Defenders (comics)

Defenders Of The Earth (Defensores De La Tierra) (English)(OP)(1986)

Defenders of the Earth is an animated television series produced in 1986, narrated by Corey Burton and featuring characters from three comic strips distributed by King Features Syndicate—Flash Gordon, the Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician—battling the Flash Gordon villain Ming the Merciless in the year 2015. Supporting characters include their children Rick Gordon, Jedda Walker (daughter of the Phantom), Kshin (adopted son of Mandrake), Mandrake’s assistant Lothar, and Lothar’s son L.J. The show lasted for 65 episodes; there was also a short-lived comic book series published by Star Comics (an imprint of Marvel Comics), created by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru and John Romita, Sr.. The closing credits credit Rob Walsh and Tony Pastor for the main title music, and Stan Lee for the lyrics. The series was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel as part of Sci Fi Cartoon Quest. Premise: The plot begins with Flash Gordon and his son Rick escaping from Ming the Merciless. Ming has exhausted all the natural resources of his home planet Mongo and has set his sights on Earth. Flash’s wife Dale Arden is captured and Ming tries to brainwash her. She resists to the point of death.

The Defenders.

The Defenders is the name of a number of Marvel Comics superhero groups which are usually presented as a “non-team” of individualistic “outsiders,” each known for following their own agendas. The team usually battled mystic and supernatural threats.

Its original incarnation was led by Doctor Strange and included the Hulk, Namor, and, eventually, the Silver Surfer. They first appeared as The Defenders inMarvel Feature #1 (December 1971).

The group had a rotating line-up from 1972 until 1986, with Dr. Strange and the Hulk being more or less constant members along with a number of other mainstays such as Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Hellcat, the Gargoyle, Beast, the Son of Satan and Luke Cage, and a large number of temporary members. The publication was retitled near the end of the run as The New Defenders but featured none of the original members and only Valkyrie, the Beast and the Gargoyle of the former long-term members. The concept was modified in the 1993–95 series Secret Defenders, in which Dr. Strange assembled different teams for each individual mission. Later, the original team were reunited in a short-lived series by Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen. In the 2000s, Marvel published a new miniseries featuring the classic line-up. Writer Matt Fraction and artist Terry Dodson launched a new Defenders series in December 2011.

Publication History

The origin of the Defenders lies in two crossover story arcs by Roy Thomas prior to the official founding of the team. The first, in Doctor Strange #183 (November 1969), Sub-Mariner #22 (February 1970), and The Incredible Hulk #126 (April 1970) occurred when the Dr. Strange series was canceled and the storyline was completed in the other series. Dr. Strange teams with Sub-Mariner, then the Hulk to protect the Earth from invasion by Lovecraftian inter-planar beings known as the Undying Ones and their leader, the Nameless One. Barbara Norriss, later the host of the Valkyrie, first appears in this story. In the second arc featured inSub-Mariner #34-35, (February–March 1971), Namor enlists the aid of the Silver Surfer and the Hulk to stop a potentially devastating weather control experiment, inadvertently freeing a small island nation from a dictator and facing the Avengers under the unofficial name of the “Titans Three”.

The Defenders first appeared as a feature in Marvel Feature #1 (December 1971), where the founding members gathered to battle the alien techno-wizard Yandroth, who had invented a machine that could set off nuclear stockpiles all over the planet, and remained as a team afterward. Due to the popularity of their tryout in Marvel Feature, Marvel soon began publishing The Defenders.   The Valkyrie was introduced to the team in issue #4 (February 1973).   Writer Steve Englehart has stated that he added the Valkyrie to the Defenders “to provide some texture to the group.”   Englehart wrote “The Avengers-Defenders War” crossover in The Avengers #116-118 (October–December 1973) and The Defenders #9-11 (October–December 1973).   Len Wein briefly wrote the series and introduced such characters as Alpha the Ultimate Mutant and the Wrecking Crew.

Steve Gerber first worked on the characters in Giant-Size Defenders #3 (January 1975) and became the writer of the main title with issue #20 the following month. He wrote the series until issue #41 (November 1976).   Part of Gerber’s oeuvre was reviving forgotten characters; he brought back three pre-Marvel characters, the Headmen, as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy.   The Defenders met Gerber’s Howard the Duck in Marvel Treasury Edition #12 (1976).

David Anthony Kraft‘s run as writer included “The Scorpio Saga” (issues #46, 48–50) and the “Xenogenesis: Day of the Demons” storyline (issues #58-60). “The Defender for a Day” storyline in issues #63-65 saw dozens of new applicants attempting to join the Defenders. All of them left shortly after for various reasons, mostly disappointment with the existing members. Among them were the Falcon, Marvel Man, Captain Mar-Vell, Ms. Marvel, Nova (Richard Rider), Torpedo, Stingray, Havok, Polaris, Black Goliath, White Tiger, Captain Ultra, the Jack of Hearts, Hercules, Prowler and Tagak the Leopard Lord. The same storyline had a number of villains attempting to present themselves as new Defenders members in order to confuse the authorities and the public as they committed robberies. Members included android versions of Libra and Sagittarius, as well as the Beetle, Batroc the Leaper, the Shocker, and others. Kraft and artist Ed Hannigan explained some of the Valykrie’s backstory in The Defenders #66-68 (Dec. 1978-Feb. 1979).

Steven Grant wrote a conclusion to Steve Gerber’s Omega the Unknown series in two issues of The Defenders, at the end of which most of the original series’ characters were killed. While Gerber seemed unhappy with Grant’s conclusion, it nevertheless tied up the loose ends of the comic series, and is considered “canon” by Marvel.

Writers J. M. DeMatteis and Mark Gruenwald wrote The Defenders #107-109 (May–July 1982) which resolved remaining plot points from the Valkyrie story by Kraft and Hannigan published three years earlier.

New Defenders

As of issue #125, Defenders was retitled to New Defenders as the original four members (Doctor Strange, the Silver Surfer, the Hulk, and Namor) were forced to leave the team. This was the result of an alien prophecy that stated that these four, operating as a group, would be responsible for destroying the world. The Beast then reformed the team as an official super-hero team complete with government clearance.   The remaining Defenders disbanded in New Defenders #152. Several members (Gargoyle, Moondragon, Valkyrie, Andromeda, Manslaughter, Interloper) had seemingly died in battle with the Dragon of the Moon and the remaining members left the team to join X-Factor. Several of these seemingly-deceased members later returned in issues of Solo Avengers, in Strange Tales vol. 2 #5-7, followed by issues #3-4 of the relaunched Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supremeseries.

The Return of the Defenders

In 1990, the original trio reunited in The Incredible Hulk #370-371, in which it was revealed that the prophecy was a hoax. The originals then rejoined with the Silver Surfer in a story entitled The Return of the Defenders running in The Incredible Hulk Annual#18, Namor the Sub-Mariner Annual #2, Silver Surfer Annual #5, and Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme Annual #2.

Secret Defenders

In 1993, Marvel sought to revive the “Defenders” brand as “The Secret Defenders”. The new team first appeared, unofficially, inDr. Strange #50 and later Fantastic Four #374, before being officially introduced in Secret Defenders #1.   The series premise originally was that Doctor Strange would organize various teams of heroes for certain missions, with him as the leader. Members included Wolverine, Darkhawk, Spider-Woman, Spider-Man, Hulk, Ghost Rider, and others. This would last for the first several months of the title, before Doctor Strange was removed from the book, due to the character being reassigned to the “Midnight Sons” line at Marvel. After an arc where the supervillain Thanos organized a team of “Secret Defenders” for a mission, leadership of the Secret Defenders passed to Doctor Druid and the series itself abandoned the revolving door roster in favor of Druid and the Cognoscenti. The series was canceled with Secret Defenders #25.

Reunion and The Order

In 2001-2002, The Defenders reunited in Defenders (volume 2) #1-12 created by Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen, immediately followed by The Order #1-6, in which Yandroth manipulated Gaea into “cursing” the primary four Defenders (Doctor Strange, the Sub-Mariner, the Hulk, and the Silver Surfer) so that they would be summoned to major crisis situations. These members were then mind controlled by Yandroth into forming the world-dominating “Order”; once the Order were freed from this control by their fellow heroes (including their teammates Hellcat, Nighthawk, and Valkyrie), the Defenders apparently disbanded. A fill-in issue set between these two series was published in 2011.

2005 Miniseries

A Defenders five-issue miniseries debuted in July 2005, by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire (as a team, best known for their work on DC’s Justice League franchise), featuring Doctor Strange attempting to reunite the original four Defenders to battle Dormammu and Umar. This series focuses mostly on humor as the characters spend most of their time arguing with and criticizing one another. The series was later collected into both hardcover and trade paperback collections, entitled Defenders: Indefensible.

The Last Defenders

In 2008 Joe Casey wrote a new miniseries with a new line-up of Defenders as a result of the Super-Human Registration Act and the events of the Civil War.   Nighthawk wanted a team made up of previous Defenders such as Hellcat and Devil Slayer but Tony Stark (Iron Man) makes the decision to select other heroes for the team. The line-up is led by Nighthawk, with Blazing Skull, Colossus, and She-Hulk as members. The Defenders are assigned to New Jersey under the Fifty State Initiative, because the proximity to New York City demands more experienced heroes than can just be recruited from the ranks of Camp Hammond. The team is disbanded for incompetence but Richmond eventually founds a team outside the Initiative with the Son of Satan, She-Hulk, Krang, and Nighthawk (S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Joaquin Pennyworth). The team reappears in the mini-series Vengeance(2011).

The Offenders

In the 2009 ongoing Hulk series (Issues 10-12), Red Hulk assembles a counter team of supervillains called the Offenders, which includes Baron Mordo, Terrax the Tamer, and Tiger Shark, and fights past versions of their enemies.

Fear Itself: The Deep

During the 2011 “Fear Itself” storyline, Doctor Strange reunites a new version of the Defenders with Lyra (daughter of Hulk), Namor, Loa (a student of the X-Men), and the Silver Surfer to confront Attuma who has become Nerkkod, Breaker of Oceans. Many past Defenders appear in the last issue.

2011 series

Marvel launched a new Defenders series in December 2011, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Terry Dodson. The new book features Doctor Strange, Red She-Hulk, Namor, the Silver Surfer and Iron Fist. The new series follows the reunion of the Defenders in Fear Itself: The Deep.   During the battle against the Death Celestials, Black Cat, Nick Fury, and Ant-Man join the team. The series was cancelled at issue #12.

The Fearless Defenders

February 2013 saw the debut of The Fearless Defenders, a series written by Cullen Bunn with artwork by Will Sliney. Bunn said that he had wanted to write the series, which centers on a new team of Valkyrior, led by Valkyrie and Misty Knight, after writing Fear Itself: The Fearless. It was suggested to him that it should run as a Defenders title, however Bunn explained that beyond the name there is “little connection” to the Defenders.

Membership – List of Defenders members

Defenders membership was fluid yet a few members were relatively consistent: the three founders (Doctor Strange, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the Incredible Hulk), the Silver Surfer, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Hellcat, and Gargoyle. Membership was clearer in the New Defenders era when the team was more formally organized.

Secret Defenders

This group’s composition was even more fluid than that of the original Defenders, but typically included either Doctor Strange or Doctor Druid as leader, joined by a custom selection of heroes chosen for the mission at hand.   At various times, War Machine, Darkhawk, Thunderstrike, Wolverine, the second Spider-Woman, Ant-Man, Iceman, Nomad, and many others were members. At the end of its existence, the group had a somewhat regular composition including Cadaver, Sepulchre, Joshua Pryce, and Doctor Druid.

Other versions – Ultimate Defenders

In the Ultimate Marvel universe, the Defenders are a group of amateur vigilantes who dress up as superheroes. None of them have superpowers, although they claim to be experienced in crime-fighting. Henry Pym is invited to join them, and he accepts, adopting a new identity, Ant-Man, to avoid the potential legal problems of using his growth serum as it is now the official property of the government. Their members include Ultimate versions of Power Man, Hellcat, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, Black Knight, Son of Satan, and Whiz-Kid.   The Ultimate Defenders are much more interested in becoming celebrities rather than actually stopping crimes or saving lives.

Since The Ultimates volume 3, Pym has rejoined the Ultimates, and the Valkyrie was rewritten as having powers and skills akin to her Earth-616 counterpart, along with expertise in swordfighting, some degree of enhanced strength, and training by Thor.

The Defenders return in Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates #1 (May 2010) with the original members now possessing superhuman abilities that fit their namesakes. It’s revealed that Loki gave them these powers (Valkyrie included), to steal Thor’s hammer Mjolnir.

What If? Age of Apocalypse

In a reality in which Legion killed Charles Xavier, the Defenders were the sole group resisting the regime of the mutant tyrant Apocalypse. They were formed by Captain America (wielding Mjolnir), Captain Britain (wearing the Iron Man armor), Logan (without an adamantium skeleton), Molecule Man, Brother Voodoo (Sorcerer Supreme following the death of Doctor Strange), and the Thing, who wears a prosthetic arm. They are later joined by Sauron and Nate Summers.

Age of Ultron

Following Wolverine‘s murder of Hank Pym during Age of Ultron, a splinter timeline is created. In the new timeline, the Defenders became the world’s premier superhero team after the breakup of the Avengers. The new Defenders line-up consisted of Doctor Strange, Captain America, Wolverine, Janet Van Dyne as Captain Marvel, the Thing, Cable, the Hulk, and Star-Lord.