Broken Frontier

The Defenders #92 ushered in a new era for Marvel’s most unusual super team, as one of comics’ most unusual writers, J.M .DeMatteis, arrived to take it in a daringly different direction. DeMatteis would make the book one of the most thought- provoking, frequently moving and just generally readable Marvel titles of the Eighties.

Perhaps predictably, given DeMatteis’ well known interest in matters mystical and spiritual, his first move was to bring back one of the Defenders more esoteric former ‘members’. Daimon Hellstrom, Son of Satan, had not been seen with the group in years and only joined them here for a specific mission (to find three individuals who were ‘living embodiments of the personification of Eternity’, no less!), but he would remain with the team pretty much constantly from now on until the next big shake-up, two and a half years or so later. From now on, the supernatural would tend to play a far larger part in the Defenders’ adventures, something which tended to work well with this group of oddballs.

Following issue #93, in which Nighthawk is struck down by a mysterious malady which leaves him paralyzed during daylight hours, and the team face Nebulon the Celestial Man again (Nebulon was eventually killed off a short time later in Avengers Annual #11, in which the Defenders also appeared), #s 94-100 constitute one of the most memorable Defenders sagas ever, as our beleaguered heroes are challenged by the demonic cabal called The Six Fingered Hand. In the course of a story which sees them meet Dracula, the Man-Thing and the Ghost Rider, face demon-possessed rock star Asmodeus Jones and a transformed Hellcat, and reunite with sometime ally Devil-Slayer (also a semi-regular member from now on), they also gain a new member in the Gargoyle, an elderly man trapped in the body of a demon

Isaac Christians, the Gargoyle, is one of Marvel’s more interesting and genuinely sympathetic characters, and he would be an integral part of the team from now until the book’s eventual cancellation, fitting since he is such a misfit character in such a misfit book. It’s a shame the old man is so rarely seen these days.

Issue #100, the conclusion of the Hand saga, reveals the Defenders’ true enemy to be none other than Satan himself, who in a rather odd career move has invaded New York. Additionally, Hellcat is ‘revealed’ to be Satan’s daughter - (unfortunately for the Son of Satan, who has apparently fallen in love with his sister). Luckily, this would later prove not to be the case! In an interesting twist, the Lord ofLlies is eventually beaten when he cannot bring himself to kill his own son, ‘proving’ that no-one is completely beyond redemption.

Somewhat sidelined in more recent issues, Nighthawk had meanwhile guest-starred in Marvel Team-Up #101 in a story concerning his old girlfriend Mindy, whom he had crippled while drunk driving years before. In The Defenders #102, Mindy reappeared at a sinister sanatorium, exhibiting strange mental powers which caused Nighthawk’s paralysis. Unable to free Mindy from the sanatorium and its director, August Masters, Nighthawk vows to return.

Issue #106 introduces another new regular Defender, former X-Man the Beast, but more significant is the crossover in Captain America #268 and The Defenders #106, in which Cap, Daredevil and the Defenders take on August Masters, who is trying to use kidnapped psychics to brainwash America. Ultimately, it is a non-costumed and still paralyzed Kyle Richmond who thwarts the would-be dictator, apparently blowing himself, Mindy and the other psychics to pieces along with Masters’ hidden base.

Nighthawk had never been a big name character, but he was a fan favorite and his death-(back when death in the Marvel Universe had not yet become a joke, and hardly any significant characters had been killed off)-was genuinely shocking at the time. With hindsight, though, it is perhaps not a coincidence that the most ‘traditional’ super-hero on the team is the one to die - DeMatteis does not do ‘traditional super-hero’ stories, and Nighthawk no longer really fitted in here. In 1998, of course, Marvel resurrected the character (in the three-part Nighthawk miniseries) in a rather contrived manner in order to retain copyright on the name.

Following a three-parter focusing on Valkyrie (which featured possibly the Defenders most surprising ‘guest star’ in an individual clearly intended to be Christ!) and a couple of single issue stories focusing on Devil-Slayer and Hellcat, #112-114 take the Defenders to a parallel Earth where the heroic Squadron Supreme - Marvel’s analogues to DC’s Justice League of America - have conquered the world while under the influence of another old Defenders foe, Null the living darkness, and the alien Overmind.

The Squadron are interesting characters, but this story is more memorable for the way in which DeMatteis uses it to mess with the readers’ heads. It begins with teaser scenes in #109 and #111 in which our confused heroes are confronted by a seemingly resurrected Nighthawk! As they (and the readers) were to learn in #114, this was not in fact the case - this Nighthawk was actually the Kyle Richmond of the Squadron’s Earth, brainwashed by the Overmind. Mindy and her psychic collective (whose disembodied minds now possessed the form of the Overmind and briefly even join the Defenders) had tried to transport Nighthawk to safety on this other world, but ironically they had instead mistakenly saved the now totally insane August Masters. Tragically, the Defenders had now lost Kyle Richmond not once, but twice.

The last ‘original’ Defenders saga crept up on the readership as, for several issues from #115 onward, they were teased by a series of brief interludes involving a mysterious - and oddly familiar- Elf! Oh dear, here we go again.

The long unresolved sub-plot of Steve Gerber’s enigmatic gun toting Elf had seemed to conclude in a quite baffling fashion years before, with the little pest being run over. Here, DeMatteis attempts at last to provide an explanation for it all, but the results are not entirely satisfactory (and would later be undone by Gerber himself, elsewhere). At the time of writing, the Elf’s true status is a mystery again.

In #122, as the ‘secondary’ Defenders prepare for Hellcat and Son of Satan’s wedding and Beast’s former X-Men team-mate Iceman drops by for a visit, Dr Strange, Hulk, Sub-Mariner and the Silver Surfer are abducted by the Elf - just one of many Elves, it seems. The Elves, we are told, are servants of the same mysterious Tribunal who had investigated the Defenders way back in the baffling issue #87 (another old mystery solved). Furthermore, the Tribunal - cosmic entities charged with protecting time itself, so they say - claim that if the four "original" Defenders continue to work together, the Earth is doomed. Meanwhile, Valkyrie is effectively appointed as the parole officer of the disgraced would-be goddess (and former Avenger) Moondragon, and in #124, former X-Man the Angel appears on the cover in a staggeringly unsubtle bit of foreshadowing

It was by this time becoming blindingly obvious that the whole Tribunal storyline was simply an excuse to write out the original Defenders and effectively re-launch the book and in #125 this is, in effect, what happens. The founder members having fallen for the Tribunal’s frankly ludicrous tale, agree to go their separate ways from now on, and pass the torch to the Beast’s new team - himself, Angel, Iceman, Valkyrie, Gargoyle and Moondragon. The old Defenders were no more. As the re-titled cover of #125 made clear, we were now reading the adventures of The New Defenders…