Spider-Man vs Werewolf by Night by Don Perlin

1989 - Anatomy of a Cover - Dinoriders #1 by Don Perlin and Danny Bulanadi

1983 - Anatomy of a cover - Defenders #117

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1983 - Anatomy of a Cover - The Defenders #118

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1983 - Anatomy of a Cover - The Defenders #120

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1981: The Defenders Go Demonic Coda: All Bad Things Do Come To An End

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

Being a superhero during the silver age must have been rough. No matter how big your adventures, you were expected back on the job the next day, chipper as can be. DeMatteis’ Defenders broke with that tradition in favor of realism.

Blame the zeitgeist. 1981 proved a watershed year for Marvel’s writers fleshing out their characters by having them reflect on how their previous adventures affected them. A prime example was Chris Claremont’s 1981 Avengers Annual.

Famous for introducing Rogue, but also controversial for shedding new light on the events of Avengers # 200, in which Ms. Marvel gave birth to Marcus Immortus, a man she fell head over heels in love with and decided to leave for Limbo with him. As Claremont pointed out, Marcus had been little more than a rapist who had both violated and mind controlled her while the Avengers cheered them on. Ouch.

J.M. DeMatteis used issue # 101 of The Defenders to reflect as well, showing how the team had emerged from their war with the Six Fingered Hand experiencing severe discomfort and depression. Sure, they had won, but the conflict had left them demoralized and even emotionally scarred. A fact the childlike Hulk had considerable difficulty grasping, thereby acting like a perfect intermediary for both inexperienced, young fans and readers new to the book…

“Why does everyone act like something bad happened? We beat devils, didn’t we? World is safe, isn’t it?”

While the Hulk wasn’t too wrong, the loss of Daimon and the corruption of Hellcat weighed heavily on the others… Let alone the fact Doctor Strange was suckered in and almost doomed Earth. Morale was at an all time low, which was what DeMatteis had intended.

After Namor, Hulk and Nighthawk left the pity party, the remaining members made their own plans for the rest of the night. While Gargoyle, Hellcat and Valkyrie decided to visit Patsy’s injured housekeeper Dolly Donahue in the hospital, Doctor Strange and Clea accompanied the Silver Surfer on a rather unique road trip.

Their visit to Dolly takes Hellcat, Valkyrie and Gargoyle straight to the pediatric oncology ward where the old lady spends her time reading to the children. Hellcat was still distraught over being a spawn of the devil ánd losing her lover who might actually be her half brother. Sobbing away, Patsy got a bit of a reality check…

Having a young girl, clearly suffering from cancer, took center stage in a Comics Code approved title was certainly unique at the time… Especially considering it would take another year or so before Jim Starlin’s Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel would bring the disease into comics. According to DeMatteis, the inclusion of Serina went off without a hitch:

“There was no sign of trepidation from editorial at all.  One of the best things about Defenders is that it wasn’t a high-profile book.  We were off in a corner and I could get as weird and personal as I wanted to without worrying about stepping on anyone’s toes.”

And while Patsy received an ever so gentle reminder that hope was all one needs for a precious and magical life, Doctor Strange, Clea and the Surfer reached their destination and a remarkable multi page scene unfolded…

Setting down in a small African community that had accepted Norrin Rad as one of their own, the locals welcomed their other two supernatural guests by preparing a feast in their honor.

“The doors of the soul do indeed fling open as Doctor Strange and Clea are enveloped in the unfettered, unconditional love that exists between the Silver Surfer and his adopted tribe.”

Forgiving DeMatteis that rather flowery bit of exposition, the simple yet thoroughly joyful rituals and festivities had an obvious effect on Strange.

A profound moment of genuine bliss without repercussion is rare in superhero comics. So, seeing Doctor Strange and Clea throw caution to the wind and, however briefly, forgetting their many, many problems was heart-warming to say the least. And that’s even before the Silver Surfer offered up a nugget or two of wisdom from his unique perspective.

While his dialogue almost made it schmaltzy, DeMatteis’ intended message was crystal clear: no matter who or where you are world, inherent goodness can be found everywhere, if you’re only willing to look for it. An encouraging message, one that spread to all of the Defenders as Devil Slayer discovered when he returned to Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum and found the entire team hanging out on the front steps…

After this opening arc, DeMatteis wrote the title for over two years, delivering several other memorable story lines before shifting the book into the New Defenders. Yet, his initial Six Fingered Hand storyline remained a remarkably early high point. A meticulously, well-constructed, and engaging story with plenty of twists and turns, the Six Fingered Hand Saga has easily withstood the test of time and should have been released in trade paperback ages ago.

Or, as DeMatteis himself stated when asked by this blog how he feels about the Defenders some 30+ years on:

“Looking back I see my younger self:  a writer, with a lot to learn, who poured his heart and soul, every bit of passion he had, into that series.  Defenders was my training ground, a way to explore telling more personal stories in the commercial context of the Marvel Universe.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but writing Defenders got me ready for ‘Moonshadow’ and the other creator-owned, personal projects I’ve done over the years.”
“Having come a long way as a writer, when I read these stories I see all the warts, all the stumbles, all the errors DeMatteis the Younger made; but I also see how much I cared about that book.  And what a good time I had working with Don Perlin.  So I look back on my Defenders days with great fondness.”

And the morning light never seemed brighter indeed…                                                            

Interview with J.M. DeMatteis

You might have already seen Jef's posts on the 1981 Defenders. We thought it would be fun to post up Jef's full interview with J.M. DeMatteis.

Jef: How and when were you approached and persuaded to take over the Defenders?  What was the team’s appeal for you at the time?

JMD: I’d always been a big fan of the series—especially the Steve Gerber era—because of it’s barrier-crashing, “anything goes” sensibility.  That said, I certainly didn’t lobby for the gig—Ed Hannigan was writing the book at the time and doing a fine job of it—so I was very surprised when I walked into Jim Shooter’s office one day and he told me I was taking over Defenders:  “Because,” he said, “I know you like Doctor Strange.”  Which is true:  I love Doctor Strange!

Jef: A propos your writing style at the time: was the Six Fingered Hand arc all planned out in advance or did the editor allow a certain amount of improvisation as you went along?

JMD: Even when you’ve got plans and plans and more plans, there’s always improvisation involved; and, back then, being a newbie still finding his way in the business, there was plenty of improvisation going on.  I had a general sense of the story and where I wanted it to go, but it was no carefully planned out epic.  I still love to write that way:  You have your destination in mind, your general themes and character arcs, but you remain open to happy accidents and spontaneous creativity.  The best stories write themselves and, in order for that to happen, you’ve got to get yourself—and your carefully-laid plans—out of the way.  My editor, Al Milgrom, was a great guy who allowed me to follow my story yet was always there to backstop me if I was going off the rails,

Jef: Don Perlin was the artist during your entire run. Could you briefly describe your working relationship? Did you provide full scripts or was it the brief plot summary aka ‘classic Marvel style’? And: did he offer any suggestions or input on the stories?

JMD: By the 80’s the Marvel plot-first style wan’t a “brief plot summary”:  plots were, for the most part, lengthy and detailed.  There was still room for the artist to pace and play with the story but the writer was in firm control of the material.

Don Perlin was one of the nicest people, and hardest working artists, I’ve ever worked with.  He was passionate about the book and about my stories and put everything he had into it.  More than that, he was willing to experiment, leave his comfort zone and grow as an artist—which he really did throughout our run.  I loved working with him.

As I recall, we spoke on the phone regularly and discussed the stories; but, for the most part, he left the plotting to me and concentrated on the visual interpretations.  I’m sure he had suggestions along the way (and I think there were a few issues he co-plotted, too) and I was always open to them.

Jef: What were some of your initial feelings about the team (Strange, Hulk, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Clea and Hellcat) at the time? Who did you feel most comfortable with?

JMD: My motto was:  the more obscure the characters, the better.  That gave me room to really push characterization and make them my own.  That’s one of the reasons you saw characters like Devil Slayer and Son of Satan come into the book.  You didn’t have to worry about anyone else complaining about their evolution; you could do what you wanted.

That said, I liked the group I was handed at the start—especially Doc Strange.  The only one I wasn’t all that comfortable with, as I recall, was the Hulk.  He was phased out along the way.  I liked the character, but he didn’t seem to fit with my Defenders.

Jef: Why paralyzed Nighthawk? It seemed to come out of left field at the time, despite its tying into established early Defenders continuity. And, considering you’d have him sacrifice his life in # 106, is it unfair to say you had it in for poor ol’ Kyle Richmond?

JMD: I think I was playing to his name:  Nighthawk.  Thus he only functioned at night.  During the day he was paralyzed and when the sun went down he came alive.  I thought it was a fun idea.  I still do.  Whether I executed it well is another story!  As for “having it in for him”—no, I thought Kyle Richmond was an interesting character and I was just following where he, and the stories, led me.

Jef: How did you come up with the concept of the Six Fingered Hand, and how did you flesh out the six demons? With names like Avarrish (avarice), Hyppokri (hypocrisy) and Unnthinkk (ignorance), can it be considered an homage to DC’s Captain Marvel and his Seven Deadly Sins?

JMD: No Captain Marvel connection whatsovever.  As for where the concept came from—to be honest, I don’t recall; beyond the idea that I wanted to take the book in a supernatural direction and a six-fingered hand was a creepy concept.

Jef: What prompted Hellcat's reveal as Satan's daughter? It was played up as a big deal during the Six Fingered arc, while a year and a half down the road you have Patsy learn Satan lied about it after all. While that is not uncommon for the lord of lies, from a story perspective it does feel like a bit of a cheat. What's the real story behind this bait 'n switch?

It wasn’t a cheat for me.  It was a way to take Patsy down an intense, character-revealing road; a way to dig deeper into her character, to turn her relationship with Hellstrom on its head, and a perfect piece of manipulation of Satan’s part.  Again, you can fault the execution—I was a young writer, still learning my craft—but I don’t see it as a cheat at all.

Jef: Certainly during the early 80s, the character of Isaac Christiaans the Gargoyle was more than a little unusual. What inspired the notion of an elderly gentleman/ mystic/worrywart locked in the form of an immortal demon?

JMD: It was just one of those ideas that popped into my head.  This horrific, demonic figure that’s really this sweet, gentle old man.  Don P came up with a great design for the character and, as the storyline progressed, Gargoyle became more and more important to the team.  I loved that character; in fact the Gargoyle mini-series I did with Mark Badger remains one of my favorite projects out of all the stories I’ve done for mainstream Marvel.

Jef: In retrospect, isn’t the character of the Gargoyle a prime example of quintessential DeMatteis characterization? Isaac Christiaans starts out as a basically noble, well meaning character that falls prey to his own human fallibilities, in the end becoming, however cruelly that what he loathes the most?  One might see shades of Vermin, Kraven the Hunter and Harry Osborn during the 1990s ‘Child Within’ arc?

JMD: Yes, up to a point.  But Isaac, after giving in to temptation, almost instantly regrets his fall and, from then on, remains the same decent and compassionate man he was before.  The tension between the horrific outer shell and the sweet person beneath it is what I love about the character.  I don’t think he’s as dark as Kraven or Vermin.

Jef: What urged you to bring in the relatively unknown character Devil Slayer? Certainly at the time, a former Vietnam vet turned hired killer/demon vanquisher couldn’t possibly have been Comics Code Approved? Did his inclusion go off without a hitch, or did you have to argue to get him in?

JMD: No arguments at all.  Milgrom, as noted, let me follow my muses where they led.  Devil-Slayer had been used in Defenders before and, being another obscure character with a fascinating back-story (war vet, hit-man, demon-hunter), I thought he was ripe for exploration.  The story in Defenders #110, “Hunger,” is one of my favorites of my run.

Jef: Speaking of the Code… The Six-Fingered Hand empowered  David Kessler to become the healing guru known as 'the messiah'… An obvious Jesus Christ analogy if ever there was one. Back in the 70s, Tony Isabella caught considerable flack when he introduced Ghost Rider to ‘The Friend’ who for all intents and purposes was Christ as well. Did you receive any comments on this new ‘son of God’?

JMD: I didn’t see David Kessler as a Jesus stand-in.  He was a cult leader, a spiritual figure, but he was essentially a flawed human like the rest of us,

Jef: In issue # 100, Hellcat shortly returns to her demonic form from # 94. Was it always your intention to revert Patsy back to normal, or did you consider exploring the notion of having a true ‘hell cat' on the team?

JMD: I don’t remember!  I’m sure I played with every outcome in my mind.

Jef: Defenders #101 feels like a coda, with the Defenders in need of spiritual renewing. Val, Patsy and Isaac’s visiting Dolly in a hospital’s cancer ward was particularly striking. Jim Starlin’s 1982 graphic novel The Death of Captain Marvel  is generally considered to be the first Marvel publication dealing with the disease head on, yet Defenders  # 101 came out a year earlier and was even more graphic in its depiction of the illness. Was there any in house trepidation about featuring a young, bald cancer patient?

JMD: Again, no trepidation at all.  One of the best things about Defenders is that it wasn’t a high-profile book.  We were off in a corner and I could get as weird and personal as I wanted to without worrying about stepping on anyone’s toes.  And, yes, that story was very much intended as a kind of spiritual cleansing after the literal hell the team went through in the Six-Fingered hand story.

Jef: With the Six Fingered Hand arc over 30 years old, how do you look back on it? Were you satisfied with it then and has it stood up to the test of time?

JMD: I have no idea if it’s stood the test of time. I’m the last person who’d know!  Looking back I see my younger self:  a writer, with a lot to learn, who poured his heart and soul, every bit of passion he had, into that series.  Defenders was my training ground, a way to explore telling more personal stories in the commercial context of the Marvel Universe. I didn’t realize it at the time, but writing Defenders got me ready for Moonshadow and the other creator-owned, personal projects I’ve done over the years.

Having come a long way as a writer, when I read these stories I see all the warts, all the stumbles, all the errors DeMatteis the Younger made; but I also see how much I cared about that book.  And what a good time I had working with Don Perlin.  So I look back on my Defenders days with great fondness.

1981: The Defenders Go Demonic Part IV: Six Fingered Finale

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

In the fourth and final installment of this retrospective on J.M. DeMatteis’ initial Defenders arc, eight issues worth of set up finally paid off as the title hit issue # 100 and we learned you can’t spell ‘salvation’ without ‘Satan’.

When we last left our heroes, they had just entered a rift in space/time left behind after the demons of the Six Fingered Hand sucked the town of Citrusville through the nexus of all realities, landing it smack dab in the middle of their home dimension.

Now, Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, Daimon Hellstrom, the Gargoyle and latest recruit Devil Slayer entered the rift to take their long running conflict straight to the Hand. But seconds after entering, they realized their troubled fellow Defender Hellcat wasn’t with them and Devil Slayer was missing his teleporting shadow cloak as well. Unable to turn back, they pressed on and encountered manifestations no one was ready for...

Click on the image to see Don Perlin channel a Steve Ditko style pan-dimensional panorama dedicated to the bizarre… Seeing the images that are conjured up, it’s hard not to hear classic psychedelic Beatles songs like Lucy In The Sky or I Am The Walrus while the Defenders drifted towards the realm of the Six Fingered Hand. Upon arriving, they realized the demons weren’t just expecting them, they also had a surprise…

 Issue # 99 opened with the assembled Six Fingered Hand welcoming the Defenders to their home turf.  Figuring the heroes would eventually show up to finish them, the Hand created a little life insurance policy by luring Hulk, Clea, Sub-Mariner and the Silver Surfer into a trap that bound their life force to that of the demons. 

If any of the Hand were to perish, the caged heroes would share a similar fate. This new situation gave the Defenders pause…  Well, almost all of them.

Surprisingly enough, Maya laughed off what should have been a fatal wound as he invited the Defenders on a tour of what he called the ‘new and improved’ Citrusville. On the way, the Hand revealed their grand scheme. Citrusville was just the beginning as they planned to suck the entire planet through the nexus into their dimension. And judging from Citrusville 2.0, that… would be a bad thing. 

Enraged, Hellstrom once again attacked the Six Fingered Hand and this time even the ever patient Maya had enough.  Ordering the others to attack the Defenders, the team was overrun by demons ánd the possessed Citrusville citizens. All hope seemed lost until sudden salvation approached from the skies.

Yes, Silver Surfer, Clea and the others had regained their freedom, thanks to the Gargoyle who had remained behind to figure out a way to use his bio-mystical blasts to overload the energy prisons. Defeated, the Six Finger Hand demons started to shrink away just as Citrusville returned to Earth. All’s well that ends well then. Let’s go home and… wait a minute… they’re called the SIX Fingered Hand, right? So why are there only five of them?

Yes, Maya had survived, but before the Defenders went to rectify that matter, the leader of the Hand revealed himself to be a far more familiar foe…

 Being greeted by a gleeful, gloating Mephisto is very rarely a good sign. Just what did Doctor Strange do to make ‘all this’ possible? No worries, the Mephisto exposition express was about to depart…

Yes, the lord of lies was right… Doctor Strange had been voicing concern about overusing his unstable teleportation spell and his worries would prove well founded. But, let’s not get ahead of Mephisto’s monologue…

Every single event of the last 7 issues led up to this. Every. Single. Event… It’s a remarkable achievement on the part of J.M. DeMatteis to tell an interlocking story that connects all the dots yet wan’t so obvious it telegraphed the outcome halfway through.

“Oh, no! No! NO!”

Daimon Hellstrom’s cries of outrage weren’t without warrant. As Mephisto explained, the Defenders had been tricked into making this victory possible. Using the Hand, Mephisto played the heroes like, well, like a hand puppet. Which made the finale page of issue  # 99 particularly rough.

Issue # 100 opened with Satan, biblical lord of all evil, ruling over Earth, which didn’t sit well with Doctor Strange, the defender of said realm. Thankfully, the ever rational archmage retained his usual cool and collected composure.

Remember how Hellcat had suddenly disappeared before the Defenders entered the rift? As it turned out, Patsy was overcome by her dark side right after the battle with Man-Thing in # 98. She used her abilities to discreetly snatch away Devil Slayer’s cloak and used it to join Satan. But not before picking up her fellow Defender Nighthawk. As Satan explained, her human side needed an old, familiar face around before she truly became what she had always been: Hellcat, daughter of Satan. 

This particular tidbit of information gave the budding relationship between her and Daimon Hellstrom (aka: the Son of Satan) a rather icky twist. Daimon, never one for diplomacy as this storyline proved so far, attacked his father… For all the good that did him.

It’s interesting that Satan actually offered the Defenders a chance to undo all this. You’d think the scheming mastermind of all things dark and evil wouldn’t allow anything to mess up his once-in-a-millennia chance of dominating mankind. But here he was, risking it all by proposing a duel: if the Defenders defeated his lieutenants Mephisto, Satannish and Thog ánd ‘unleash the light in darkness’ heart’, Satan would leave Earth alone. 

Strange agreed to Satan’s terms and after the Defenders split into teams, they were teleported to their respective combat arenas. Devil Slayer, Gargoyle and a fully mobile Nighthawk valiantly faced off against Thog and his army of the ages, but perished when the demon dropped no less than four nuclear bombs on them. Silver Surfer, Clea and Valkyrie stared down Mephisto and withstood his silver tongued temptations, only to vanish into apparent nothingness despite their efforts… While Hulk, Namor and Strange failed to persevere against Satannish and the undying ones.

Expecting death, the Defenders were shocked to find themselves alive and well at Satan’s feet, learning once again why he’s called the lord of lies. The battles were merely a ploy to win time (not to mention for the creative team to pad out the anniversary issue). Instead of days, now only hours remained to stop Hell and Earth from merging.

Predictable, Daimon Hellstrom attacked his father for the heck of it. Tired of his son’s constant disobedience, Satan asked his newest child to deal with him. But when Hellcat proved no match for her sibling, ol’ daddy devil took matters into his own hands and attacked Hellstrom himself. He would have died within seconds, if not for the Defenders offering their strength to Doctor Strange in order for him to cast a spell that unleashed  Daimon’s demon soul, allowing him a fighting chance. Still, the outcome of the conflict wasn’t ever in doubt, really…

Turned out, love’s light can burn bright even within the heart of darkness. A heady message, but one that won the Defenders the day. Honoring his promise, Satan abandoned his plans of conquest and got ready to leave Earth. But not before Daimon made a surprising announcement.

“I am nothing but Darksoul now, father. I belong nowhere on Earth. I belong only by your side. Take me with you.”

Overjoyed, Satan accepted his son’s offer. But before departing, he left the Defenders with a celebratory gift of sorts…

With Hellcat returned to normal, Satan left the Defenders back on a restored New York City street while offering them very little in the way of a satisfactory resolution. Yes, he claimed they had won the day… But just before fading away he planted a seed of doubt.

Maybe, just maybe, their presumed victory had been part of his master plan all along. After all, he might have lost Earth but gained a true son and successor in return… Still, what an eternal archetype of evil (or good for that matter) would need with an heir is a question for another day. It certainly wasn’t on the Defenders’ minds as they watched the master of hell fade from view.

For those eagle eyed Don Perlin art fans, Satan dropped off the team right in front of a movie theatre showing the 1941 comedy The Devil And Miss Jones. A rather appropriately title considering the hell they’d just been through.

Speaking of which, where most comics of the era would simply end with the heroes rejoicing over their, admittedly, remarkable victory, the Defenders closed their 100^th issue on a contemplative and even somber note.

DeMatteis would make good use of the team’s ennui as we’ll see next time in a coda to The Defenders Go Demonic, called All Bad Things Do Come To An End.

1981 - The Defenders Go Demonic!

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

Most writers set out to leave their mark on whatever new book they take on. As we’ll see in this retrospective of J.M. DeMatteis’ initial arc on the Defenders, that mark was shaped like a six fingered hand. 

Ever since their inception in 1971, the Defenders had always been in flux. Not only because their membership was more eclectic than a Yoko Ono jam session, the tone of the book also tended to shift dramatically whenever a new writer came in.

From the semi-straightforward superheroics of Roy Thomas to the utterly bizarre Elf with a gun days of the late great Steve Gerber: the Defenders did it all and while this certainly proved the team’s versatility, it also found them without any convincing, long term raison d’etre. 

It took ten years and the arrival of writer J.M. DeMatteis to give the non-team a bit more focus beyond beating the baddie du jour. DeMatteis pulled this off by locking on to the slightly dark vibe the book had always exuded and running with it, while also focusing on character development.  

Consider the opening page of Defenders # 92. At first, it might seem a little silly to have Earth’s mightiest mortal playing house with a Dormammu doll in Doctor Strange’s living room. But it actually showed how well DeMatteis understood the dynamic between the Defenders. The team had been using Strange’s sanctum sanctorum as a meeting place since the early days and for the Hulk, it had literally become a sanctuary as well. Here, with no enemies to hound him, the childlike creature could finally drop his guard, showing an almost endearing vulnerability.

Its interesting to note that in an interview with this blog, author J.M. DeMatteis would later reveal that the Hulk wasn’t a character he was at all comfortable with. That’s why the green giant would ever so gently be written out of the stories. DeMatteis felt he didn’t seem to fit with his take on the team.

A character who wás a natural fit for the Defenders was the Hulk’s fellow founder Doctor Strange. In fact, as DeMatteis recalled, Strange is what got him the job in the first place. “I certainly didn’t lobby for the gig—Ed Hannigan was writing the book at the time and doing a fine job of it—so I was very surprised when I walked into Jim Shooter’s office one day and he told me I was taking over Defenders:  “Because,” he said, “I know you like Doctor Strange.”  Which is true:  I love Doctor Strange!”

Under DeMatteis, Strange quickly became more than team leader and reluctant land lord, the doctor wasn’t beyond giving his own special kind of stern pep talk. As shown here, when he interrupts Nighthawk’s lament on the sorry state of his life. He declares himself a failure as both a superhero and in his private life as millionaire playboy Kyle Richmond. In response, Doctor Strange sets him straight, just as the real action begins.

The white panel isn’t just an easy way for artist Don Perlin to meet his page rate, it’s also indicative of a problem with Eternity, the physical representative of our entire universe. As Doctor Strange learns when he goes to meet the entity: there are pieces of Eternity missing. Y’see, in order to understand himself (aka: the universe) better, he regularly breaks off pieces of himself to… well. Ehm. Let’s have him explain it.

It’s an interesting, if not slightly confusing explanation. Yes, it *is* imaginable our universe has a semblance of sentience and therefore feels completely alone because there’s nothing else like it out there.

But, let’s consider the scope here. The embodiment of everything wants to ‘learn the meaning of otherness’ by briefly functioning as part of, well, itself. And an almost microscopic part at that. Its like trying to experience humanity by being an electron inside one of the molecules that make up your toe nail. You are already part of you. What’s the new perspective to gain when you’ve been yourself all along?

Still, let’s not get too metaphysical. The problems with reality are being caused by three of Eternity’s fragments who are unwilling to relinquish their new existence. As fate would have it, they were all residing on Earth, which forces Doctor Strange to split up the team and teleport the group in smaller squads to persuade these aspects of Eternity. A tactic straight from dozens of a 60s split-and-conquer Justice League of America stories, DeMatteis took the opportunity to set up an important subplot as well.

When the Son of Satan sees a darkness in your soul, that’d be cause to worry. But the usually happy go lucky Patsy Walker seemed ever ready to ignore his warning. In retrospect, this is all major foreshadowing, but they’re too busy confronting Eternity’s aspects. Thankfully,  after the obligatory fight scenes, Nighthawk manages to convince them to rejoin the greater collective.

Issue # 93 starts with Daimon trying to warn Strange of a coming darkness, but before the doctor could investigate, Nighthawk literally drops dead. Back in Defenders # 14, he had suffered fatal injuries which Strange healed with a potent spell. Someone or something had disrupted this magic, and while Strange was able to salvage the situation and return Kyle to life, he failed to fully heal his body, leaving the acrobatic superhero paralyzed from the waist down.

Meanwhile, Hellcat is advancing her little subplot as well.

And, as if that wasn’t enough for one issue, the Defenders get called to action when longtime member Namor declares war on the surface world for the heck of it. This time, fired up by his lover, the lady Dorma. Yes, the same Dorma that had died a decade earlier saving Namor’s life. As Atlantean troops invade London, Strange hesitantly teleports the Defenders, minus Nighthawk and Clea, across the globe to deal with the situation.

Yes, Doctor Strange *has* been teleporting around an awful lot lately. Well, I’m sure he knows what he’s doing… He is the sorcerer supreme after all.

After an entertaining fight scene, Dorma stands revealed as Nebulon, the Celestial Man in disguise. This old, cross dressing Defenders foe used his shape shifting and mind control abilities to fool Namor and the Atlanteans in yet another failed attempt to conquer Earth.  He is quickly dealt with by the Sub-Mariner himself, as the issue draws to a close and the promo blurb for # 94 promises something we’ve already sensed was coming...

Be here for part II of The Defenders Go Demonic: Night of the Geriatric Gargoyle

Guest Blog: 1984 - The New Defenders (Part Two)

The New Defenders: Teaming up the non-team part II
By: Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

In the Spring of 1984, The New Defenders got a new writer in Peter B. Gillis who took the anything-but-non-team in entirely new directions.

Taking over with issue # 132, Gillis quickly changed the tone of the title, adding a new layer of horror and suspense previously absent from the book. Even the art by longtime Defenders penciller Don Perlin reflected these changes as it got a darker, grittier and slightly abstract feel.

In his opening tale, Gillis delivered a done-in-one story that smoothly showed how his run would unfold as the Defenders fought a rather unexpected threat. Ephraim Soles was an ordinairy man down on his luck, wandering across the New Mexico desert when he came across some plants. Looking for a meal, the hungry Soles devoured the vegetation that was actually growing on a fragment of the gamma bomb that had exploded there years earlier. Catching a fatal dose of radiation, Soles didn’t exactly die. After falling down, he got up and resumed his wandering, eventually turning up at New Defenders headquarters.

“Good Lord! What’s happening to him?!”

Soles mutated into a gamma powered spore creature that quickly expanded in size, threatening the team and their base. Despite their best efforts, the Defenders proved largely ineffectual in beating back or even containing Soles. The mood of the book quickly turned from run of the mill superhero comic to horror movie, as the heroes desperately fought a threat that continued to evolve, adapt and survive. In the end, Iceman used his powers to drain all moisture from the creature and killing it. Or did he?

This story really set the tone for Gillis’ first year on the title. Everyone and anything could turn dark on a moment’s notice. A relatively light hearted tale of the team helping out wacky oriental expeditors Cutlass and Typhoon against crimelord Ozu in # 133, set up the next issue when Ozu hired the insane, telepathic serial killer Manslaughter to rub them out.

New Defenders # 134 reads like a suspenseful slasher movie, with the Defenders cooped up in their New Mexico headquarters, paranoid and on guard against their new, mysterious foe who managed to infiltrate their base, leaving mocking messages announcing their inevitable demise.

Manslaughter actually makes good on his threats, ambushing and killing off Iceman, Cloud and Angel. He even manages to nab Valkyrie’s sword Dragonfang. After dipping the blade in poison, he taks the Asgardian out with a simple cut. Manslaughter even gets under Moondragon’s skin, as he uses his low level telepathy to invade her mind and spread his madness around. Moondragon was ready to kill Manslaughter for that, but the team rallied to defeat the villain and stop Heather from killing him. And then, Gillis had Cloud drop one heck of a bombshell…  

“Please don’t cry, don’t hurt… Moondragon. I love you…”

Oh my. Lesbians in the 1980s? Well played, Gillis, well played indeed. So, who was Cloud anyway? She was the final team member added by DeMatteis before he left. Introduced as a villain in issue # 123, this beautiful blonde girl was able to become, well, a cloud. By issue # 127, she turned out to be an unwitting pawn of the Secret Empire and joined her former adversaries in getting revenge. Rehabilitating villains is hardly a new move, but what made Cloud’s inclusion especially interesting was the intense interest Moondragon showed in the young girl’s well-being.

After her initial profession of love, Cloud was wracked with guilt and shame, not able to understand how she could have these wrong thoughts and feelings. But she still grew closer to Moondragon and a resolution of sorts was inevitable. But this is still 1984, Marvel Comics or the Comics Code Authority would never allow an openly lesbian couple in comics. So, Gillis came up with another twist. Cloud had every reason to be confused about her feelings, as issue # 136 proved…

Problem? Problem solved. The Moondragon/Cloud relationship never really went anywhere after Moondragon turned down all overtures and simply moved on. But others had far more difficulty accepting Cloud’s dual nature. Iceman lusted after Cloud when he thought she was just a woman, but when the male version popped up, Bobby was left rather confused.

Ah, ever so subtle discussions of sexuality and how uncomfortable heterosexual men tend to get when there is even the slightest doubt they might be anything but straight. You’d think that after running around in little more than a speedo for most of his superhero career, Iceman would be the one superhero most secure about his orientation. Sadly enough, he wouldn’t learn from this mistake repeating the same immature homophobic behavior when Northstar admitted he had the hots for him during Chuck Austen’s Uncanny X-men run.

By the by, wonder where the New Defenders are flying off to as they were having this heart to heart? Well, remember how Manslaughter was taking out the team one by one? During that crisis, one New Defender was left unaccounted for: Gargoyle, who vanished mysteriously.

At the time, the team figured it was another one of Manslaughter’s traps but he had nothing to do with Isaac’s disappearance. As it turned out, an old Afghani mystic was to blame. Tired of the Mujahideen controlling his lands, the man used his powers to summon a demonic servant to deal with them. And Isaac’s body, still demonic in nature, obeyed the summoning chants and  brought Gargoyle to Afghanistan where Isaac was forced to kill the soldiers that bothered the mystic.

Growing power hungry after this swift victory, the mystic decided to use his dark servant’s vast powers for personal gain. Still, Isaac’s mind was able to subtly influence the demon’s actions… first teleporting them to New York, hoping Doctor Strange would show up to free him. Sensing betrayal, the mystic ordered Gargoyle to take them away from the city that never sleeps… So he landed them in the Rocky Mountains where Moondragon was able to pick up Isaac’s cries for help.

A fearful fight ensued between the Defenders and the vastly more powerful Gargoyle. Isaac had to watch helplessly as his body grew to giant size and threatened the lives of his teammates. In the end, Valkyrie had no choice but to stab Gargoyle, while the Beast wielded Dragonfang to lob off Gargoyle’s hand.

In the end, it was Moondragon who used her powers to make contact with Isaac’s mind,  buried deep within the demon’s brain. The two Defenders touched souls and Moondragon deduced a way to break the mystic’s hold over Gargoyle… simply blind him and knock him out. No sooner said than done. But Isaac had seen a terrible, hidden truth about Moondragon when he was inside her mind. So, while the victory might seem a little easy, Gargoyle’s revelation in the cliffhanger would set in motion the final chapter of Gillis’ run…

Sometimes, captions say it all.. In the third and final part of Anyone Remember The New Defenders…  Moondragon’s secret origin is revealed as the headband comes off and, despite everyone’s best efforts…they’re all dust in the wind.