As regular readers of this blog are aware, we’ve recently been covering the latter (and, honestly, somewhat lesser) portion of the long-running “Headmen/Nebulon” saga in Defenders a couple of issues at a time. Most recently, in May, we looked at both Defenders #37 and #38; this time out, we’ll be delving into #39 as well as the issue indicated by both the cover and post title shown above, i.e., #40.
Got that? Great. So let’s begin. We’ll start by taking a quick look at #39’s cover, as shown at left — a Dan Adkins-inked piece whose penciller remains unknown (though it may have been Rich Buckler) — and which, we’ll see as we go along, might fairly be called a bit misleading… though perhaps understandably so, at least to some extent.
Turning from the cover to the splash page, we find ourselves still in the same capable hands of the title’s ongoing regular team of storytellers: writer Steve Gerber, pencil layout artist Sal Buscema, and “finisher” Klaus Janson:
Among the enemies whose imagined faces we see swirling above Doctor Strange are Dormammu, Umar, Baron Mordo (who appears to have received a hair transplant)… and a fourth baddie, positioned above and between Umar and Mordo, whom I believe is supposed to be Nightmare (although someone seems to have neglected to provide colorist Don Warfield with the appropriate reference material). But, whoever they are, we won’t see them again in this issue after this page — nor, in fact, will we see Doc Strange, whose one and only appearance in Defenders #39 this is. Does this single splash panel justify the Master of the Mystic Arts’ prominent role on the comic’s cover? It’s questionable, at best.
Jack Norriss proceeds to recap everything that’s happened to him over the last few issues, including his and Valkyrie’s encounter with Chondu the Mystic, and Jack’s subsequent “team-up” with the Hulk for the sake of finding veterinary care for Val’s wounded winged horse, Aragorn. The three panels of the recap in which the Hulk appears constitute his only appearance in this issue — and even if you allow that to justify his turning up on the cover (if only in an insert), the accompanying blurb raising the question “what the heck is happening to the Hulk?!” is clearly misleading, since nowhere in this comic do we get any hint whatsoever concerning the Emerald Behemoth’s current whereabouts or circumstances.
Once Jack has told his tale, Nighthawk takes charge of the situation; he sends Power Man and the Red Guardian out to search the streets for clues, and instructs Jack to telephone area hospitals. While they’re doing that, he flies off to investigate a couple of hunches of his own.
At this point, the scene shifts to the object of their search, Valkyrie herself, who remains a prisoner in the Women’s Detention Center in lower Manhattan. As we rejoin the warrior woman, she’s just been brought to the office of the warden, who wants to interview her in private…
The story now cuts away to check in with Power Man and the Red Guardian, whose pavement-pounding has brought them to Times Square. Luke Cage spots someone in a crowd that he momentarily mistakes for Val, which in turn prompts a brief but violent encounter with a belligerent racist. Basically, this scene is filler, and after two pages we’re back with Val…
Meanwhile, Nighthawk has flown upstate to check out what’s left of the demolished headquarters of the Headmen (remember them?), thinking he might find Val being held prisoner there. But the site is completely deserted, and so he quickly departs to follow his one other lead, an acquaintance of his in his secret identity of Kyle Richmond. As the hero heads back to New York City, however, he muses to himself: “I wish Doc hadn’t been so insistent about the inviolability of meditation.”
Shirley makes awfully good points — but Val still doubts that the present course will achieve the rioters’ aims, at least not while “the most incorrigible and untrustworthy of all the prisoners” — whose name, we finally learn, is Felicia — continues to serve as its leader. So Val barges into the warden’s office, demanding to use the phone; Felica refuses, and takes a swing at her challenger… to absolutely no effect…
And here we have our cover scene, which is a good bit less dramatic and menacing in its in-story presentation than it was there, where Clea was supposedly “turnin’ the sun into a fireball” rather than just putting on a brief light show. That said, I get that it must have been a challenge to find an appropriate cover subject for this issue — assuming you wanted to avoid a “riot in a women’s prison” exploitation-movie vibe, which Marvel probably did.
Under cover of Clea’s diversion, the Defenders break through the prison’s door, while at the same time…
And that’s all for this chapter of the Headmen/Nebulon saga — which, as you doubtless noticed, was completely Nebulon-free (and almost as devoid of Headmen, with Chondu’s presence in the recap and Nighthawk’s visit to the group’s old HQ being the only overt nods to that plotline). Hey, it’s all going to come together in the end, I promise.
For now, however, we’ll head straight into July, 1976, and Defenders #40, whose cover by Gil Kane, Klaus Janson, and (maybe) John Romita depicts our non-team still not going up against Nebulon or any one of the four Headmen, but rather a villain we’ve never seen before — the Assassin. (Though his name has certainly had a workout in the last several years, having been used as an alias by Daredevil nemesis Mister Kline in 1971, as well as by a completely different Avengers antagonist in a story published just six months prior to our present tale.)
This issue’s episode begins by tidying up the few loose ends left from the whole Valkyrie-behind-bars business, featuring a cameo by sometime Defender Daredevil — albeit only in his day job as attorney Matt Murdock…
Still hesitant, Valkyrie ultimately accepts Nighthawk’s suggestion to take Clea’s gift upstairs to open privately. After a few moments, her “husband” Jack Norriss — feeling sorry for himself because Val’s paid him no special attention since her release from jail — follows her. Finding the door to her room closed, he knocks, and is invited to come in…
Valkyrie was probably overdue for a new outfit; that earlier remark from the courtroom cop referring to “shell casings” may have been rude, but he wasn’t exactly wrong. Still, it’ll be best not to get too used to this iteration of Val’s New Look, as it won’t be hanging around for very long at all.
Elsewhere, Doctor Strange is still trying to get his mojo back via meditation — only he’s now making the effort in the middle of Central Park, rather than in his Sanctum. After almost getting beaned by a boy’s baseball, however, Doc sets the inner work aside for the moment, and goes for a stroll…
Hey, look, there’s Nebulon! (OK, it’s only a newspaper photo, but still.) But who’s this “Thursday” person?
Last month, we had a cover blurb asking what was up with the Hulk these days; this month, we have the answer to that question, and it’s that he’s been busy with the events in his own monthly solo title. Which is on the one hand a perfectly reasonable assertion, but on the other somehow feels like a bit of a dodge — if only because Gerber had been so dogged in earlier issues about keeping tabs on the Green Goliath’s whereabouts (especially in regards to his guest appearance in the Gerber-co-scripted Omega the Unknown, which was mentioned at every single opportunity).
This sequence is referencing an actual 1976 movie, Snuff, which was falsely marketed as presenting an actual on-camera murder, thereby helping to spread the broader urban legend of “snuff films”.
For the record, this appearance of the Elf with a Gun — the fourth such overall — is the first to place him in anything like close proximity to one or more of the Defenders (though the almost-encounter between Elf and Hulk seems as likely as not to be purely coincidental). It’s also the last one to be scripted by the character’s creator, Steve Gerber; we readers of 1976 were going to have to wait until after the advent of the second regular writer to follow Gerber on the title, David Anthony Kraft, for this subplot’s “resolution” (if you can actually call it that) in issue #46.
Nighthawk, Power Man, and the Red Guardian all race out into the street, just in time to see the rock-hurler and his accomplices sprint around a corner. RG asks the others to let her handle this matter herself, and Kyle, as leader, reluctantly agrees — though by the time he and Luke return to the parlor to report to the others, he’s already second-guessing himself. As Luke explains, they’ve figured out that the perpetrators had plenty of time to get clean away while the Defenders were busy reading their note, which suggests that the Red Guardian, aka Dr. Tania Belinsky, may be heading into a trap.
For his part, Jack Norriss is less than impressed with how the team has handled the situation thus far, and he doesn’t mind saying so:
“‘Global Head‘ political party”? Hmm, that sounds like it might just be significant…
“Ruby Thursday”? OK, I think I get it now. Despite any and all indications to the contrary, Steve Gerber hasn’t forgotten about the Headmen, after all.
While the injured man’s cohorts flee the scene, Dr. Belinsky examines his wound; fortunately for him, it’s not serious.
While the script never specifies precisely whom the old woman is referring to with her “4000 years — and we’re still in bondage!” comment, she’s almost certainly talking about Jewish people, whose emigration from the Soviet Union was heavily restricted during this period.
The hooded man — whom I think we can safely identify as the Assassin promised by this issue’s cover and story title, although the name never appears in any captions or dialogue — hurls himself through the window in pursuit of the Red Guardian. While he’s clearly stronger, she’s a lot faster and more agile; still, that might not be enough…
Back in issue #35, on the occasion of Tania’s arrival in the United States, we were shown a mysterious figure observing her from the shadows at the airport (see left). One issue later, three masked men attempted to kidnap her from Kyle Richmond’s hospital room (see right; art in both panels by Buscema and Janson). Neither the lurker from issue #35 nor the would-be kidnappers from #36 were ever seen or referenced again following their first and only appearances.
I’m of the firm opinion that the mystery men in both #35 and #36 were part of the same organization as the Assassin and his confederates in this issue; who knows, the guy from #35 might even be the Assassin, given that we never see the latter without his hood in issue #40. But, in the end, that’s just my opinion, since Gerber never explicitly connects any of those dots. Perhaps he would have, had he remained on Defenders longer. But that didn’t happen, and as best as I can determine, neither his immediate successor, Gerry Conway, nor the aforementioned David A, Kraft ever picked up on this thread.
Back in 1976, Defenders was one of my favorite titles; and while I don’t recall my specific reactions to these two issues, I imagine that I took them in stride, with my appreciation for Gerber’s humor and social commentary, plus the visual appeal of the Buscema-Janson artwork, carrying me happily along. Fifty years later, I find myself growing a little impatient with the parade of low-level threats we’ve had in the book from at least issue #36 on — the Plantman, the Eel, the Porcupine, Felicia, and the Assassin, all of whom feel to some extent like distractions from the major menaces represented by the Headmen and Nebulon — and past ready for our creative team to wrap it all up.
Which, thankfully, they’re about to do, in the form of the first-ever Defenders Annual. Will the end be worth the wait? I invite you to return to this space in August, when we’ll all have the opportunity to find out for ourselves.
Hi, Alan. Great perceptive write-up, as usual. It’s really only as we’ve been revisiting these stories on your blog that I realize how loosey-goosey Gerber was at this time, with non-sequiturs and undeveloped scenes. Like you, I was more caught up in Gerber’s distinctive voice and perspective, as well as the wonderful team of Sal and Klaus.
That storytelling helped elevate, for example, what could have been a rather standard “caged/women behind bars” story in #39 or what is essentially a rather long fight scene that makes up the bulk of #40. Or maybe I’m giving to much credit to a much-missed writer?
Anyway, Gerber’s little script grace ones are worth revisiting. And a special shout-out to the look that Sal and Klaus have on Dr. Strange’s face when he pulls his infantile prank in the park.
As we’ll discover when we look at the Annual, there is something of a method in the madness of the Defenders acting somewhat out of character in these stories, but we’ll save that for later.
I will say, though, that as much as I dig reading these stories again, it also revives the sadness I felt at the times now, knowing that a lot of it was drawing to a close. Books like AVENGERS, DEFENDERS, and DR. STRANGE (plus the Black Panther and Killraven books that you haven’t been reviewing, sigh…) that once had given me such joy would shortly be a memory.
Cheers, everyone!
The Grand Comics Database lists the cover of #39 as Buckler, but with a question mark. Personally, I think it’s Marie Severin with Adkins’ inks. John Romita Sr’s contribution to #40’s cover looks like at least some of the faces, and maybe he had to rework Val’s new costume if the old one had been originally drawn? Speaking of which, I always preferred Val’s original costume, shell casings and all. Just seemed more ‘in character’ for a Norse warrior woman.
We see Jack Norriss is still earning his title as the least likeable supporting character, ever.
Totally agree that these two issues are not exactly high points in Gerber’s run on this title. I’m not sure what point he was reaching for with the whole Val in prison plot, but it seems not to matter because Shirley, Felicia et al will never be thought of or spoken about again, despite Val’s promise to do all within her power to aid the cause. I don’t think we would have ever seen them again even if Gerber had stayed longer with the book.
Like I’ve said on previous Defenders’ posts (and Bill mentions above), there’s a few too many ‘undeveloped scenes’ or plot points that don’t get followed through to any real conclusion.
Yeah, these issues are pretty much filler. I wasn’t particularly a fan of Gerber’s run so it didn’t disappoint me exactly, but if I weren’t such a completist back then, I might have given up.
While it’s a nitpick, I can’t help thinking the reaction would be more “midget with a gun” than “elf.”
Best not to call him a midget. It could prove bad for your elf. (Hey, someone had to say it.)
Fair point. Given the body count, he doesn’t seem to have much elf-control.
But a great deal of elf-esteem.
Such lame attempts at humor! You should both be ashamed of your elves! 😉
If only he’d used his elfin magic to make cookies in a hollow tree instead evil.
Janson’s inks gave Sal’s pencils some much needed “seasoning.” Similar to Giordano’s gritty, flavorful inks.
I found this Assassin as interesting as the one who appeared in *Avengers* #145-46..
That is not a compliment.
Give me Jurgen Kline of *Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos* #51…please!
Maybe it’s the seventeen-page count in these issues, but I think we’ve passed from “willing suspension of disbelief” to “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”:
“Me, I busted out don’t even ask me how…”
And given the jail setting, there’s also this:
By this time I was fed up at trying to make a stab
At bringing back some help for my friends and Captain Arab
I decided to flip a coin like either heads or tails
Would let me know if I should go back to ship or back to jail
So, I hocked my sailor’s suit and I got a coin to flip
It came up tails, it rhymed with sails, so I made it back to the ship
“Tails” rhymed with something else, a fact which our singer conveniently overlooks.
While admittedly filler to draw out the Nebulon story, I did appreciate the spotlight on Val, as she was my favorite character.And while the Val in prison story might not have been the most compelling, I still thought it illuminated some of her still developing personality. I also enjoyed the rare if over hyped use of Clea in that issue as well.
In retrospect, Defenders was not the most consistently written title, but it had a soft spot in my heart.
If only I’d have had a crystal ball in the summer of 1976!
Had I been able to peer into the future of The Defenders to glimpse the dismal seas to which this would soon and quickly plummet, my assessment of these two issues would been a bit more complimentary. As many of already keenly noted, both #39 and #40 seemed akin to killing time for the upcoming annual that – without spilling any needless beans – does indeed nicely secure all these dangling threads.
Whether filler or simply buying time for the writer to determine a final resolution to both the Headmen and Nebulon sagas, there is still much to appreciate with both issues. First off, Klaus Janson’s inks provide a strong texture to Sal Buscema’s pencils that enhances this series. There are also interesting interactions between Tania and Luke – two individuals from very different worlds. Likewise, Dr. Strange’s completely out-character actions with the senatorial candidate. Or Jack Norriss’s shift back to full-time irritant. All aspects of this book that it was easy to take for granted until the writer was no longer named Steve Gerber.
Indeed, courtesy of this seemingly endless storyline, that pervading “weirdness” became a permanent aspect of The Defenders. Not the worst legacy for someone about to leave the series.
Thanks again Alan for another excellent review!
Hey, it’s another bonus Wednesday edition of 50 Year Old Comic Books! Fantastic!
I’m going to basically have to reiterate the comments I posted before about this period of Steve Gerber’s run on Defenders, namely that one the one hand it’s interesting & offbeat, and on the other hand he’s probably got way too many plates spinning and the storylines are definitively meandering.
It doesn’t help having the awareness that Gerber would be off the book shortly, so if a lot of this was supposed to be heading somewhere definite, we’ll almost certainly never know, rendering some of it feeling somewhat pointless.
So, about the “Elf with a gun” subplot, I am really curious if Gerber eventually intended for it to finally intersect with the Defenders. I also wonder what he intended for it to be about. Well, that’s assuming Gerber himself knew, since as Alan has commented in past installments, Gerber usually did not engage in plotting out his stories ahead of time, instead writing very much on the fly. Maybe he would have eventually come up with a point to the homicidal Elf. Did he ever comment on it in interviews? I kind of suspect not, because he was unfortunately very reticent about not revealing his ultimate plans for Omega the Unknown, so it’s also likely he wouldn’t have elaborated on any ideas he had in mind for the Elf.
Very nice artwork by Sal Buscema & Klaus Janson on these two issues.
In closing, I really have to laugh at Luke Cage’s so-called expletive on the cover to Defenders #39. Beans?!? Oh, wow 🤣
I had #40 and liked the story well enough. I remember being wowed by the art….The Sal B. and Janson team just sparkled. I was happy to see Jack Norris leave… one of the most tedious side characters of the era imo. It wasn’t to last though… he was back within 10 issues I think.
One of the most interesting things about this blog, Alan, is seeing if comics from 50 years earlier still hold up, or are still as good as we remember. I suspect I had the same attitude as you Alan, about Defenders 39 and 40, that I just went along for the ride and accepted the stories at the time. I do have a vague recollection that I was a bit disappointed with issue 39 because of the prison storyline and the misleading cover. In retrospect there a few points to consider here: Gerber left Val in jail for 4 issues (36-39), and I’m not sure what he was up to there but it was not a good way to treat her. Having the whole focus of issue 39 be the prison story/// I don’t care for at all looking back on it (so many cliches!). By the way, did anyone notice that the sleazy warden had a mustache that kept disappearing? Also it is clear that the Hulk was considered very important to the sales of this series. There was no reason (other than that) for the false insert of the Hulk on the cover of issue 39. The hulk was also prominently featured on the covers of 35, 37 and 40 where he had little or no role.
Defenders 40 was not a bad issue, but it was essentially a Red Guardian solo story, which would not be a bad thing, except that we knew so little about her at this time and this intriguing story wound up never going anywhere… too bad. Also the cover of issue 40 was also misleading since the full team of Defenders did not go up against the unnamed villain, who was never called the Assassin, although that name was used on the cover and the title of the story. This was an interesting and confusing story. And yes, Jack Norris was as annoying as ever. Gerber’s plotting may have been loose but the plot threads regarding Nebulon and the Headmen were all there, ready to be sprung in the Annual. I’m not sure that I picked up on them at this point, to be honest. One thing I did not remember…did anyone notice how frightening (thanks to Janson’s inks) the Hulk looked in issue 40? He really looked like he could have killed someone and his behavior really was crazy (and of course that was a subplot point but I’m sure I did not realize that).
It’s interesting that although Defenders 31-40 and Annual 1 is often referred to as the Nebulon/Headmen saga, the Headmen did not appear at all in issues 36-40, and Nebulon did not appear in 39-40. Regarding those C list villains, the Eel was murdered by the Gladiator in Ghost Rider 21 in September 1976. The Porcupine died in an issue of Captain America in the mid 1980s. The Plantman turned up in a few issues of the Avengers written by Roger Stern in the 80s but I have no idea what happened to him since then. I did not remember that Nebulon appeared to have plans for Plantman and that never went anywhere. I guess either Gerber forgot about Plantman or just didn’t have room for that and let it pass.
Thanks for another excellent review Alan. I look forward to the review of Annual 1 and whether that still holds up.
Actually, the Plant Man showed up in John Byrne’s Namor series in the early 90’s. An odd storyline that also included Wolverine and Master Khan.
So we’re heading into the highest point ever for any Defenders series and a fallow period that could only have been made worse if Tapping Tommy had returned. The Red Guardian spotlight just reminds me of Tanya’s eventual fate and almost complete loss of agency for forevermore and it irks.
I got these mags when they were new — it was the Annual that I missed and had to wait several years to obtain. Anyhow, although 39 & 40 weren’t quite as up there as previous chapters of this saga, I still enjoyed them and it just occurred to me that perhaps Gerber was doing a sort of mundane variant of the Kree-Skrull War, including a call out to Cold War insanity in issue 40. I vaguely recall my 14 year old self in 1976 being mildly disappointed that there were no colorfully garbed baddies in either issue but my older self kind of appreciates Gerber’s attempt at some variety. I do recall that both Captain America and Spider-Man had prison riot issues in the Silver Age written by Stan Lee, and Gerber had Richard Rory sent to prison for inadvertently violating the Mann Act (taking a minor across state lines, although he had no unsavory intentions and was actually trying to help the girl escape a horrible situation, well, even in the real world the law is hardly always fair or perfect or even sane). I think it worked to have Val spend several issues in the prison, building up the tension of her incarceration and I certainly felt it was satisfying to see Val take on her tormentors and try to restore some semblance of sanity. Would have been nice to see that Warden held to account for his salacious behavior, but can’t have everything.
I didn’t think about it at the time, but it is interesting that these two issues focus on the women in the Defenders, even giving Clea at least a little bit of a spotlight. Also notable that for much of the 1970s and into the early ’80s at least, many prominent teambooks had at least two women in the team for extended periods – Wanda & Mantis and then Wasp, Moondragon, Hellcat and Tigra all in the Avengers at various times; Valkyrie & Red Guardian, and later Hellcat in the Defenders; Storm, Phoenix and Kitty in the X-Men; and even in the FF, Sue and Medusa were briefly in at the same time, and Thundra and Tigra were regular guest stars for a spell.
Musing more on issue #40, the old woman’s comment about “3000 years of bondage” didn’t register with me as referencing the Jewish predicament and I wasn’t all that knowledgeable on the history and then current aspects of the Cold War. It at least seemed to have calmed down a bit with the end of the Vietnam War, although it was due to get hotter again when the USSR invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, and I do recall sporadic news reports of Jews within the USSR struggling to leave for the sake of religious freedom. None of the anti-commie madness depicted in the mag was shown to have any direct relationship to the main threads of the Headmen/Nebulon saga, save perhaps as part of Gerber’s exploration of more various strains of insanity within the U.S. for which the Headmen and Nebulon were each making counter efforts to cure for their own nefarious purposes, as would be made clearer in the grand conclusion in the Annual. Looking forward to reading your take on that, Alan, as well as everyone else’s comments!