[This column from 16 August 2013 was sure to spawn a lot of comments, given that Greg wrote about something he misses from comics and asks a bunch of sentimental old nerds what they miss, so head on over a check them out! Enjoy!]
I was asked this week if there was something that we used to have in comics that’s gone now, something I still missed.
Of course, it’s absurdly easy to snark off at a question like that. So let’s say for purposes of discussion that someone already said “good stories” and “the real DC” and “books that ship on time” and all of that stuff, so there’s no need to jump into the comments section with any of those. Take a minute to really think about it.
Because, if I’m honest with myself, there’s so much available to us today that there’s no reason to miss anything. It’s all back in print, for the most part, somewhere. Even the oddball, short-run stuff.
And the rare series or character that has somehow missed getting a book collection of some kind can be easily had digitally, or through online back issue dealers.
Nevertheless, there are things we used to have that we don’t have today, and sometimes I wish we could have gotten a little more. Mostly they’re the ones that are impossible … like more John Buscema Tarzan comics, or a Lone Ranger series from Doug Wildey and Joe Kubert, or other similar daydreams.
But missing departed creators is too easy, too. Who wouldn’t love to have more from Mike Wieringo or Jim Aparo or John Severin? Everyone misses those guys.
Honestly, though? There’s a Marvel comic that went away back in September of 1976, and I miss it to this day. It frustrates me because it would be so easy to bring back; I can think of all sorts of comics talent who could really do justice to a revival.
I’m talking about The Defenders.
Now, when I say that, I mean the real Defenders. Not the New, not the Secret, not the Last, none of the revivals. Some of those have been good … but they’re not the Defenders. No, no, no.
When I say the “real” Defenders, I mean the group that consisted of Dr. Strange, Nighthawk, Valkyrie, and the Hulk … and whoever else happened to drop by that day.
Now, again, you could accuse me of pining for the work of a creator that’s no longer with us. And it’s certainly true that I am sad that we won’t be getting any more Steve Gerber comics. (Especially his Dr. Fate revival, which was really turning into something cool.) But I do think it’s possible to still do Defenders comics in that style. No, really.
Because everyone who talks about how great that run of stories was misses the point.
Sure, it was weird and subversive and satirical. Seriously weird.
But that wasn’t the great thing about it.
The great thing, which was actually kickstarted by Gerber’s predecessor on the book, Len Wein, was that these were essentially friendless people who were learning how to be friends.
That’s the hook you hang it on. Not the ‘non-team,’ not the weirdness, none of the rest of that crap. The reason that version of the Defenders was so great was because we got to see the friendships form and build and deepen. More often than not, the story’s launching pad was simple — one of the others would show up at Dr. Strange’s house with a problem. Often finding the others there, just hanging out.
That’s why Gerber could get away with the other craziness. Because we absolutely believed in these people. They acted like … well, real people. Real people, that is, who were weird and nerdy and hung out together all the time because they were too damaged to hang out with anyone else.
That was what I loved about the Defenders. They were a distorted superheroic reflection of my own nerd posse in high school back then. Strange was the smart kid that knew a lot of weird stuff, Val was the tomboy that the guys kind of crushed on but also thought maybe was a lesbian, Nighthawk was the emotionally-crippled rich kid, and Hulk was the big dumb kid with anger-management problems. But they were all outcasts. And Wein, and later Gerber, made them all so wonderfully awkward, and yet still endearing.
The Hulk, as portrayed in The Defenders, was especially delightful. Banner was smart and competent and not at all whiny …
… and the Hulk was a big dumb short-tempered kid that didn’t know his own strength.
Nevertheless, as obviously screwed-up as all of them were, they learned to be friends. And as new characters came into the book like Luke Cage or the Red Guardian, they gradually got adopted into this family of weirdos too, and often would show up just to be supportive.
It was a great ride, from around #14 to #41, and it carried me through a big chunk of junior high and high school.
But it wasn’t to last. Suddenly, in #42, Gerry Conway showed up and systematically destroyed everything that was working on the title, infusing a bunch of plain old superhero fight crap.
There were good stories that came after — I’m sure someone’s going to mention David Kraft and Keith Giffen’s “Who Remembers Scorpio?” — but from #42 on, everyone pretty much abandoned the idea that had been the running theme, the idea of outcasts finding friendship, and no one’s tried it with a Defenders book since.
Now, I think you could revive that concept and make it work. In fact, other books have done it — Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol springs to mind. Hell, other super-team books at Marvel have been doing it. Avengers Academy, particularly, but you also could sort of see that idea in Dan Slott’s Mighty Avengers and even in the first run of Bendis’s New Avengers.
But I’d love to see someone try that approach again with the actual Defenders. Doc and Hulk and Val at least, with a couple of more modern players to be named later. Outcast heroes hanging around with Dr. Strange in Greenwich Village, occasionally going off to fight supercrime because it’s better than another night at home alone. In fact, given what he did on Avengers Academy, I think Christos Gage would write the hell out of a book like that.
Anyway, that’s what I miss.
See you next week.
I’m surprised Defenders isn’t more of an evergreen title from Marvel. They do an attempt every so often but they don’t last long.
The things I miss from superhero comics especially are secret identities, supporting casts, and subplots, which I think go hand-in-hand-hand. I like a fleshed-out cast and world. Comics aren’t as narratively dense as they used to be, and series don’t last as long. Everything is so focused on plot that it crowds out character. And the only way to keep supporting players around is to give them superpowers.
I’d include Namor in the Defenders essential list. As someone put it back on the old website the definitive team is “Swordgirl. Hulk. Bird Nose. Fish Man. And Dumb Magician.”
I think this started with Englehart bringing Valkyrie on board. At that point they started to be, as they put it to the Avengers, a team of people who stick together because they enjoy each other’s company.
Yes on Conway’s handling of them. Can’t say Kraft worked for me (Kraft never worked for me). Ed Hannigan’s writing got me to drop the book, possibly the first book I gave up because I’d come to hate the writing.
I recall some of the feeling Greg’s talking about from the deMatteis run, which I’ve been meaning to revisit for a while. I may be misremembering.
I agree a new Defenders shouldn’t be a hard sell. Even if they haven’t been going off on missions, I’d like to think they drop by the Sanctum and hang out.
I liked DAK, for the most part (not everything, but the majority of it) and DeMatteis had some good stuff, too. Personally, I felt it got a little too mundane, after Scorpio and fell into the generic team trap. There were pockets, here and there, but they seemed to ebb and flow, rather than progress, like Gerber or DAK.
Conway’s shanghaiing of the book was unprofessional and spiteful. He was the boss, so he did what he wanted. And then he crashed and burned, in about 6 weeks.
I miss a real sense of Story, rather than content. Well-crafted mysteries, heroes who become heroes because it is the right thing to do and they can do it, who don’t have some secret tie to every villain they fight. Heroes having to earn the win by learning something, not just their powers suddenly winning the day, because the plot needs it and we are on issue 6, of a story that could have been told in two well-written issues, by a competent writer. Letting the story dictate the number of issues, not the format. Editors who know how to edit and nurture talent. Writers who have influences outside of comics…artists, too.
While I would like someone to pick up the original Defenders (i.e., the ideal core consisting of Hulk, Bird-nose, Sword Girl and Dumb Magician) and try to do something Gerberesque with them, I don’t necessarily share Greg’s confidence that some of the more recent writers are up to the task. Granted, I haven’t read anything by Gage, but I know I wouldn’t want Morrison anywhere near a project like that. As for other writers, while I liked what Busiek (and Larsen) did with the team in 2001-02, it was very much its own thing and not at all what Greg’s talking about.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Alan Brennert take a shot at it, if even for just a single, one-shot story.
Daniel Warren Johnson, Kyle Starks, Kieron Gillen, Vita Ayala, and Deniz Camp could all write good Defenders comics focusing on outsiders who form a friend group and deal with weirdness. I’d take more Al Ewing/Javier Rodriguez Kosmic Kraziness any day of the week. No one will ever replace Gerber, but there are a few comic book writers who could continue the concept in something resembling the Gerber tradition.
Currently active Big Two writers I could see having an interesting and offbeat take on Defenders include Mark Russell, Deniz Camp, Ram V, Kelly Thompson, maybe Steve Orlando.