Broken Frontier

Time to get out the handbooks kiddies, The Defenders are back in town. New Jersey needs their very own Initiative team, but is there a greater destiny for their protectors?

It’s been a while since we’ve had a Defenders book. Well, since we had one that didn’t play strictly for laughs. Last time around readers were given Dr. Strange attempting to get Namor, Hulk, and a beach hopping Silver Surfer to work together to save the Earth. Presently, we have Nighthawk and his desire for a greatest hits team. Tony Stark has other plans. The team the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. wants includes Blazing Skull, Colossus, and She-Hulk. Will the team be able to handle the Sons of the Serpent that have invaded Trump Tower in Atlantic City? If they survive this mission, will they survive a darker destiny lurking in the shadows?

Casey and Giffen get co-plotting credits here. The story shows the kind of fun that such a duo should bring. The story gets a little mired in the mystery of the team’s destiny, but overall it is pretty solid writing. The weakest moments are in the form of Blazing Skull’s attempts at superhero smack talk. While these are hit or miss, "Defenders Defenstrate" is one of the craziest bits of dialogue I’ve seen in while. The best of the writing comes in the form of Kyle Richmond’s struggling with a team of unfamiliar people who all possess strong personalities. He seems to be at best a beta male surrounded by alpha male mentality. Much like The Order over the past year, it seems the real story will come in the leader’s ability to lead.

Muniz’s previous work for Marvel has included a Hulk video game tie-in, MK4 and X-Men: The 198. His style is not dissimilar to Barry Kitson’s of The Order, but whereas Kitson gets an outstanding coloring from Sotocolor that adds dimension to his pencils, Muniz does much of that detail work himself. It is very nice. If he could take a chance or two with layout, he could tell a much more intriguing story. Standard comic art is nice and all, but someone slapped a McNiven cover on this puppy. One expects a little more out of the interior.

In the end, the question really is, why does this book exist? The Order is already being cancelled. While this was entertaining, Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson produce a much stronger book. The comparisons are going to happen and if the better book cannot survive, what chance does the new book? With two proper Avengers titles and The Initiative and The Order on the market, I wonder if Marvel plans on giving us 53 Avengers books.