Avengers Ladies by Paulo Siqueira

1980 - The Defenders by Michael Golden

Grabbed from Modern Masters #12: Michael Golden

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 II: Night of the Geriatric Gargoyle

By Jef Willemsen (clarmindcontrol.blogspot.com)

In the second part of The Defenders Go Demonic, the mysterious Six Fingered Hand slowly made a fist as the team gained an unlikely new member, while two of their oldest are forever changed after feeling the touch of darkness. All that and a popular sucker too!

For the past several issues, incoming Defenders-writer J.M. DeMatteis had the team teleporting around the world in an attempt to deal with the constant threat of enemies. Their adventures made them unaware of a growing darkness that had been slowly gathering its forces… Issue # 94 finally revealed what the team was going up against, just as longtime Defender Hellcat fell prey to their influence.

The last issue ended with the Defenders in London, dealing with Namor’s latest invasion attempt. But the minute they received word Hellcat was in trouble, Doctor Strange teleported himself, Daimon Hellstrom and Valkyrie to the small town of Montclair, New Jersey. Patsy had been staying at her late mother’s house to sort out her affairs.

Searching the ruins, the Defenders discovered Patsy’s housekeeper Dolly Donahue, who despite her severe injuries, rather conveniently, filled them in on what had happened.

After getting Dolly  medical attention, the three remaining Defenders finally took a moment to compare notes. Daimon Hellstrom finally filled in Doctor Strange about the evil he had been aware of.

Apparently, six relatively minor demons had joined forces as the Six Fingered Hand, proving that even in hell there was strength in numbers. This Six Fingered Hand was responsible for Patsy’s disappearance and the Defenders used their unique talents to trace the Hand’s eldritch energies back to its source.

While doing so, Doctor Strange’s astral form even briefly returned home to check in with Clea…  Eventually, they tracked their foe to the quiet town of Christiansboro, Virginia. But, as Clea got ready to tend to the recently paralyzed Nighthawk, she made a disturbing discovery herself…

Completely unaware of all the Clea subplot, the Defenders travelled (again via teleportation) to Christiansboro to find the town deserted. Making their way towards the center, they are besieged by a horde of demons. However, their ringleader is rather familiar…

As the remarkably well-spoken demon attacked the Defenders, everyone noticed the shimmering lights emanating from Christianboro city hall, signalling the final surprise guest in this little drama.

Yup… the Gargoyle who abducted Patsy was working for Avarrish, one of the Six Fingered Hand. The demon turned the carefree young woman into a true Hellcat. In an interview with writer J.M. DeMatteis remarked on this rather sudden change: “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…”

A manipulation… On whose part? Nahh, that would be telling.

The Defenders fought their former teammate, but she gained the upper hand because they couldn’t  hurt a creature they still considered to be Patsy. Thankfully, all hope wasn’t lost… A point Valkyrie hammered home when she went head-to-head with her former best friend…

Confronted with the undying love Valkyrie felt for Patsy, Hellcat suffered a severe case of identity crisis. In the end, Patsy won out and remained a Hellcat in name only. With Avarrish gone, that still left one question unanswered…

Who was that eloquent Gargoyle that had abducted Patsy? The Christiansboro townsfolk knew the answer. It could be none other than their resident demonologist, former mayor and local curmudgeon Isaac Christiaans… a man so dedicated to keeping his beloved hometown prosperous he’d sell his soul to the devil… and, as Doctor Strange and the others realized once they entered Isaac’s home and literally shed some light on the matter… he went the proverbial extra mile…

After some initial mistrust, both Doctor Strange and Hellstrom recognized a deep, inherent sense of goodness within Isaac, who wanted to help stop the Six Fingered Hand… even though he didn’t know what they were up to.

DeMatteis revealed he was especially fond of the Gargoyle. And rightly so, after all by 1981 there weren’t that many kind, elderly gentlemen who turned to super heroics after being trapped in a demon’s body.  

Or, as the author put it himself: “(Gargoyle was)… This horrific, demonic figure that’s really this sweet, gentle old man.  Don Perlin 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.”

While the Gargoyle joined the Defenders, their recently rescued member Hellcat revealed why the Six Fingered Hand were out to get her, by dropping another bombshell…

Promised? Promised by whom?

Turned out that Patsy’s recently deceased mother Dorothy had promised her daughter to the demon Avarrish… While this came out of left field, let’s not forget her mother had been relentlessly pushing Patsy to become a success as soon as she learned to walk.

Actively trying to make money off her daughter through comics and other publications (as documented in pre-Marvel continuity) it wasn’t unthinkable that Dorothy could made a deal with Avarrish (read: avarice) to stay in the limelight some more.

Speaking of light, that was the last thing the guest star in issue # 95 needed…

Teleporting home from Christiansboro, the Defenders were in for another surprise as they discovered Nighthawk is back in action. A fact that startled Clea as well, by the way.

Yes, for some unknown reason the previously paralyzed Nighthawk had regained the full range of his mobility once the sun set. An unexpected development for the character, but as writer J.M. DeMatteis explained, it also made more than a little sense: “I think I was playing to his name:  ‘Night’-hawk.  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!”

Before they were grasped the consequences of these changes in Nighthawk, let alone planned their next move against the Six Fingered Hand, another enemy barged into Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum…

Yup, that’s the original vampyr, straight from downtown Transylvania… Ladies and gentleman, please welcome Vlad “show me your impaler”… Dracula! However, despite throwing around the Defenders with shocking ease, Daimon Hellstrom soon realized Dracula wasn’t himself… he was being controlled by demons. 

Luckily, Hellstrom’s trident is always ready to perform an exorcism…

How the lord of all things undead still had a soul to control was never explained. Fact remained that the Six Fingered Hand had plans with the vampire population, but no hopes of swaying the undead while Dracula still ruled them. That’s why one of the Hand, the demon Puisshant, empowered the lowly vampire Gordski to betray his master.

Hoping this betrayal would make him puissantly powerful (notice a theme here?), Gordski agreed to Puisshant’s wishes and sent out a possessed Dracula to kill the Defenders. The demon cabal assumed this ploy would lead to an altercation in which both their enemies would perish…. However, once recovered, Dracula joined forces with the Defenders and travelled back with them to his castle to settle some scores…

For those of you keeping score at home, yes… Doctor Strange once again bowed to circumstance and teleported the heroes, ignoring his own rules and predictions that using so powerful and volatile a spell could have grave consequences in the long run.

However, no one had any time to fully contemplate the implication of the mage’s continued abuse of the inter-dimensional space/time continuum… Especially after the castle gates opened and the six superheroes found themselves overwhelmed by surge after surge of undead warriors pouring from castle Dracula.

Just as all hope seemed lost, Daimon Hellstrom saved the day... Literally. Using a powerful incantation, the son of Satan controlled time itself and forced night to give way to the light of day. Exposed to the sun's rays, the vampire armies  turned to dust. Dracula would have been among the victims, if Hellstrom hadn't told him to take cover. A decision that baffled his fellow teammates.

With Gordski dead, well, dead-er… Puisshant was rendered powerless without a host… Dracula resumed control of his castle and the surviving vampires, while after losing both Avarrish and Puisshant the Six Fingered Hand was left with four viable members… But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t go out swinging…

More on that in part III of The Defenders Go Demonic: “Demonic Ditties versus Semi-Seraphimic Saviors”

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