The primary subject of today’s post, Defenders #11, is the official conclusion of Marvel’s Avengers/Defenders War crossover event of summer, 1973 — though you’d be hard-pressed to find any evidence of that fact on the book’s otherwise very fine Sal Buscema cover.

Still, as the opening splash page clearly tells us, this is indeed “The 12th and final chapter of the greatest super-epic ever told!”  And surely writer Steve Englehart must know whereof he speaks.  Mustn’t he? 

Incidentally, if you’re counting backwards on your hands, trying to come up with eleven previous issues of Defenders and Avengers chronicling this back-and-forth “super-epic“, don’t bother.  Englehart’s structuring of the crossover had it beginning in the last three pages of Avengers #115 with a Prologue, then moving to the last four pages of Defenders #8 for Chapter One, then back to Avengers #116 for Chapters Two and Three, and so on.  In any event, your humble blogger is of the opinion that it would have made more sense to frame “A Dark and Stormy Knight” as an Epilogue, seeing as how the Avengers disappear from the narrative after the second page; after all, we call this storyline “The Avengers/Defenders War” (or, if you subscribe to Englehart’s preference, “The Avengers/Defenders Clash“), not “The Quest for the Black Knight’s Soul”.  But, hey, whatever.

Before moving past the splash, may I just say that Sal Buscema and Frank Bolle’s Evil Eye-lens-distorted portrait of the Defenders is perhaps my favorite single image of the whole crossover.  Also, that, as far as I’m concerned, the Defenders won the war/clash on the visual front, based on their issues having had generally superior artwork (though that’s a matter of subjective taste, obviously, and I’m sure that some of your mileages will vary).*

I don’t think I was fazed by Dr. Strange’s world-wide memory-wipe back in 1973, but in 2023, it seems pretty high-handed — not to mention invasive, and possibly dangerous.  On the other hand, his being able to instantaneously fix the damage wreaked by Dormammu across the whole damn cosmos remains highly impressive, as well as unequivocally a Good Thing.  That Evil Eye sure is one powerful doohickey, isn’t it?

Outside of a brief allusion in last week’s Fantastic Four #141 post, I haven’t written about the Sub-Mariner’s recent change of costume (beg your pardon, Mr. Englehart, but it ain’t a “uniform” unless there’s more than one person sporting the same look), so I might as well make note of it here.  In Sub-Mariner #67 (cover-dated Nov., 1973, but published in August), Subby surrendered his scaly green trunks in favor of a new blue-and gold ensemble (designed by John Romita, who also drew the cover shown at right).  The in-story reason was that his body chemistry had been altered by a nerve-gas explosion, so that he couldn’t breathe out of water unless he wore a special outfit hastily cobbled together by the FF’s Reed Richards.  The real-world reason, on the other hand, was an attempt to revive the title’s flagging sales — an effort which, in addition to making Namor look more like a standard Marvel costumed crusader, also included making him seem more of a badass (not really a reach for the longtime antihero) by sticking a “Savage” into his title logo.  Neither of those gambits paid off, as the Sub-Mariner series would breathe its last (whether in the water or out) less than a year later, with issue #72.  The new outfit, however, would hang around for a few years after that, although Subby would of course eventually return to his traditional look.

If you stop to think about it, it’s a little odd that the Avengers don’t accompany the Defenders back to Doc Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum to be on hand for the Black Knight’s rescue.  After all, Dane Whitman is still a card-carrying member of the older team, even if his petrification did happen on the Defenders’ watch.

I’ve always been mildly irked by the way Englehart blithely segues into the Defenders’ actually using the Evil Eye to attempt to rescue the Black Knight; after all, the only reason the team had ever believed that it would be of help in that endeavor is that Dormammu had tricked them into it, so it’s a little jarring that that’s suddenly taken as a given.  I would have preferred some dialogue earlier in this issue (or even at the end of Avengers #118) along the lines of, “Say, do you suppose that Dormammu might have been right all along?  We should give it a try, anyway.”  But Dr. Strange’s rather belated “How ironic” remark in the next-to-last panel above is as close as we ever get to an expression of that idea.

If you’re an old geezer like me, even if you vaguely recognize the name “Dale Carnegie” it might take you a minute to place it — so let me help you out by reminding you that he was a 20th-century self-help guru, probably best known for his 1936 book, How to Win Friends and Influence People… which is probably what Englehart (via Hawkeye) is riffing on above.

Did you notice the plug for Marvel’s new official fan club, FOOM, in that last panel?  I realize that this isn’t the first such I’ve pointed out on this blog; but while I’m sure I’ll stop referring to them at some point, that moment has not yet arrived.  (Obviously.)

“…the Arabs are attacking!”  Despite a perfunctory nod towards neutrality via Doc’s “This is not our war!” line, Englehart wastes little time in picking up the Christians=good guys/Muslims=bad guys framing of the Crusades that was all to common in Western culture just a few decades ago.

Well, surely the Hulk will be a match for the terrible Temax, right?  Not so fast — first, ol’ Jade-Jaws throws a haymaker that the giant gnome easily shrugs off; then, Temax’s return blow sends the Hulk flying.  Recognizing that their defeat is imminent, Dr. Strange casts a spell that magically transports our heroes some miles away…

As I’ve written in previous posts, I developed an abiding fascination for the Arthurian legends during the early 1970s; while I have a hard time pinpointing the exact timing of that development, my fascination was definitely off and running by September, 1973, as I can clearly recall lapping up all this business about Merlin and Modred (aka Mordred) with a big old spoon.  This sequence left me especially keen to read the story from Marvel Super-Heroes #17 (Nov., 1968) that had set up this background, most of which was unfamiliar to me; I did eventually, though, if memory serves, it took a few years before I was able to acquire it as a back issue.

As for the material concerning England’s King Richard I and Prince John — well, I didn’t know nearly as much about those fellows, despite them being actual historical figures… and most of what I did know was by way of the Robin Hood legends (which I liked, but not nearly as much as the King Arthur stuff).  So it probably didn’t faze me in 1973 that Englehart had placed John at Richard’s side in the Holy Land, instead of leaving him in England for the duration of the Third Crusade, where both history and (for the most part) legend would have him; on the other hand, I have to admit that on re-reading this story in 2023, this plot element did cause me some brief consternation, until I reminded myself that we are of course dealing here with the Marvel Universe’s Prince John, not our “real” one.  And who knows what the Earth-616 iteration of the guy might have gotten up to?

The “seven cowled figures” are of course our heroes, who, once clear of the guards, promptly split into two groups — one of which Dr. Strange leads in hope of destroying “the sorcery mounted against us”, while the others attempt to bust out Richard.  It’s the first group (basically the Defenders Prime, as the Hulk and Sub-Mariner are Doc’s companions) who first run into a bit of trouble, when someone notices that one of the passing priests (who should probably be referred to by another term — imams, maybe, or mullahs?) has green feet.  Not that the discoverer and his companions remain conscious for any longer than it takes them to raise the alarm, but even so…

Englehart had introduced a subplot way back in Defenders #5 regarding the Valkyrie’s having fallen in love with the Black Knight, despite having met him only briefly (in issue #4) prior to his being turned to stone.  The writer had clearly thought better of the idea since, but at least does us readers the courtesy of addressing the matter before dropping it like a stone in the panel above.  Since the Valkyrie was supposed to be a construct of the Enchantress’ magic, and it was the latter’s kiss which had petrified Dane Whitman, it seems reasonable to figure that Val’s crush on the Knight was some sort of temporary side-effect of the Asgardian witch’s spell-casting, which had worn off in the interim.

Yes, there’s another “FOOM”… hmm.  I think that’ll do it for me, actually.  From here on out, y’all are on your own, OK?

I’ve always appreciated the preceding sequence’s two subtly subversive messages — first, that mere valor isn’t always enough to triumph over superior strength, however much our heroic adventure fiction generally likes to assure us it does — and second, that “bad guys” can have valor, too.  So I’m going to give our storytellers a pass for not explaining how blows from giant-size gnomes mighty enough to knock out the cosmically endowed Silver Surfer don’t break all the bones of the non-powered Hawkeve and Black Knight.

Moving on, then…

John and Modred’s sorcerous ally, Chandu, probably represents a tip of the hat on Englehart’s part to Chandu the Magician, a radio drama hero originating in the 1930s who seems likely to have helped inspire the creation and development of Marvel’s Doctor Strange (or, at least, Stan Lee’s contribution to the character originally conceived by Steve Ditko).  Supporting that hypothesis is the fact that Chandu calls on at least some of the same mystical entities that Strange does — and, as Namor quickly deduces, since Chandu has made their acquaintance some 600 years before Strange will, they’re quite happy to smite our Sorcerer Supreme on behalf of their 12th century pal.

It’s almost a moot point, however, as Subby quickly clocks Chandu, taking him out of the fight.  The magician’s gnomes, however, are still going strong…

And that’s that for Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, who’ll remain forevermore in the 12th century… nah, not really.  He will of course return — though not for nine years (a pretty good stretch of time, all things considered).**

In 1982, writer Steven Grant brought Dane Whitman back in Avengers #225 and #226, in a two-part storyline that saw Earth’s Mightiest Heroes transported to the 12th century to help Dane Whitman save the mythical island of Avalon from the invading Fomor (a divine race from Irish mythology, one of whose members — Balor of the Evil Eye — was cleverly interpolated by Grant into the origin story of Marvel’s own Evil Eye).  This adventure’s conclusion saw Dane’s spirit restored to its rightful time, where it reconstituted and reanimated his stone body (which had been reduced to rubble in the interim since Defenders #11 — long story), and where (and when) he resumed the superheroic career he continues to this day.

As for what the Black Knight had gotten up to between Defenders #11 and Avengers #225, readers would have to wait another eight years to receive even a partial answer to that question; when it came, it was once again by way of Steven Grant, and in the form of a three-part serial that ran in Marvel Fanfare #52-54.  According to a 2015 interview with Grant, these stories were originally pitched around 1979-80 (meaning they predated his Avengers scripts); notably, they offer a more historically accurate representation of the Crusades than what Defenders #11 had delivered, as the Black Knight becomes involved in the events leading to Richard “the Lionhearted”‘s massacre of more than 2,000 Muslim prisoners following the fall of Acre.  The third and final episode of the serial ends with a disillusioned Dane Whitman leaving Richard, and the Crusades, behind; so much for “When Knights Were Bold”.  (Special thanks to Ben Herman for reminding me of the existence of these stories, and for sharing the link to the Steven Grant interview, in his comment regarding an earlier post.)

But that’s probably enough about the Black Knight; after all, we still have the last 2/3 of the final page of Defenders #11 to take a look at…

The finale of Defenders #11, along with bringing us the “official” ending of the Avengers/Defenders War also gives us the actual, unambiguous ending of Steve Englehart’s tenure as the series’ writer.  Having scripted every issue since the strip graduated from Marvel Feature to its own title, Englehart now bid this assortment of heroes farewell (four times, if you’re counting) leaving behind a legacy that, among other things, firmly fixed the “non-team” aspect of the Defenders as the feature’s single most defining trait, going forward.

In leaving the book, Englehart cleared the decks pretty thoroughly for the next writer — Len Wein — with only Dr. Strange and Valkyrie definitely left on board (and you have to figure that if he could have figured out anywhere else for Val to go, he’d have had her leave, too).  Of course, one might guess that at least one of the departing Defenders would be back the next issue (and they’d be right) — and that that returnee would not be the Silver Surfer, seeing as how he was already being billed as a “guest star” on the cover of #11 (and they’d be right about that, as well).  But that didn’t mean that Wein would be settling for a roster comprised of super-doers we’d already seen within the title’s pages — though what new faces would be turning up is a topic we’ll leave for future posts.

---

There was one reasonably significant loose end left over from the Avengers/Defenders War (or The Quest for the Black Knight’s Soul, as Englehart does in fact call it in the sixth from last panel shown above) that wasn’t wrapped up in Defenders #11, and indeed wouldn’t be until the next month’s issue of Avengers.

  While Avengers #119’s “Night of the Collector” (story and art by Steve Englehart, Bob Brown, and Don Heck; cover by John Romita) has never been officially considered to be a part of the canonical A/DW crossover event, your humble blogger has always thought of it as having at least as much of a claim to be an epilogue to the epic as “A Dark and Stormy Knight” does to being its final chapter.  That said, it’s not so substantial a story as to deserve a full post on its own; still, I wouldn’t feel like we’d brought proper closure to this blog’s coverage of the Avengers/Defenders War without discussing its events at least briefly.

The loose end in question involves Loki.  What are the Avengers to do with an apparently harmless, but thoroughly addled, Norse God of Mischief?  Now, you may wonder why this should be a problem at all.  Can’t they just pack him off to Asgard, much as the MCU iterations of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes do with Tom Hiddleston at the end of the first Avengers movie?  Alas, that’s not an option, as Thor explains on page 5 of our story…

Now, maybe you think that it would be unreasonable of All-Father Odin not to take some degree of responsibility for his adopted son Loki, decree of banishment or no… but “unreasonable” has been a fairly accurate descriptor for Big Daddy Odin for much of his Marvel Universe history, sad to say.

Anyway, while Thor and the Avengers’ butler, Edwin Jarvis, are getting Loki settled in, the Black Panther strikes up a conversation with Mantis about her educational background (yes, really).  But as they’re talking, Mantis is suddenly struck by a psychic blast that sends her into a trance:

(That “alert system” of Mantis’ is going to come in really handy, if it proves reliable.  Maybe the Avengers can even let the Stark Industries maintenance contract for their monitor system lapse!)

T’Challa and Mantis quickly gather the others, and as they sprint for their quinjet, several of them speculate whether this could have anything to do with Loki and/or Dormammu, since both of them got up to no good in Rutland in the past.  They almost immediately decide “nah” — but that’s still no help for newcomer Mantis, nor for her boyfriend, the Swordsman, who echoes her question: “What is Rutland?”

That “ahem” from footnoter “Red-faced Roy” (whom I would guess was actually Steve Englehart, rather than editor Roy Thomas) arrives just in time to interrupt “Roy”‘s referencing DC Comics’ Justice League of America #103, following his citations to Marvel’s Avengers #83, Marvel Feature #2, Thor #207, and Amazing Adventures #16 — all of the “Rutland stories” to date, in other words, with the exception of the one that’s probably the best of all of them, Batman #237 (though, naturally, you couldn’t expect Marvel to “almost” mention a DC comic more than once in the same joke, and if they were only going to mention one, I suppose it made sense to make it the one in which Steve Englehart was himself a character).

As with all such stories set at the real-life Rutland Halloween Parade, this one prominently features the Parade’s long-time organizer (and even longer-time comics fan) Tom Fagan (1932-2008)… although the cheerful fellow in the panel above isn’t really Tom Fagan at all — rather, as we learn when he doffs not only his Nighthawk costume, but also the Tom Fagan disguise underneath, it’s…

Yes, the Collector — the rather elderly-looking alien (though not yet officially labeled an “Elder of the Universe”) who likes to, er, collect things.  And people.  Why is he crashing Rutland’s Halloween festivities?  Because he knows that superheroes always show up at these things: “Tradition demands it.”  Um, OK.  Interestingly, the villain hadn’t actually expected his main quarry, the Avengers, to show up themselves; rather, he’d counted on being able to capture some random super-person, and then nab the Avengers when they inevitably showed up to investigate.  Sure, sounds like a great plan.  Anyway, now that our heroes have been so obliging as to turn up all on their own, he’s delighted at the opportunity to skip right to Phase Two of his fiendish scheme.

And speaking of skipping… I hope no one is going to be too disappointed, but we ourselves are going to leapfrog over not only the Collector’s capture of the Avengers, but their eventual escape as well — mostly because that material doesn’t really have anything to do with wrapping up the Avengers/Defenders War, but also partly because it’s not very memorable.  Honestly, I’m afraid that the novelty of the Rutland Halloween setting had pretty well worn off by now; having reached an aesthetic zenith in 1971 with the aforementioned Batman classic, and the pinnacle of “meta” fun and frolic with 1972’s three-way Marvel/DC “stealth crossover” in Amazing Adventures, Thor, and JLA, there was seemingly nowhere else to go except to become more self-referential and self-indulgent, which is what I think happened here.

Anyway, let’s pick things up on the issue’s final page (and before you ask, I have absolutely no idea who the “superdudes” who are “not on a date” in the first panel below are supposed to be.  Anyone else care to take a guess?)…

Yes, it’s an objectively terrible idea to leave the incredibly powerful Loki — however peaceful and helpless he appears to be at this moment (and “appears” is the right word, although we won’t find out why that is until Thor #232, some thirteen months from now) — in the care of the perfectly nice, but also perfectly ordinary, Tom Fagan and his Rutland neighbors.  On the other hand, there’s something fitting about tying off the very last plot thread of the Avengers/Defenders War in this fashion; after all, if you’ll remember, the very first image of the storyline was of Loki in Rutland.  Back in 1973, I liked the notion of bringing the narrative “full circle”, as it were — and I guess I still do, in spite of this denouement making no story sense whatsoever.  Sometimes, aesthetics (especially when buttressed by rank nostalgia) just trumps logic… or that’s how it works for me, anyway.

 

*The Defenders were also the in-story victors, by virtue of having won every individual match that went the full distance.  That’s just a fact, OK?

**British comics readers would get to reacquaint themselves with the Black Knight some three years earlier than American ones, when Marvel UK launched him in a brand-new solo strip (written by Steve Parkhouse, with art by Paul Neary and John Stokes) which ran for several years as a backup feature in Hulk Weekly, beginning with issue #1 (Mar., 1979).  This series, set in the present day, made little to no reference to Dane Whitman’s earlier appearances, and also gave him a slightly different costume, as well as a brand-new flying horse, name of Valinor (a nod to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, just as the moniker of Dane’s previous steed, Aragorn, had been).  These sartorial and equine modifications carried over into the Knight’s next stateside appearances, in Avengers #225-226 — a fact which suggested to the continuity-minded fan that our hero had come by the changes in the course of his 12th century adventures, and that the Hulk Weekly stories, though published earlier, actually came later than those Avengers issues in Marvel Universe chronology.