say about society through the mouthpiece of the Foolkiller–he’s just a weird fanatic creating a problem for the Defenders to cope with. Accordingly, this two-parter is a bit flat and stale.

The issue opens with the Foolkiller appearing in the doorway of Professor Turk’s college office, seeking his alter ego Lunatik. Instead, he finds Dollar Bill, a recurring cast member, who hears out Foolkiller’s story and suggests that maybe what he ought to do is to join the Non-Team. And there’s about to be a vacancy. Cutting over to the Long Island Riding Academy that serves as the non-team’s headquarters, we and they are startled to learn that Kyle Richmond, formerly Nighthawk, is giving up his wings. He’s under investigation for his business dealings and given the scrutiny, his lawyers have advised him that he ought to give up his vigilante activities. But he tells his friends that they can keep using the Riding Academy as their hangout if they want to. I don’t know that Kyle’s pronouncement merited a splash page as seen above, though–it’s a pretty dull image to devote an entire page to. Jack Kirby could have made this sort of portrait shot work, but artist Herb Trimpe simply isn’t in his league in this arena.

But this is a Marvel super hero comic book, and that means that some action is required before too long. And it takes an unlikely and coincidental form. As Dollar Bill and the Foolkiller–accompanied by Gerber’s other creation Richard Rory for no particular reason–take the train out towards the Riding Academy so Bill can introduce Foolkiller to the Defenders, the train comes to an abrupt stop–it turns out that the Hulk just happens to be sitting on the tracks brooding. The sudden stop jostles Foolkiller’s hat from his head, causing him to get uptight and want to kill the fool responsible. But drawing down on the Hulk would be a suicidal idea, and so Bill is able to calm him down and get him to take his seat once more.

The problem is that the Hulk’s reverie has been interrupted by the arrival and sudden stop of the train, and he’s not happy about it. He picks up a nearby boxcar to throw at the train before thinking the better of it. But he does show off his anger by demolishing the other track and a nearby train station–all to applause of the passengers on the train, who have all had horror stories about commuting on the line. Confused and unsatisfied at the response to his actions, the Hulk decides that this is a good time to exit this particular comic book, and he leaps away. But this whole bit of nonsense adequately checks off the action box for the issue, and so now the story can proceed.

Eventually, the travelers reach the Riding Academy, where Bill hopes that the Defenders will be able to disarm and neutralize the crazy person in his midst, Foolkiller. But it turns out that Dollar Bill has outsmarted himself. See, Foolkiller is familiar with the Defenders–possibly from the very documentary that Bill himself had filmed and edited–and he considers them all fools that need to be put down. So drawing his disintegrator pistol, he fires off a first shot at Valkyrie that seems certain to set off a pitched battle. But any fighting will go down next time, because this is where this issue is To Be Continued. I can’t say that I found this issue especially satisfying, for all that it was more engaging than the previous Tunnelworld epic. Not a whole lot happens, and a bunch of the page count is devoted to a diversion. The whole thing is kind of simple-minded and childish somehow, difficult to take seriously. It’s Gerber absurdity without the intelligence behind it, which made it a vapid package.

Apparently, enough readers had been writing in about the strangeness of the series (and, I suspect, new Editor in Chief Jim Shooter may have expressed some discontent with the direction of the book) that editors Al Milgrom and Jo Duffy felt compelled to print a message on the letters page guaranteeing that all of this craziness will come to an end in a few short issues’ time, and we’ll be back to having regulation Marvel stories from there on in. They made this attempt, but it didn’t really pan out that way. While the Gerber influence would recede, DEFENDERS remained an off-kilter series all the way to the end of its run some seventy-plus issues down the line. This Defenders Dialogue letters page also included a note from future writer Bob Rodi, a regular contributor especially to DC editor Julie Schwartz’s letter pages. Here, he breaks down what he thinks the deal is with Valkyrie following recent revelations and adjustments made to the character.