Welcome to yet another issue of RazorFine Presents Comic Spotlight as we take a look at comic heroes, villains, and everything in between. This week, for the first time, we shine the comic spotlight on a group. You might think we’d spotlight the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, or the Justice League. Nope, today we examine one of the wackiest teams ever formed – The Defenders.
The Defenders
Name: The Defenders
Members: The Silver Surfer, the Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Namor the Sub-Mariner
1st Appearance: Marvel Feature issue #1 (1971)
Final Appearance (original team): Defenders mini-series (2005)
To discover the key difference between the Defenders and other super-hero groups in the Marvel Universe, you only need to examine the roster. Although incredibly powerful, this isn’t exactly the foursome you would recruit to create a well functioning team. If New York is under attack and the Avengers or the Fantastic Four arrive the crowd cheers. If the Defenders arrive they check their shorts, because their arrival might not mean the situation had improved. Although the Defenders might save the day, there’s also a good chance they might destroy the city doing so.
Facing a crisis too large to deal with himself, Doctor Strange manipulated both Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Incredible Hulk into aiding him against extradimensional demons. Strange would later call on the pair as well as the Silver Surfer to fight supernatural and extraterrestrial battles too large for others to tackle.
Although the team’s roster went through many changes during the years and included Valkyrie, the Black Knight, Hawkeye, Red Guardian, Nighthawk, Luke Cage, Moon Knight, Beast, Moondragon, Yellowjacket, Daredevil, and Son of Satan (among many others) it’s this core foursome which most people think of when the team is mentioned.
Unlike the Fantastic Four which is presented as a family (dysfunctional as they sometimes are), or the Avengers who are a team of the greatest heroes in the Marvel Universe, the Defenders were powerful beings who you weren’t really sure you would want on your team, or be able to control.
In original foursome was immensely powerful, as any one of the four was powerful enough to make a valiant attempt to take over the planet Earth. Two of the members (Hulk and Namor) also were a bit unstable and not exactly always looking out for the little people. And Strange and Surfer are outsiders with high levels of intelligence and power, but with a different, more abstract and philosophical, view of the world than your average hero or person on the street. There was no Captain America, no Batman, to ground this team.
The original concept of the team by Roy Thomas was due mainly to the fact that Doctor Strange’s comic was canceled and needed a new place to hang his cape. Over the years the team fluctuated and other methods were introduced including spells, curses, and more, to bring the originals back together from time to time. Recent runs, though popular, haven’t been able to stick. In 2001 Kurt Busiek and Eric Larsen reformed the original team in a twelve-issue maxi-series, and three years later Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire (they guys who did Justice League International) did their own take on the team. This year Marvel has reformed a new team called The Last Defenders. Although it includes heroes who served as members in the past, none of the originals is represented.
The Defenders are one of the more interesting teams in Marvel Comics history. Several of their adventures have been collected in graphic novels and are worth checking out including the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire mini-series Defenders: Indefensible, Avengers/Defenders War, Essential Defenders Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3.