Broken Frontier

The final chapter in the original The Defenders series began in issue #122, though this wasn’t immediately apparent. As the four founding Defenders embark on a strange journey of their own (as recounted in the last part of this article series), Hellcat and Son of Satan depart, while the former X-Man named Iceman joins the cast - with hindsight, a very definite clearing of the decks and set-up for things to come (another new cast member is Sassafrass, a puppy acquired by the Beast, who will be his companion from now until the final issue). A further pointer is the scene in which housekeeper Dolly responds to Beast’s complaint that the Defenders are not a real team by telling him to "make it one". In issue #123, however, the group have more immediate concerns as they (along with the Vision and the Scarlet Witch) are drawn into conflict with Cloud, Seraph and Harridan - three mysterious women in the ‘maiden, mother, crone’ tradition who are servants of the villainous Secret Empire!

Issue #125 – which, as mentioned last time, also writes out the founder members - furthers the Secret Empire storyline and brings back old foes the Mutant Force. More to the point though, it is the first issue of The New Defenders (title change and all) as Iceman, Valkyrie, Gargoyle and newcomers the Angel and Moondragon consent to join the Beast’s reorganised team. This was a very different set-up for the Defenders. By the end of the Secret Empire affair (concluded in issue #130) they were a government-approved super team in the tradition of the Avengers, not something they had ever been before. They had a new HQ in the form of the Angel’s mountain home in New Mexico, and a new member in the memorable shape of Cloud (a mixed up, amnesiac teenage girl ‘dressed’ only in a ‘bikini’ made of mist - possibly one of the most distinctive superhero costumes ever). Unfortunately, they also had problems.

JM DeMatteis has always been good at defining realistic, complex characters, and the New Defenders were certainly that. Moondragon, effectively stuck in the New Defenders’ custody by the Norse god Odin while atoning for past crimes, was arrogant, resentful and manipulative. Cloud was directionless and confused. The formerly deferential Valkyrie began to display an arrogant side not previously seen. All these personalities continued to develop as Peter B Gillis took over the writing chores with #131 and the New Defenders faced a variety of bizarre threats typical of the book’s unconventional approach - but neither the demented assassin named Manslaughter or strange creatures from out of the desert would shake up the readership as much as the development first touched on in #134 and #135 - that Cloud was in love with Moondragon!

It appeared at first that Marvel were finally about to tackle the thorny subject of homosexuality in comics, but perhaps unsurprisingly this would prove not to be precisely the case; Cloud was unexpectedly shown to be able to change gender at will, deepening the mystery surrounding her/him. In turn, Moondragon had been sending out "subliminal sexual impulses" to her team-mates in an attempt to coerce them into releasing her. Perhaps, in 1985, Marvel felt that the comics readers of America were not yet ready for an openly gay super-heroine or two (though ironically, Moondragon was indeed ‘outed’ as a lesbian many years later).

With Gillis at the helm and Don Perlin having arrived as the new regular artist with #132, the book should have been in a period of stability. Unfortunately, the often quite odd and frequently under-explained stories, while intriguing in a way, never quite seemed to gel. There was also a rather disjointed feel to the book for awhile as, barring a few continuing plot points such as Moondragon’s quest for redemption, every issue seemed totally disconnected from the previous one. With #143, a continuing story arc finally materialised but it would prove to be the beginning of a long drawn out end for The New Defenders.

Moondragon had always been something of a mystery - a powerful telepath who, despite apparently humble beginnings, believed herself to be a goddess. She had also always been arrogant and intensely unlikeable. Now, we began to learn why, as we were told that she derived her powers (and name) from a demonic entity called the Dragon of the Moon-and, more importantly, that the creature was attempting to possess her body and soul.

Moondragon’s story seemed to end with her defection in #144, but would continue in the background even as events she had set in motion continued to chip away at the team. An injured Cloud, under examination, proved not to be quite human. Angel was blinded (prompting a nice cross company in-joke; one of the specialists called in to consult on his case is a Dr McNider of New York, obviously DC’s Dr Mid-Nite). And in the middle of all this, the team gained a new member in the Atlantean warrior woman Andromeda in issue #147 (in which the Gargoyle acquires a strange crystal which will have greater significance much later).

Following a slightly silly fill-in story in #148, in which Gillis and guest artists Sal Buscema and Art Nichols had Beast and Gargoyle help out old friends Hellcat and Daimon Hellstrom, Perlin returned as the origin of Cloud unfolded in #s 149-150. In a twist as unlikely as it was unexpected, the New Defenders’ hermaphroditic mystery was revealed to be a sentient nebula (!) which had become bonded to two comatose teenagers and taken on their forms. Well, naturally. What else could she be?

Having helped Cloud to defeat the monstrous Star Thief (and also learned the fate of former Defender Over-Mind, who had vanished between issues months before) the rest of the team returned to Earth to finally wrap up the trailing Moondragon story arc. Following the reappearance of Manslaughter, an unlikely new ‘recruit’ to the team, the story and the series both concluded in #152 (February 1986) with the Dragon of the Moon supposedly destroyed…but at the apparent cost of our heroes’ lives.

Moondragon, Valkyrie, Andromeda, Manslaughter and the wandering immortal called Interloper were all reduced to statues made of ash after somehow combining their own life energies to destroy the Dragon (a confusing resolution, made even more so by a pointless two page tie-in to that years big Marvel crossover event, Secret Wars II) and Gargoyle was lost, the soul of Isaac Christians cast out into the ether by Moondragon while his body was destroyed along with the rest. Fortunately, he would return (as would Moondragon) three years later in a short story in Solo Avengers #16, in which we learned that Isaac’s spirit had taken refuge in the crystal from issue #147. Valkyrie and the others would likewise be resurrected in the pages of Dr. Strange in 1988, as the short-lived team The Dragon Circle. For now, though, with only Angel, Beast and Iceman left alive, the New Defenders were no more.

It was a confused and unsatisfying resolution to a confused and unsatisfying story, and to a series which had been a mainstay of the Marvel line for almost fourteen years. For fans it was all the more galling, since it was seemingly done simply to make way for the forthcoming launch of X-Factor, a new X-Men spin-off series. This would be Angel, Beast and Iceman’s new ’home’ for the next few years (curiously, poor Sassafrass seems to have vanished by the time X-Factor #1 was published, despite being present on the last page of New Defenders #152. Perhaps the Beast ate her? He’s certainly never mentioned her since).

The Defenders as a concept, though, would prove to be more enduring than the New Defenders as a series. The original Defenders, Dr Strange, the Hulk and Sub-Mariner, would reunite in Incredible Hulk #s 370-371 in 1990 (the terrible doom which allegedly threatened Earth should they ever do so having been dismissed as a "cosmic hoax"). As for The Defenders the title, that would take a little longer…