According to writer Steve Englehart, the multi-issue Marvel Comics crossover event most of us refer to as the Avengers/Defenders War (Englehart himself prefers to call it the Avengers/Defenders Clash, God bless ‘im) had its origins in his personal affection for the classic Marvel Annuals he’d enjoyed as a fan in the 1960s — epic, overstuffed extravaganzas like the very crashed wedding of Reed Richards and the Invisible Girl in Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965), or the save-the-timeline battle between the “new” and the “old” Avengers in Avengers Annual #2 (Sep., 1968). As the writer confided in his 2010 introduction to Marvel Masterworks — The Defenders, Vol. 2, “I have great memories of finding these gems and sitting down in the shade of a tree on a sunny summer’s day to read them.” But in recent years, such summertime Annuals as Marvel had continued to produce were mere collections of reprints — nice enough if you didn’t already have those stories, many of which were already classics, but not something you could really get excited about in the same way you could the extra-length, brand-new, “event” stories featured by the Annuals in their heyday.
And so, Englehart came up with the idea of a summer event of his very own, involving his two most hero-heavy titles — Avengers and Defenders, naturally — though, rather than appearing in the form of an Annual or two, this event would bounce back and forth between the respective titles in their regularly scheduled issues. (To really make this work, of course, the frequency of Defenders would need to be stepped up from bi-monthly to monthly, at least for the duration of the crossover — which, as it turns out, is exactly what was ultimately done.) As Englehart tells the tale, his editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas (who’d written a couple of those great ’60s Annuals himself, back in the day) was all for the idea, so long as Englehart didn’t blow any of his deadlines and make one or more of the books come out late, thereby throwing the crossover out of sync. Englehart promised he wouldn’t… and with that, he and his artistic collaborators (the chief among them being Avengers penciller Bob Brown and Defenders penciller Sal Buscema) were off to the races… or so the story goes, anyway.
To be clear, I don’t doubt for a minute that Englehart — dyed-in-the-wool uber-Marvelite that he appears to have been in his pre-professional days — was chiefly, and perhaps even entirely, inspired to come up with the Avengers/Defenders War by his fond recollections of the classic Marvel summer Annuals. That said, for my younger self in the summer of 1973 — and I suspect for many, many other comics fans of the time, as well — the prospect of a multi-issue, summer-long crossover between two Marvel hero teams was at least as 
evocative (and probably more so) of another well-established American comic-book tradition: i.e., the annual meeting of the Justice League and the Justice Society in the pages of DC Comics’ Justice League of America. Sure, those old Marvel Annuals were great, but what the company really seemed to be going for here was an equivalent to what DC had been offering superhero fans each and every summer since 1963 — and which they’d arguably taken to a whole new level one year before, with a JLA/JSA event which not only ran for an unprecedented three issues (rather than the usual two), but even added a third super-team (the Seven Soldiers of Victory) to the mix.
In the interest of fairness. I should note here that Englehart does offer a brief nod to the DC tradition in his Marvel Masterworks intro, saying, “There was, of course, a similarity to the Justice League/Justice Society crossovers that DC had done, and Roy was a sucker for stuff like that, so he was disposed to like the idea…” Yeah, I imagine he was; especially when Englehart came up with a plot structure that adhered very closely indeed to the “hero group breaks into smaller units, collects plot coupons, gets together at the end to defeat menace” formula that had worked so well for the Justice Society for years in Thomas’ beloved All-Star Comics, not to mention for their successors, the Justice League itself, in the early years of that team’s existence. (To be clear, I’m not claiming that Marvel’s hero team books had never utilized such a story structure before themselves; just that it had never been anywhere near as standard at Marvel as it had once been at DC.)
Of course, in the end, the particular details of the genesis of the Avengers/Defenders War don’t really matter all that much. What counts are the results — and those add up to one of the most purely enjoyable super-team sagas of the Bronze Age of Comics, at least as far as your humble blogger is concerned. If you’ve read this story before, either back when it was first published or in the decades since, I hope you’ll enjoy revisiting it through this blog over the next few months; if you’ve never read it before, I hope these posts will help you understand what all the fifty-year-old fuss is about.
As the already imitated will surely agree, a small but still significant part of the pleasure of reading the Avengers/Defenders War is seeing how skillfully Englehart sets up the coming conflict over the several months’ worth of issues of both titles that precede the official start of the event itself. But, seeing as how we’ve already devoted a couple of recent posts to issues of Avengers, we’ll limit our recap of the goings-on in that series of late to noting just two key events: first, the departure of Hawkeye from the team back in issue #109; then, much more recently, the arrival of Hawkeye’s old teacher (and subsequent enemy) the Swordsman, who — accompanied by his lover, the mysterious Mantis — offers his services as the Avenging Archer’s replacement, claiming that he’s reformed his villainous ways… and who ultimately is at least provisionally accepted by the team (though Captain America remains suspicious).
Meanwhile, over in Defenders, quite a bit has gone down since the blog looked at issue #4 (and, more briefly, #5) late last year. As you’ll recall, the former issue had found the Valkyrie joining the team, even as another ally — the Avenger called the Black Knight (aka Dane Whitman) — was treacherously turned to stone by the evil Enchantress. At the story’s conclusion, the Defenders’ leader, Doctor Strange, had sealed up the Knight’s English home of Garrett Castle with a magic spell, while the Valkyrie took (presumably) temporary custody of both his Ebony Blade and winged horse, Aragorn — and then the whole group had transported Dane Whitman’s petrified body back to Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum in New York, where it could be kept safe while the Master of the Mystic Arts worked to find a cure for the unfortunate hero’s condition.
After issue #5’s encounter with (and defeat of) the Omegatron, #6 saw the return of the Silver Surfer — who’d last been seen angrily flying away from the team at the end of #3, but who had since calmed down enough to recognize — correctly — that it was unfair of him to blame the Defenders for their failure to free him from the barrier keeping him Earthbound (I mean, they’d really tried, y’know?). Then, in May, 1973, came Defenders #7 — the first issue released on the book’s new monthly schedule — and who should show up but Hawkeye? He’d stumbled into the Defenders’ orbit via a guest appearance in the 166th issue of Incredible Hulk (another Englehart-scripted title); after the end of that New York-set story, Hawkeye had followed the Hulk as the emerald behemoth set out for Dr. Strange’s place, running into Valkyrie and the Sub-Mariner along the way (art by Sal Buscema and Frank Bolle)…
As it turned out, Doc Strange wasn’t even home, being occupied at the time with the events transpiring in his solo series in Marvel Premiere (yet another Englehart gig). But while the four heroes were there, news came that Subby’s old enemy Attuma was about to launch an attack on Atlantic City — and when Namor flew off to thwart the impending aquatic invasion, he was accompanied not only by Hulk and Valkyrie, but also by Hawkeve (who didn’t have anything else going on that day, after all). Alas, things didn’t go all that well for the good guys, and the Defenders (including Hawkeye) were all captured — with the exception of the Hulk, who simply leapt away from the scene. As the issue wound down, Attuma was revealed to be working with another veteran Marvel villain, the Red Ghost, who’d improved his technique for controlling minds through the application of cosmic rays — allowing him to not only usurp the wills of porpoises, squids, and other denizens of the deep, but of the captive Defenders as well.
This brings us to June, 1973 — but before we see how the Defenders got out of their jam, we’ll need to check in with their future foes, the Avengers. Issue #115 of that team’s series found Earth’s Mightiest Heroes traveling to England to check on the welfare of their long-distance teammate, the Black Knight. Seems that when the Avengers had found themselves severely short-handed against Magneto back around #110-111, they’d put out an all-hands call for help… and Dane Whitman hadn’t responded. At first they’d figured he was simply busy with other matters, but after several weeks of radio silence, they’d become concerned, and so had gone together to Garrett Castle to investigate.
Unfortunately, they’d immediately found themselves stymied by the invisible barrier Doc Strange had magically whipped up to keep the castle secure in the Black Knight’s absence; but, thanks to the mystical abilities of Mantis (whose precise power set was only slowly beginning to come into focus), they were at least able to determine who was responsible… though not why they’d done it, of course (art by Bob Brown and Mike Esposito)…
At this stage in Marvel Universe history, the interaction between Dr. Strange and the Avengers (individually, as well as in a group) has been pretty minimal; though, as pointed out here by the Black Panther, they’d had a bona fide team-up back in Avengers #61 (Feb., 1969), an adventure that coincidentally also guest-starred the Black Knight (who was at that time still about a year out from being offered full team membership).
While still processing the information uncovered by Mantis, the Avengers are suddenly set upon by subterranean troglodytes under the leadership of a fellow named Skol. It turns out that they’re the descendants of English peasants literally driven underground several centuries earlier, and no, you wouldn’t think they’d be capable of giving a solo Thor thirty seconds’ worth of trouble, let alone the Avengers’ full active roster; nevertheless, this crew manages to keep the Avengers occupied all the way up to page 16, at the end of which we see our heroes quinjetting back home to the States, determined to carry their concerns to Doctor Strange’s Greenwich Village doorstep.
But wait! There’s more — because the last three pages of the issue are given over to a… prologue?
Everybody remembers Thor #207 (Jan., 1973), right? The one where Loki, blinded by his brother’s thunder-godly lightning, tries to flag down Steve Englehart’s stolen (and noisy) car, but the driver (who may be Justice League villain Felix Faust) ignores him, and the God of Evil goes sailing over the side of a Rutland, Vermont cliff? Sure you do.
I love the dialogue between Loki and Dormammu on the above page, especially the bit in panel 2 about All-Father Odin’s opinion of Big D.
Seeing as how my own first issue of Fantastic Four had been #78, my younger self might have been at something of a disadvantage with this page’s callback to FF #54 — might have been, but in fact wasn’t, as back in December, 1972 I’d bought and read Marvel’s Greatest Comics #41, which reprinted that earlier comic’s classic Stan Lee-Jack Kirby story: a wild, done-in-one ride that mashed up the separate medieval legends of Avalon and Prester John, and also featured the one and only appearance to date of that very powerful magical artifact known as the Evil Eye — a device which had indeed appeared to have been utterly destroyed when it critically overloaded and exploded at the story’s conclusion… but hey, it’s not like anyone ever found any remnants, right?
You really can’t fault Englehart for his choice of villains for this epic. Loki, after all, is the original Avengers baddie, having been responsible for bringing the group together in the first place back in issue #1. And while the Defenders haven’t really been around long enough to acquire a list of appropriately impressive heavies all their own, they did fight Dormammu in only their second outing, back in Marvel Feature #2. Plus, Dormy is unquestionably the number one arch-foe of the newer team’s leader, Doc Strange — and like Loki, his powers are impressive enough that you can readily believe that the two of them together might be more than a match for the Avengers and Defenders combined (especially since they’re planning to be sneaky, rather than launch a direct assault).
And now, we’ll follow the directions given us at the end of Avengers #115, and turn to Defenders #8, also on sale in June, 1973… though before heading to that issue’s back-of-the-book Chapter One of the Avengers/Defenders War “proper”, we’ll want to see first how all that unpleasantness with Attuma and the Red Ghost got resolved in the issue’s lead story.
As already noted, the Red Ghost has successfully brought the Sub-Mariner, Valkyrie, and Hawkeye under his and Attuma’s mental command — and are now planning to attack Atlantis, waiting only until the Ghost (who’s being aided unwillingly by a marine biologist kidnapped in the earlier Atlantic City incident) has a sufficient number of sea creatures under his control. 
Meanwhile, having concluded his long-running battle with Shuma-Gorath over in Marvel Premiere #10 (becoming Sorcerer Supreme in the process), Doctor Strange has returned home to his Sanctum Sanctorum — and after taking a little time to settle in, he makes an important breakthrough in the Defenders’ ongoing quest to save the Black Knight. He happily shares this good news with his servant Wong and lover Clea, as shown at right (art by Sal Buscema and Frank McLaughlin). But when he attempts to follow Clea’s suggestion and summon the Defenders, he’s only able to reach the Silver Surfer and the Hulk. Luckily, Strange is able to access the Hulk’s memories of the absent Defenders’ run-in with Attuma, and soon thereafter he and the Surfer are heading out in search of their missing friends (and Hawkeye)… leaving the unpredictable Hulk behind in a sorcerous slumber.
Ultimately, the two Defenders find their three mesmerized colleagues in the vanguard of Attuma’s troops, just as the assault on Atlantis begins. Combining their powers, Strange and the Surfer are able to create a barrier around the Earth that shuts out the cosmic rays upon which the Red Ghost’s mind control depends. The Surfer finds himself duly impressed by his teammate’s puissance…
No, this little exchange doesn’t really have anything to do with the Avengers/Defenders War, or even with the main plot of Defenders #8. But it’s a great example of the kind of character interaction Englehart did so well — a feature of his writing that, when he was at his best, helped his stories feel like they were something more than “mere” superhero action yarns — and so, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you here.
But, to continue with our story — once Namor and the others are free from the Red Ghost’s influence,the tide of battle abruptly turns. Attuma, the Ghost, and their minions are quickly and soundly defeated, the previously enslaved sea creatures are freed to head back to their watery homes, the kidnapped biologist is returned to Atlantic City to resume his vacation — and then, all the Defenders (and Hawkeye) head back to NYC, so that Strange can fill everyone in on his discovery regarding the Black Knight… which, as you’ve likely already guessed, means we’ve finally arrived at Chapter One of the Avengers/Defenders War:
And with that, we’re through June and into July… and ready for the first “full-length” installment of our saga. So, with a brief pause to admire the dramatic (and bright!) cover for Avengers #116 provided by the late great John Romita (with inks by Mike Esposito), it’s on to Chapter Two…
I’m not sure if anyone else at Marvel was marking the 10th anniversaries of different features as they came up, but this is the second time we’ve seen Steve Englehart do it within a three month period (the last was for Doctor Strange, in Marvel Premiere #9).
Another item worth noting on this opening splash page is the credit given “Johnny Romita” as art director — something I can’t recall seeing done on any other Marvel comic. (Not that I’ve made any kind of exhaustive search, you understand.)
You have to hand it to Wong for nerve; it’s not everyone who can shut a door in the face of a God of Thunder with such aplomb. And when Thor predictably responds by smashing that door into splinters, so that the angry Avengers are free to surge inside, Wong continues to keep his cool, immediately assuming a defensive stance against his home’s invaders. But then…
Dr. Strange’s Orb of Agamotto begins to display images of, as well as to telepathically narrate, the “recent history” of the Evil Eye; basically, it’s a recap of Fantastic Four #54, which only enters new territory after we (and the Defenders) see the artifact blow itself up:
We all know what happens next, don’t we? Following in the footsteps of the Justice Society, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, the early Justice League, etc., etc., the team splits up to go six separate ways to accomplish their individual missions. Even the Hulk decides to be cooperative…
And the thing is, it really is a logical course of action. About the only thing here that smacks of writerly contrivance is the sidestepping of any reaction whatsoever by the departing Defenders to Doc Strange’s smashed-in door, or to the laid-out Wong (surely the heroes don’t all immediately take to the air via an open window or skylight?). But that’s a relatively minor quibble, at least for this reader.
Well, that alliance didn’t last very long, did it? But, again, the thought process Loki goes through to arrive at his decision to betray Dormammu feels consistent with his established character, and is logical in the context of the story…
As Loki goes on to name Dr. Strange’s confederates in supposed “perfidy”, he notes those aspects of each Defender’s character that might reasonably rouse, or confirm, the Avengers’ suspicion of wrongdoing on their part. Of course, the Hulk and Sub-Mariner have each wreaked enough havoc in the past that he hardly needs to do a hard-sell on them; meanwhile, the Valkyrie is “still” a disguised Enchantress as far as the Avengers know (per issue #83), and the Silver Surfer’s known “bitterness at being held prisoner on this planet” is at least a plausible explanation for him going rogue. Which leaves only the sixth, and last, Defender…
As with the Defenders, the splitting-up of the eight Avengers (that’s counting hanger-on Mantis, naturally) into six units feels logical (and if the “random” choices made here ultimately result in such fan-satisfying match-ups as Thor vs. Hulk, well, it’s not like it couldn’t have happened that way by chance, right?). About the only surprise move here is Mantis’ decision to accompany the Black Panther rather than the Swordsman, following a “hunch” that the former will need her more.
I may be off-base here, but something about Bob Brown and Mike Esposito’s rendering of the Silver Surfer gives me the feeling that one or both of them are trying to channel Jack Kirby’s original visual design for him, as opposed to the later, somewhat more streamlined version of John Buscema (whose take is largely adhered to by JB’s broher Sal in Defenders).
Immediately following his “eureka” moment, the Surfer flies into the volcano’s crater to search for his Eye piece; naturally, he’s not the least bit bothered by molten lava, seeing as he has experience flying “into the hearts of suns” and all…
In this scene, Englehart cleverly avoids one of the common fannish objections to fights between good guys — i.e., “why don’t they just talk to each other?” — by creating a situation where the two combatants literally can’t hear each other, should they even be so disposed as to try.
The Surfer summons his board to strike the Vision from behind, plunging the android into the lava; but then, when he tries to fly clear of the crater, misjudges the distance in the volcanic smoke and ash, and slams into a wall. “Now I have him!” the Vision exults…
Back in July, 1973, I’m pretty sure that my sixteen-year-old self accepted Englehart’s use of the “human sacrifice to the volcano god” trope without even a shrug; in July, 2023, however, my sixty-six-year-old self feels obliged to note that while there seems to be at least some evidence for such things having happened in the world over the whole course of human history, I haven’t found anything to suggest that anything of the sort has ever occurred on the real-world Polynesia island of Rurutu… and especially not in the latter half of the 20th century.
Setting aside the condescending attitude towards the “superstitious” Polynesians (which, sadly, was hardly unusual in this era), the first actual clash between members of the two featured super-teams works really well — or, at least, it would, if it had been presented as a one-on-one battle between the Silver Surfer and the Vision. But since it’s been billed instead as “The Silver Surfer vs. the Vision and the Scarlet Witch“, Englehart’s decision to completely sideline Wanda Maximoff makes it all but mandatory to take off more than a few points from Chapter 3. It’s an odd misstep on the part of the writer, who’d begun writing the Scarlet Witch as a stronger, more independent character virtually from the first page of his first issue of Avengers, and who would continue to develop her as a force to be reckoned with throughout his tenure. But, it is what it is.
That said, seeing the Vision and the Silver Surfer slug it out in a surging lake of molten lava was, and is, pretty damn cool. So, I figure we should all look forward with keen anticipation to the next chapter of our saga — the blog edition of which won’t be coming to you quite as quickly as the original Defenders #9 followed Avengers #116 back in 1973, when only one hot July week separated those comics’ release dates, as it’ll be two weeks before our post on Chapters 4 and 5 of the Avengers/Defenders War sees the light of day. But since we all know that time passes more quickly now than it did fifty years ago, your humble blogger figures that Saturday, July 22. will be here before we know it, and that the interval between A/DW posts shouldn’t seem any longer than one of the proper, honest weeks we used to have, half a century back. That’s my story, anyway, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Hello! I’m very grateful for your assessment of the Avengers -Defenders CLASH (that’s what Englehart called it, and it’s more evocative to me than “War.”) I had to sell my older Marvels years ago, but that period of 1972 to 1976 remains a golden era for me, and one of the main reasons was Steve Englehart’s writing. As you astutely point out, the character interaction and little grace notes in the dialogue and captions are what elevated his scripting. (For example, Len Wein scripted part one of those DEFENDERS issues, and as gifted a writer as Wein was, the end product lacked a little something.)
I also appreciated (as you seem to) the way Englehart slowly laid the groundwork for the Clash over several months. Whenever a character says, “I was once told…” you can often point to a specific issue and page that had that exchange. Respect for continuity and depth of characterization were Englehart hallmarks, and it was a GAS revisiting them in your blog!
That said, you’re right about the “sacrifice to the volcano god” trope being cringe-worthy. “Those were different times,” as Lou Reed once sang.
As far as Wanda’s “damsel in distress” role in this chapter – well, without spilling the beans for any of the young’uns in the audience, we might revisit it when you take you look at AVENGERS #118 in a couple of months. Englehart liked playing the long game, and if something doesn’t sit right from a character perspective. you can usually count on it being addressed in the future.
Anyway, I’m grateful to have stumbled onto your blog through “Avengers Forever” on Facebook (which I visit through the account of my lovely wife, Debbie Lockwood). I am apparently still in a trial period, so I’m not able to comment on DB yet, but I’ll certainly make myself heard here – especially when you deal with the work of my holy trinity of Marvel writers: Don McGregor, Steve Gerber, and Steve Englehart.
Be well!
I was going to make the same comment on Englehart’s apparent lack of use of Wanda in this first clash of the two teams. I think he actually does a great job highlighting each of the members of the two teams when you look back on the overall story. Sure, Wanda’s involvement in the initial battle with the Silver Surfer might have tipped the scales to a different conclusion that would have altered the trajectory of the entire story, but in this case, her dilemma was certainly a valid motivator for Vision’s emotional response to facing the Surfer.
Great first installment of this story arc, which for me, was a most exciting event. The Avengers and Defenders were definitely two of my favorite comics at the time, with Mantis, Wanda, and Val being three of my favorite comic book characters around at the time. I’m very much looking forward to your summaries of the upcoming chapters, and viewing the storyline over again now 50 years later.
Welcome aboard, Bill! You can expect lots of Englehart and Gerber coverage here over the next few years — though not very much McGregor, I’m afraid. For whatever reason, I passed on both his main series (Killraven in Amazing Adventures and Black Panther in Jungle Action) back in the day, so however much I’ve come to appreciate them in the decades since, they’re ineligible to be blogged about here. (As longtime readers have heard me say before, we’re all at the mercy of the purchasing decisions my younger self made half a century ago).
Thank you, Alan. I get it about McGregor; his verbosity was a bit of an acquired taste. But when I think of the great Marvel books of that period, his BLACK PANTHER and WAR OF THE WORLDS rank right up there.
I feel like I’m joining your blog at the right time. When I post in other comic-related groups and try to get people to talk about Steve Englehart, the reaction is often “Englehart? Englehart who?” But I think many of his best stories still hold up after (gulp!) 50 years.
The Avengers-Defenders Clash (I’ll continue to call it that – sorry, not sorry!) is when Englehart really started making AVENGERS _his_ book. He’s said more than once that he started off trying to do Roy Thomas stories, and that just didn’t work for him. He had bit of a rocky start, and if you look at the villains during his first year, they weren’t the most memorable. (I had completely forgotten about the Lion God appearing TWICE!) Nonetheless, he had a relatively strong grasp of the characters right from the get-go, and the departure of Hawkeye in #109 was a first step. To me, #113 was the one where Englehart really started making the book his own, and the arrival of Mantis and the Swordsman leading directly into the Clash was the REAL beginning of his peak work.
In some ways, Englehart following Thomas on AVENGERS was even rougher than Thomas and Conway following Stan Lee on FANTASTIC FOUR and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, respectively. If you look at Lee’s last year or so on each of those titles, we’re not talking about the most memorable stories. (“Oh, boy! A new Spider-Slayer! Just what I’ve wanted to see!”) On the other hand, look at Thomas’ last year on AVENGERS: the bulk of the Kree-Skrull War, the “War on Olympus” trilogy with Barry Smith, the cool Harlan Ellison time-travel story. Thomas was leaving on a high note, and Englehart had some big shoes to fill. I can understand being a little bit cowed!
Sorry to blather. I look forward to more entries, and it’s nice to talk to another old fogey! (I’m going to qualify for Medicare in February – yikes!)
Be well!
At this point, I would guess his Batman arc is probably what most people know him from.
Mantis choosing to accompany the Panther surely wasn’t the only surprise. With seven members (plus Mantis) needing to be divided between six teams, why were Wanda and Vision allowed to head out together while Swordsman went out on his own? Wouldn’t it have have made sense to pair the weakest two of the seven together and send out the five strongest on their own? So. Swordsman and Panther are put together, everyone else is on their own and then Mantis gets to choose whose team to crash. Maybe joining Cap, maybe the Swordsman and Panther.
Although any of that would make real world sense, story wise Englehart was clearly looking to have the two sword-bearing characters have at one another and Mantis would have just gotten in the way of that particular chapter. Of course, supposedly the pairings off of the combatants was supposed to be “random” but nothing in any fictional story is really random and several of Englehart’s choices evoked the histories of the characters, such as having the two Golden Age heroes, Cap & Namor face off against one another, and Iron Man face off against his one time early Silver Age nemesis, Hawkeye, as well as the first one on one clash of Thor and the Hulk in nearly 10 years, going back to Avengers #3, as retold in more detail in Journey Into Mystery #112. Of the other two sets of combatants, well, that was what remained and it made more sense for the Vision (albeit with Wanda forced into a damsel in distress role) to be set against the Silver Surfer, and to have the Black Panther and the semi-mystical Mantis take on Dr. Strange, even though Vizh had never met the Surfer previously and T’Challa had previously met Dr. Strange, as an ally.
One thing of note about Mantis — although she had clearly meant to be identified as Vietnamese and there was as yet no written indication that was of half-European ancestry, she was colored with typical “white” skin tone rather than yellow, as was the case with the Chinese characters in the concurrent issues of Captain America & the Falcon, featuring the Yellow Claw, or even a variation of orange as with Shang Chi, who was identified as half-Chinese and half-Euro-American (at least back in the Bronze Age; I know that’s been changed for the present version so that he’s now fully Chinese). Curiously, the Mandarin, also of mixed Chinese and Euro-American ancestry, was also colored “white”. I don’t know if Englehart had already determined that Mantis was not fully Asian or if it was just determined that as she was, for all intents and purposes even if not officially a member of the Avengers to not color her the glaringly problematic yellow color. Bill Wu, who had many letters published in various mags in the ’70s and early ’80s voiced strong objections to the yellow coloring used for many Oriental characters in comics in that and previous eras. And I could perfectly understand his point of view. It’d be like “coloring” every white character as actually white and every black character as totally black, as if the colorists were oblivious to the fact that no one (or only a very tiny percentage of people) actually has those particular skin tones despite being referred to as white, black or yellow people. Even albinos don’t have pure white skin — more a sort of pale pink. And although I’ve seen people with very dark brown skins, I’ve never seen anyone with skin that was actually as black as the fur of my black cats. And although I’ve known many people of east Asian ancestry, including close relatives, none of them had a skin tone that looked at like any shade of yellow to me. I’ve only ever seen pictures of people with very bad jaundice whose skin had turned yellowish, but that’s a medical condition rather than a normal skin tone of a people with ancestry tied to a particular region.
Just a few random thoughts that came to my head while thinking about these comics from a half-century ago.
I got most of this epic off the racks 50 years ago, the only pieces I’d missed being Defenders #10, as well as Hulk 168, which brought Hawkeye into connection with ol’ Greenskin and that MGC reprint of FF #154. Anyhow, even if not quite as artistically spectacular as the ongoing Thanos War in Captain Marvel, the Avengers-Defenders Clash was still pretty fun, even with the pitfalls more noticeable to our elder selves than to our younger ones.
Englehart’s take on the Polynesians in the early 1970s brings up something nearly every American mainstream comics writer/artist of the 20th century seemed guilty of at one time or another — in just about every story set in culture outside of the U.S., the inhabitants of that culture tend to look and behave according to stereotypes that are generally a few centuries out of date. But then, many movies & tv shows of the period were routinely doing the same thing. I think our culture itself has mostly outgrown that by now, although I wouldn’t be too surprised if it still pops up from time to time.
Also of note, the many instances where communication between the members of the two teams were stymied and both the lies of Loki and circumstances led the Avengers to assume the worst of the Defenders. And Dr. Strange being so anxious to help cure the Black Knight as to not even bother to find out more about who was attempting to barge into his Sanctum Sanctorum was a bit out of character, but then even the wisest of people can err when too focused on one thing and ignore to their regret aspects that seem irrelevant at the time.
Overall, though, for my 11 year old self in the summer of 1973, this was actually the first grand comics epic I was able to collect while it was actually ongoing rather than something from the near or distant past I could only as yet read references to. And as far as I was concerned, Englehart very well succeeded in making a fun summer comics extravaganza.
Great reverie on the opening portions of it, Alan!
His treatment of the “Mohammedans” fighting in the Crusades a few issues later is nothing to brag about either.
And Dane Whitman opting to stay in that era didn’t make any sense at all, aside from Englehart wanting to conveniently keep him out of the present so that Valkyrie could keep his winged horse and ebony sword. Worse, though, IMO, was that Englehart relied on a white-washed version of King Richard and the crusades. Richard I spent very little time in England — he was also Duke of Normandy and when he wasn’t out on crusades battling Muslims in the “Holy Land”, he much preferred to stay in his French realm than in England, and he was largely responsible for seriously mucking up the English economy, including payment of a large ransom that had to be paid for his release — not from Muslims but from Duke Leopold V of Austria, who held “Good” King Richard responsible for the murder of one of his cousins and other offenses.
From all I’ve read, Richard I was a terrible king, but myths & legends were built up on his adventures and he got a prominent cameo as the king who would set things right at the end of the Robin Hood myths, so most people for the 800+ years since his death have given him a pass while building up King John as one of history’s greatest villains (and one of the historical examples of the “good” King with an “evil” brother constantly trying to usurp the throne trope, as with Black Bolt & Maximus.
Understandably, Englehart ignored actual history, going with the legends that better fit the story he wanted to tell, which is what pretty much what most comics writers from the 1930s on up have done.
One thing I enjoyed about the British show Robin of Sherwood is that when Richard comes home, he’s a calculating schemer who pardons Robin because he figures having a tame outlaw on the payroll will make him look much better than John (doesn’t work out, of course).
Yes, Robin of Sherwood was a really good series, and its use of King Richard (played by John Rhys-Davies) was an effective subversion of expectation. Richard the Lionheart returns to England, Robin and the other outlaws are convinced he’s finally going to make things right, and for a short time it seems that way… until they realize that all Richard is interested in raising another army and returning to the Middle East to continue fighting the Crusades…
Robin of Loxley: I was wrong, from the beginning. He’s a warrior. Nothing else matters to him.
Friar Tuck: And he’ll leave England to the mercy of people like the Sheriff.
And when Richard realizes that Robin and his men will not let themselves be used as unquestioning pawns, he very quickly tries to have them killed. Then a few episodes later we learn that (as in real life) Richard has died fighting in Normandy, France, leaving the ambitious Prince John finally able to be crowned King.
I’m probably putting the cart before the horse here, and it might be something that Alan later goes into when he covers that Defenders story where the Black Knight decides to remain in the 12th Century, but writer Steven Grant had the exact same reaction to Englehart’s story that you did, and so he wrote several Black Knight stories (which eventually saw print in Marvel Fanfare) where Dane Whitman discovers too late the unpleasant truth about Richard I and the Crusades. Grant discusses it in an interview at the below link:
https://magazinesandmonsters.com/2015/07/24/cbuh-sgrant2/
Great interview, Ben! And great idea on Grant’s part to make something positive out of Englehart opting to leave Dane Whitman in the 13th century, mainly by having Dane discover the days of yore were not so grand and exciting after all.
Alan, were you ever a member of FOOM? Steranko did some great work in those first four issues. Just wondered if you were going to review any of these.
Chris A, I did join FOOM, but not for a couple of years — by which time Steranko had moved on.
I remember being so torn when this storyline was getting started. I loved the Defenders and was a devoted reader of the entire series up to that point, but I really couldn’t stand the Avengers and refused to read that book at all after a few brief issues I’d read a year or two earlier. Consequently, I was stuck looking forward to half the story and dreading the other half. As a result (and also due to the inadequacies of my allowance and my on-going struggle with my parents over comics in general), I seem to have just skipped the whole thing. I know, inconceivable, right? But it definitely seems to be the case as I have no memory of the Avengers/Defenders War at all, beyond the name and a fifty-year old curiosity as to what the whole darn thing was about.
Looking at the story from a fresh perspective in the here and now. I’m happily surprised at how logical the plot is and at how few plot holes there are. Yeah, the portrayal of the Polynesians is unfortunate as is the sidelining of Wanda, and I think Loki’s inner monologue leading up to his abandonment of Dormammu is missing a few steps, but otherwise, Englehart establishes himself here as a rare comics writer who understands how the Marvel Method works and uses it to get the best out of his pencillers and the rest of his creative team, at least in terms of sticking to the story as he envisioned it. Speaking of pencillers, Brown and Buscema aren’t exactly painting the Sistine Chapel here, but their work is servicable and doesn’t distract from the story, so I have no real problem with it.
Why did I dislike the Avengers so much, you ask? Not sure, really. I know I didn’t care for Thor or Iron Man or Hulk very much and I suppose I found the bulk of the rest of the team uninteresting, especially compared to the more dynamic line-up of the JLA. I know, your mileage may vary. Bottom line was (and is), I’m a DC guy and always have been. On the Marvel side, I liked Spider-Man, the FF, Daredevil and the Defenders and that was about it. I wish I’d been more open-minded back then, but hey, I was fifteen. At fifteen, foolish is not a bug, but a feature… Thanks, Alan!
My experience went in the opposite direction — by age 9, in 1971, having read both Marvel & DC superhero comics, I’d developed the perception that DC superheroes were boring, cardboard characters with little interesting personality, but I was fascinated by the Marvel superheroes, initially primarily Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Hulk, but rapidly expanding to the rest of them by 1972, such that by 1973, Avengers and Defenders were both on my must buy list whenever I found them on the racks, albeit from just a few months before the big clash began. ASM & the FF were also on my list, and a few others — Captain Marvel joined the list after I got issues #27. Other titles depended on how much money I had on me when I was perusing the racks.
Fred, as I got older and we reached the end of the seventies and into the eighties, my Marvel consumption increased commensurately, as did my appreciation of the Marvel Universe as a whole. I got into XMen, Capt. Marvel, and for the year I was actually working for a comic shop, I read everything, b/c unlimited comics was part of my salary package (almost all of my salary package). The Avengers though, I just didn’t get. Alan and I have an old friend who has every issue of the Avengers ever published, but his enthusiasm was not contagious. It took the Marvel movies to make me see the point of Iron Man, Thor and company and I suppose you could say that appreciation was long overdue.
This is one of my favorite epics of all time and you know what? I went to summer camp for a month or so and missed key issues! I can’t recall now which ones they were but it took me years to find the missing ones.
Wanda’s sidelining made sense within the story a least. It was definitely a step up from the Wasp routinely just not doing things she was more than capable of simply because she was just a girl. Wanda’s next important part in this saga more than makes up for it as well.
These issues were originally published before my time, though my recollection of finding them in back issue bins in the 80s is no less joyous. This was a very entertaining storyline, and again, the differences between the characters and teams feel highlighted. They were both team books but they were very different teams, so it didn’t feel like a waste of money to buy titles. I just love this era; so many happy memories of these old stories.
I liked that aspect of the Marvel’s team books in the ’70s — that they each had their own unique vibes, with the FF a family, however dysfunctional at this point 50 years ago; the Avengers a formal group; and the Defenders a very informal group often supplemented by guest stars who’d help out for a couple of months or so and then be off to do their own thing without being obligated to show up for group meetings every month. The Avengers would read Iron Man the riot act for not showing up, without even bothering to ask why (well, turns out he was seriously ill and in the hospital in his civilian identity, but, hey, no excuses!). Admittedly, Dr. Strange was a bit dickish early on trying to rope Hulk and Namor and whoever else might be available to help him save the world, but it wasn’t like they really cared if he kicked them out of the group for a week or two for having better things to do at the time.
This was an awesome story to read. I was already an Englehart fan, having started reading Avengers after many years with the Space Phantom three-parter (an earlier example of Stainless Steve taking an obscure bit of Marvel trivia and building on it). This one though? Wow. Back then, taking a three or four issues of two different books to tell one crossover seemed so insanely ambitious … today we get crossovers five times as big with one tenth the entertainment value.
I had assumed the Avengers-Defenders Clash was an idea that came from Thomas as an attempt to compete with or top Schwartz and Wein’s 3 issue JSA-JSA Team-Up from the previous summer.
I assumed the Avengers-FF-Inhumans cross over the next Summer for the Quicksilver-Crystal nuptuals was an attempt to keep it going. (It didn’t.)
Now, it might be that Englehart was not into the JLA-JSA Team-ups.
He did not, when he had his gig on JLA, do one despite those still being a “thing” in the Summer of ’77, (The one that year was a JLA-JSA-LDSH story, written by Paul Levitz, who was writting All_Star and, I believe, LSH at the time, so that may be why.)
This was a fun story (as the JLA-JSA-& Soldiers story had been the Simmer before). But I think where Englehart hit is stride was with the Zodiac and Kang arcs that follow.
Thomas and Conway did a JLA-JSA-All-Star Squadron team up in the Summer of 1982, that reminded me of the Avengers-Defenders Clash of (then) 9 years before.
So, I see the Avengers-Defenders thing starting with Thomas.
I read this for the first time when The Avengers / Defenders War was collected as a trade paperback in 2002. I have to admit, my first impression was that I found it really underwhelming and formulaic. I subsequently realized that this was actually one of the first stories to cross over between two team books and to see those two teams manipulated into fighting each other by the villains. Once I stopped looking at The Avengers / Defenders War from the perspective of 2002, by which point that type of story was already very much old hat, and looked at it as being the story that codified the tropes, I developed a much greater appreciation for it.
While the Valkyrie retained possession of Aragorn at the conclusion of the Avengers/Defenders Clash, the Black Knight retook possession of the Ebony Blade in *Defenders* #11.
In *Defenders* #12, Dr. Strange gave her the sword Dragonfang.
The history between Hawkeye and the Swordsman could have allowed for them to fight each other, thus leaving the Valkyrie to tangle with Iron Man. Iron Man could have fought the Hulk, and Thor could have fought the Valkyrie.
Englehart would have made the two compelling, I’m sure (or consider having Iron Man, who would rather think in terms of “repulsor rays — or whatever” guarding the Sanctum Sanctorum battle the Valkyrie…a consummate ladies’s man fighting a woman who guides the souls of the fallen to Valhalla…hmm. Makes me understand that maybe the Ted Knight Starman, even after serving with the Spectre and Dr. Fate, would find the demon Etrigan unsettling), but I’m glad he chose the confrontations he did.
The conclusion in “A Dark and Stormy Knight” still irks me. All that preparation and so little payoff…