In last Saturday’s post, we discussed Marvel Comics’ Thor Annual #5 — which, in the summer of 1976, was the first annual starring the God of Thunder to have appeared since 1971. Today, we’ll be looking at another ’76 Marvel annual… although this one has the distinction of being the first ever such comic featuring the Defenders, since the so-called “non-team” hadn’t yet debuted in their own ongoing title at the time Marvel had phased out their annuals publishing program some five years before.
This being the very first “King-Size Annual!” featuring the Defenders, it seems appropriate that the cover by artists Al Milgrom and Klaus Janson gives us a symbolic “pin-up” type shot of the group’s current lineup of (clockwise from top) Doctor Strange, Nighthawk, Luke Cage (aka Power Man), the Incredible Hulk, Valkyrie, and the Red Guardian, as well as what might be considered some rather generic blurb copy (“Against the Mightiest Menaces of All Time, There Stand…”). After all, a first issue is always a good opportunity to introduce prospective new readers to a feature they might have passed on until now.
Meanwhile, for longtime fans, the cover’s story title blurb — “In Final Battle!” — offers hope that this comic’s giant-size format may allow for the wrapping up of the monthly title’s long-running “Headmen/Nebulon Saga”, which in recent issues seems to have lost a bit of its direction and focus as the series’ writer, Steve Gerber, has pursued a variety pf seemingly unrelated (though still mostly entertaining) tangents.
And, in fact, that’s pretty much what we’ll find when we turn past Defenders Annual #1’s cover to the story within — although it seems to be an open question whether the creative team had always planned it this way, or if this 35-pager (which, per its opening splash page, officially bears the decidely more Gerberesque title of “World Gone Sane?) became devoted to the purpose of bringing the extended plotline to a conclusion only after it became known that two out of three members of that team would be departing almost immediately afterwards.
We’ll have a good bit more to say about that aspect of things later in the post — but for now, let’s dive on in to see what the still-intact combo of Steve Gerber, Sal Buscema, and Klaus Janson have in store for us…
Over the remainder of this page, and through the next, we get Jack Norriss’ version of the major events of the saga up to this point, beginning with issue #31 and continuing on through #38…
This last page of Jack’s recorded message touches on events we saw in issues #39 and #40, as well as giving us at least one panel’s worth of what is, as best as I can tell, brand new information concerning the recent performance of Nighthawk’s stock portfolio. But probably the most significant item on the page is Jack’s deduction concerning something that’s been hiding in plain sight ever since #33 — which is when the Headmen subjected Val, Hulk, and Doc Strange to a mysterious “process” that seemed at the time to have no obvious immediate effect, but which we now learn has been responsible for a number of previously unexplained phenomena — most prominently (and, arguably, most aggravatingly) the recurring and seemingly arbitrary “fizzling” of Strange’s magical powers in recent issues.
While it’s nice to finally have an explanation for some of the story arc’s recent mysteries (not to mention a belated payoff for #33’s cover scene), I have to say that the Headmen’s choice to focus their brainwave-tampering specifically on making the Defenders hostile towards “any mass-movement which might interfere with their schemes” seems like a less than wholly optimal strategy for the use of such potent technology. But, hey, we’ve known for a while that these guys are barking mad, so I guess we can chalk up their questionable decision-making to diminished capacity, or something. Anyway, let’s move on…
As the just-rescued Frenchman goes on to explain, he’d been directed to write material criticizing the “Bozeau Movement” by his clients, who present themselves as a think-tank (“Our product is ideas“). Right around this point, something clicks for Nighthawk: “Whoa! This Compagnie de Lux — that’s one of the stocks my broker picked up for me.” He tries to interrogate their prisoner regarding what would have incensed her movement’s leadership so much that they’d want to kidnap this supposed idea factory’s PR guy, but she swears she “weel nevair tell! Nevair!” But a wickedly smiling Red Guardian assures her that it’s no matter: “Your friends shall tell us everything.”
Back in January, in our post on Defenders #34, we noted that a couple of the likely real-world inspirations for “Celestial Mind Control” were Silva Mind Control and Erhard Systems Training, aka EST (the latter of which had its founder, Werner Erhard, namechecked by Luke Cage just a few pages back). But the notion introduced here, that only the movement’s inner circle are privy to the knowledge that the alien Ludberdites are behind the whole thing, strongly suggests that Steve Gerber was also riffing on Scientology.
The disguised Nebulon orders that “Marie” be taken away for “reconditioning” — and the disguised Red Guardian, much more curious than she is apprehensive, goes along. Meanwhile, Nighthawk has been holed up in the office of Monsieur PR-guy, poring over documents that indicate that the Compagnie de Lux is deeply involved in all sorts of things: “Agriculture, oil, computers, steel, food processing, population control — ” But his most important discovery is the name of the outfit’s boss, Dr. Ruhart Gnaan — a moniker that is, as Nighthawk declares, “just about the most transparent alias anyone named Arthur Nagan could assume!”
Written and published during the period of the 1975-77 “Indian Emergency”, Steve Gerber’s take on then-current affairs in the world’s largest democracy may be factually accurate in most if not all respects. Still, from the perspective of half a century later, it’s hard not to feel that there’s some cultural condescension at work here. (I suppose that one could argue that the previous chapter was equally disrespectful to the French, what with its exaggerated accents, arbitrary spelling of “Bozo” as “Bozeaux”, etc.; but this feels more like punching down, at least to this reader.)
Stunned by the horror of this scene (which may be historically accurate, or may not; the limited research I’ve done regarding life in India during this period hasn’t definitively answered that question one way or the other, I’m afraid), Luke is easy prey for Arthur Nagan, who zaps him with the same sort of gas gun we earlier saw Jerry Morgan use on Nighthawk. Meanwhile, Valkyrie swings her sword at Nagan’s confederates (using only the flat of the blade, one must assume), deftly knocking their guns from their hands. Even unarmed, however, the men are determined to recover the box full of tiny people, whatever the cost. “We cannot yet allow the world to know of our solution,” exclaims one. “They must be prepared!”
We never get much of a sense of what Ruby Thursday’s presidential campaign is all about, unfortunately; the previous issue included an offhand remark by Jack that indicated she was “in favor of brainwashing criminals”, but that’s the only concrete policy proposal we ever hear about. Presumably Ruby identifies as feminist, and her “New Heads for Old” slogan suggests that she’s trying to appeal to what’s left of the 1960s counterculture, as does her reference to Jack as a “straight”. There may be some sort of rustic, back-to-the-country angle going on as well, given the pigtails and corncob-style pipe… but honestly, your guess is just as good as mine.
While I’m unlikely to ever count myself a Jack Norriss fan, I have to say that he’s less irritating here than in virtually all his other appearances to date. That’s probably because, outside of his reference to his wife’s cologne in the last panel above, this whole chapter steers clear of the character’s usual shtick of constantly insisting Valkyrie accept him as her husband, despite her not sharing any of her host body Barbara Norriss’ memories of him.
Hey, fellow geezers, remember the Bicentennial quarter? I have to say that, prior to my most recent re-reading of this story, I hadn’t thought about it in ages. (Of course, anyone who might read this story fifty years from now will probably be asking, “Er, what’s a quarter?”)
I guess it’s reasonable to believe that $300,000 could buy you some fabulous faux James Bond gear, a la explosive watches and gas-dispensing cuff links, back in 1976. One does have to wonder, however, just how an ordinary joe like Jack Norriss would go about finding a supplier of such specialized tech; even in the Marvel Universe, I doubt you could simply look ’em up in the Yellow Pages.
For those of you out there too young to remember, a common comedic knock on Gerald R. Ford back in the day was that the guy — who’d been elected to no higher office than U.S. Representative from the 5th district of the state of Michigan, but whom unprecedented circumstances had made President of the United States — was, while almost certainly more honest than his immediate predecessor, and probably a pretty decent fellow all around, nevertheless kind of clumsy, and perhaps not all that smart. Which is kind of ironic in retrospect, given that even the most negative appraisal of our 38th POTUS’ intellectual acumen would probably rank him as a genius in comparison with the office’s present incumbent.
As far as your humble blogger is concerned, this scene of Dr. Strange, “Mr. Nebul”, and President Ford in outer space, brief as it may be, is right up there with Evil Bambi and the Elf with a Gun in epitomizing the wonderfully absurdist sensibility Steve Gerber brought to his entire Defenders run.
Ah, for the days when “Easter-egg rolling races” were the most frivolous things one could imagine taking place on the White House lawn…
Yes, it’s incredibly convenient for our narrative that the Hulk isn’t currently traipsing around just any old where in “the American Southwest” — which, generally speaking, is indeed the geographical region where he’s been spending most of his time in his own book as of late — but is in fact so near the Headmen’s new HQ in Norman, OK, that Dr. Strange can locate our favorite Jade Giant and bring him to the scene virtually instantaneously. All that said, this narrative contrivance sure makes for a spectacular entrance by the big guy — so I’m just going to sit back and enjoy it.
OK, I can accept that Doctor Strange, with all of his mojo now restored to him, could send all of the Indians, Bozos, etc., back where they came from with just one brief spell. But the Ludberdites? They originally hail from an extradimensional alien planet, so where’s he sent them? Alas, we’re almost down to the last two pages allocated for our story, so I think we’re just going to have to shrug our shoulders and go with the flow.
Back in August, 1976, my nineteen-year-old self thought Defenders Annual #1 was a pretty great issue in general, and a satisfying conclusion to the Headmen/Nebulon story arc in particular. Fifty years later, my sixty-nine-year-old self is much more cognizant of its shortcomings, but I still think it’s a solidly entertaining comic that, for the most part, accomplishes what it needs to. In the end, I can’t help but wish that this story could have stood as Steve Gerber’s final bow on the title, rather than his actual last issue: Defenders #41, which came out two weeks later in the same month.
Cover to Defenders #41 (Nov., 1976). Art by Gil Kane and Dan Adkins.
Produced by the same creative team of Gerber, Buscema, and Janson that brought us the Annual, #41’s “Intruder in the Sand!” is a done-in-one that starts promisingly enough, with Dr. Strange and Kyle Richmond investigating the disappearance of Kyle’s old girlfriend Trish Starr, who’d left him at the end of Giant-Size Defenders #4 after losing her arm to a car bomb set by her villainous uncle, Egghead. Unfortunately, Trish is either offstage, catatonic, or a terrified prisoner for a good hunk of the story, which is largely given over to a battle with one of Strange’s old foes, the sorceress Shazanna; Trish and Kyle don’t even get to exchange more than a couple of lines of dialogue before the issue’s end. One gets the impression that Gerber might have intended to keep Ms. Starr around for a while, which would have made his using her here mostly as a plot device more understandable. But whatever the writer’s intent might have been, we readers were never going to find out… because, when Defenders #42 arrived in a month’s time, it would have both a new writer, Gerry Conway — and a new pencil layout artist, Keith Giffen — with only Klaus Janson remaining in place as inker/finisher to provide some continuity with what had come before.
To the best of my knowledge, the departure of Sal Buscema from the title he’d been drawing since its first issue was voluntary, or at least frictionless; the artist simply moved over to a brand-new title, The Spectacular Spider-Man, while maintaining his other regular assignments (including what seems to have been his favorite, The Incredible Hulk). Gerber’s exit, on the other hand, seems to have been a very different matter — one that involved the return to Marvel of another writer, Gerry Conway.
As we’ve previously covered in our Avengers #150 post, Conway had left his position at DC Comics some months before this to become Marvel’s latest editor-in-chief. Within weeks, however, he’d decided to give up the job, which was then assumed by Archie Goodwin. As part of the transition, Conway negotiated a new contract which allowed him to both write and edit a slate of eight titles — and while three of these (including the aforementioned Spectacular Spider-Man) were new launches, others were existing books that already had writers in place. Defenders was one of the latter.
As Sean Howe writes in his 2012 book Marvel Comics: The Untold Story:
Gerber, removed from The Defenders specifically so that Conway could meet his quota, was angry… an item in a fanzine even leaked the news that he was leaving Howard the Duck. But he resolved his differences with Marvel — greased by the offer of a writer-editor title of his own—and for Marvel Treasury Edition #12 wrote a final adventure for the Defenders, in which they teamed with Howard.
Unlike Sal Buscema, Steve Gerber didn’t immediately pick up another monthly title as a replacement for Defenders. On the other hand, his leaving that title more or less coincided with Howard the Duck being bumped from a bimonthly to a monthly schedule — and, as alluded to above by Howe, he would soon become the editor of that title as well, beginning with issue #9, which presumably helped make up for the loss of income.
Cover to Marvel Treasury Edition #12 (1976). Art by Gene Colan, Tom Palmer, and John Romita.
And as also noted by Howe, Gerber would also get to write the Defenders one last time — albeit as guest-stars with Howard the Duck, in Marvel Treasury Edition #12. Thankfully, your humble blogger bought that one back in the day, so we can all look forward to discussing it come October. I hope to see you then.
Gerber’s writing and concepts make this Defenders annual seem to be more of a send-up (not too far removed from Not Brand Ecch) of a Marvel super-hero adventure. Some of his absurdist themes seem to border on contempt for the subject matter. Howard the Duck was a more appropriate venue for such, in my opinion.
Klaus Janson’s inks are, as ever, quite palatable to the eye.
As I’ve said several times before in these discussions on this website, while I don’t necessarily think Gerber felt contempt for superheroes, or he wouldn’t have written them for so long, I agree completely that Howard the Duck and Man-Thing were better vehicles for Gerber’s absurdist sensibility and topical allusions than were the Defenders and other superhero titles. Having said that, Gerber’s run on the Defenders was unique and wonderful in its own way, and, as others have noted, a lot was lost when he left the book.
Swapping out Gerber for Conway seems like a bad choice. Even though I’m not a fan of his run. As a non-fan I thought (IIRC) this was okay when I first read it; more annoying when I re-read it. Reading now, everything feels interesting but half-assed — how exactly did the Headmen, who are hardly political geniuses, set all this up? What good did their manipulating the Defenders to oppose the “wrong” kind of mass movements do? Nebulon’s scheme and the pushback felt recycled from Jack Kirby’s anti-life themes in New Gods.
And thus ends me liking the Defenders title until DeMateis took over. Considering my love of Giffen eventually, he wasn’t there yet so even his work doesn’t help. The only standouts in all that time would be the Black Panther guest starring issue and the addition of Hellcat to the team, although she was poorly written at first.
I did largely enjoy the “Defenders for the Day” issue, even though I don’t think that’s the nature of the team at all. Bud David Anthony Kraft was one of my least favorite Bronze Age writers and Ed Hannigan made Kraft look like Faulkner.
I found Giffen’s Kirby-inspired work interesting but – as you point out – not quite ready for prime-time. My only future issue was #150 where IIRC, that either ended everything or set it up to become the Ex-X-Men. In that latter book, I’m afraid that Don Perlin’s rather blasé art failed to capture my interest.
Anyone wanting a single issue that best encapsulates the essence of the Steve Gerber-Sal Buscema run on The Defenders, look no further than this issue. Within it’s pages, we have the best and worst of Steve Gerber as well as the ever steady if not overly exciting pencils of Sal Buscema.
I want to say that Defenders Annual #1 sticks the landing for the long and meandering Headman-Nebulon saga. But in reality, although this plane does indeed arrive on solid ground, Gerber’s erratic plotting makes it a notably rough landing.
Still, you have the fun, off-beat segments with Jack Norriss and Ruby, President Ford caught up in a debate turned battle between the good Doctor of Strange and ever-shiny Nebulon (who seems to have forgotten he’s really a giant slimy monster) as well as the unique team up of Valkyrie and Luke Cage. But then there’s the absolute absurdity of the Headman’s world conquering scheme, Gerber’s condescending captions towards both France and India as well as “Hey, Defenders! Don’t you restore your brain patterns back to where they were?” oversight. All that’s missing is the gun toting elf.
Art wise, somehow, someway, Sal Buscema draws whatever it is he’s asked to draw, making it all fit into a coherent visual story. Then adding lovely gloss and texture to elevate it all up a notch or two are the stunning inks of Klaus Jansen.
Like Alan, I enjoyed this much more at the time than I do now. While I was beginning to tire of Gerber’s “quirks” at that time, I had no idea how much I would miss them as well as his hand on this title. It took Gerry Conway only a couple issue to drive me away from the Defenders and while I came back for the Scorpio issues a few months later, I never consistently collected or enjoyed this series from that point on.
But what I have enjoyed consistently is the thoughtful and engaging work our host puts into each of these reviews. As I head off into another busy workday, a celebratory tip of my water bottle to Alan!
A lot of this has aged poorly, alas. Your overview is great to read even when the original comics are disappointing.
I hold the sometimes utterly brilliant and sometimes not Gerber to a way higher standard than Bridwell (though both contributed much to my young life).
Conway brought Giffen in to the mix? So even though his disastrous EIC stint ruined Gerber’s run he at set things up for the Scorpio issues? Conway also paired Giffen with Wood.
As Chuck Berry said “it goes to show you never can tell”.
Thanks again for a thoughtful post.
PS: I love Sal and respect Janson but the ABS on those skinny Indians are as nutty as the shallow culture stuff.
There’s a heck of a lot of moving parts to Steve Gerber’s story in this Annual, which makes sense, since he was attempting to wrap up a long, meandering series of interwoven plotlines that had been running through the regular monthly Defenders series for ten whole issues. Does Gerber succeed? More or less, yes, although the ending is, as Alan notes, very rushed. But, hey, given that just a month later Gerber was removed from Defenders so Gerry Conway could write it, at least Gerber was able to bring to a conclusion the lengthy Headmen / Nebulon storyline before that happened.
I’ve heard it argued that Defenders never recovered from Gerber being removed as writer, that even though it did run for another decade, it nevertheless failed to reach the heights of this weird, experimental period. Maybe there’s some truth to that. I do think that David Kraft would do some offbeat work on Defenders soon after Conway’s brief tenure, penning the introspective “Who Remembers Scorpio?” storyline and some other interesting issues. And then in the early 1980s J.M. DeMatteis wrote some good, solid, unconventional stories on Defenders. But, yeah, judging by Tom Brevoort’s blog posts about the Defenders in the late 1970s, there was a pretty long stretch of underwhelming issues between Kraft and DeMatteis.
One thing I definitely have to say is that this Annual really epitomizes why I love Sal Buscema’s work. He was so darn fast that he could pencil the regular monthly Defenders series and still find time for this Annual, especially considering this is a very complicated story with numerous characters & settings. As I am sure I have commented before, Our Pal Sal was both good and fast, and I’ve always admired his storytelling skills & incredible work ethic. Props also to Klaus Janson for his ever-atmospheric inking.
Agreed with Alan, that splash page of the Incredible Hulk smashing into the Headmen’s headquarters was amazing.
I believe that both Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen were fans of this era of Defenders. When they did an unfortunately short-lived revival of Defenders in the early 2000s, their best storyline brought back the Headmen, as well as including MODOK and Orrgo the Unconquerable. That was a really weird, wild pair off issues they did. They even had Sal Buscema come back to do the inking over Larsen’s pencils on a few issues. Definitely an underrated book that probably deserved more attention.
I wish the Busiek-Larsen series was on Marvel.com. I say that because I recently commented to Kurt on Tom Breevort’s blog about how I looked forward to rereading that series. But since I sold it along with most of my comic book collection about eight years ago, I’m struggling to remember it beyond it being as close to the Gerber days as anyone ever got. Or has a wise Homer has often said, “D’oh!”
You and I are in the same boat, my friend. When I sold off a good chunk of my collection about a decade ago, most of the issues from the Defenders by Busiek & Larsen were among those I got rid of. I think I only still have issue #12 and The Order miniseries that followed it. So, I will second you on that “D’oh!”
I’m surprised it’s not available, though it’s not the first odd gap there.
It is a bit surprising but The Order is on Marvel.com. If that series is included, it seems odd not to have Busiek-Larsen’s Defenders.
Had to wait several years before I got this mag. Maybe not prime Gerber but I enjoyed it. Hadn’t previously been aware of Gerber’s anger over Conway taking over the
Defenders and nearly quitting Marvel altogether. Can only speculate on what other directions Gerber may have taken if he’d spent another year on the title, but aside from the strange coda of issue 41 and the HTD Treasury yarn, this marked a turning point for the non-team in several ways. I’ll have to wait until later to make more comments.
I had only recently started delving deeply into the Marvel line, picking up various issues of each series. This was my first Defenders issue and, to be honest, I bought it because it was a giant-sized annual. My first few Marvel purchases of note were in their previous Giant-Size series and I felt like they helped introduce me to a lot of the characters, which led me to explore the Avengers, Shang Chi, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man (with the various guest stars in his books). The last few that were reprints were really great for me.
That being said, I knew nothing about the Defenders when I picked this up. I did enjoy it though and it led me to continue reading the regular series for a while until my local store stopped carrying comics. This was such an interesting concept, the hero combination was intriguing and the villains were amazing. I don’t think I’d ever read a writer like Steve Gerber previously and I wish I’d started to read him earlier.
Thanks for another excellent review, Alan. I remember this annual very well, and I am sure that I liked it very much at the time, especially the art. I have noticed a few things now. It does seem a bit rushed and the ending seems very abrupt. Just how would the authorities imprison Nagan or Ruby (or even Chondu in his new form)? Also the way Dr. Strange deals with Nebulon at the very end….why didn’t he do that earlier in this issue or earlier in the storyline? I guess because his thinking was affected by Nagan’s machine? Maybe. And of course there was on the very first page, Gerber’s reference to Jack Norris’ as “Val’s husband”. So annoying since he is Barbara Norris’s husband. But it is clear that this is how Gerber saw him. But I don’t believe any other Defenders writer saw it hat way and eventually Norris would fade from the series.
I have the distinct sense, although I could be wrong, that management told Gerber it was time to wrap up the Headmen/Nebulon storyline and gave him the annual to provide the conclusion. The story was ok but it is noteworthy that the Hulk was not brought in until nearly the very end.
The story in Defenders 41 was perfectly fine, but if I remember correctly, it did not reference any of the events in the annual. Issue 41 also demonstrated that Gerber was a Marvel fan with a strong knowledge of Marvel history. The villainess he used, Shazanna, was a very obscure character who only appeared once in an issue of Strange Takes. He even mentioned the title of that old story in some dialogue at the end of issue 41.
I also recall that in the letters page of issue 41 it was announced that Gerber would be leaving, and not in a nice way. I don’t remember the exact language so won’t quote it. But a few months later when letters came in complaining about this, it was revealed that the person who seemed to be saying derogatory things about Steve Gerber was..Steve Gerber! So it appears he was just being self-deprecating. The departure of Sal Buscema was actually a big deal since Sal had drawn every issue of Defenders up to this point, except of course for the awful fill-in in issue 30.
The situation with Gerry Conway would up being very odd. I didn’t remember this, but from reading another blog, I understand that when Conway started writing this series with issue 42, he planned to amke it a more “convectional” series. As it turned out, Conway only wrote Defenders 42 and 43 although it is stated that he plotted 44 and 45 (it’s not clear if it was his idea to bring in Hellcat in issue 44). Any plans to make the Defenders a more conventional series seemed to go out the window, and even up to the end it was never really a conventional series..
Was the removal of Gerber from Defenders politically motivated? It certainly seems very unfair. And there appears to have been no opportunity provided to him to return to the Defenders after Conway’s very abrupt departure.. Also, by the end of the year, Gerber would be gone from scripting the Guardians of the Galaxy series in Marvel Presents. Was he removed or did he leave? I don’t have any evidence of what happened, but he was in the middle of writing the origin of Starhawk and suddenly he was gone. It does seem highly questionable.
Although I enjoyed Englehart’s run on Defenders, I do believe the Gerber run was the best and my personal favorite stories, and the best in the history of the series. Thank you for taking us through this series of issues. I found that generally I still liked these issues (but still disliked Jack Norris). I think Ruby was an interesting villainess with a lot of potential. Obviously Gerber thought so since he brought her back inn the last issue of Omega. Thanks again Alan!
This whole account gives me fresh respect for Jack Kirby. When DC asked him to take over an existing book along with introducing the New Gods, he insisted it shouldn’t cost anyone else their jobs. Hence getting Jimmy Olsen, where the creative team was going to change anyway.
Count me among those who regard Gerber’s run on the Defenders the peak of the series, although I also loved Englehart’s run and Kraft’s Whatever Happened to Scorpio? story. Anyhow, on this conclusion to the convoluted Headmen/Nebulon epic, I can’t help but think Gerber wrote in a bit of feverish pitch with a multitude of then current world events spinning within his head and making their way into the story. Famine and other troubles in India which had nevertheless become a nuclear power? Sure, that can be squeezed in with a bizarro plan to fix things by using Jerry Morgan’s shrinking gizmo to make everyone small! Protests in France again??? Make it a Bozeaux protest with a Guillotine to chop off the heads of the old regime once again! And Nebulon giving up on his dream of taking over the world and showing us all “the way” to perfection simply because Dr. Strange inadvertently convinced him we’re entirely hopeless??? Well, actually, given the current state of affairs in our country, I’m inclined to agree with Nebulon, although I can’t disappear in a puff of smoke and transport myself to somewhere allegedly better.
Gerber’s writing, at its best, IMO, tended to blend wistful hope, bemusement and despair into a frothy, intoxicating brew. Yeah, in this instance, he took a few shortcuts in plot elements and resorted to some of the standard American stereotypes of other cultures and peoples, but overall I found it entertaining enough. I really can’t remember when I finally got this mag, maybe around 1983. After however many years it was to finally read it, I can’t say I had any concrete expectations as to how all Gerber would resolve the many plates he had spinning in the air as of issue 40, and it turned out he didn’t do all of them (not really surprising) but did get to most of the big ones to bring the Defenders, Nebulon and the Headmen all, ahem, butting heads against one another. I certainly didn’t expect President Ford to make a significant appearance, although I wish Dr. Strange could put that mouth clamp on another particular real person prone to proving himself a Bozo over and over again through his inane prattling but who shall remain unnamed.
Wonderful overview, Alan!
Ah, what I wouldn’t give for a world in which Steve Gerber embraced the notion of planning ahead. His excecution of the entire Nebulon/Headmen storyline in Defenders was a textbook argument for the need to outline a story in advance. While I know for a fact that I enjoyed the Defenders Annual fifty years ago, I look at it today and with hindsight, am able to recognize it for the shambled, occasionally brilliant, meandering mess it is. And nowhere is that more obvious than here, in the wrap-up to this long drawn-out story.
I’ll admit that the idea that the Headmen diddling around in the heads of the Defenders a while back being responsible for Strange’s power shift and everyone’s mood changes, was one of the few bright lights in an otherwise murky narrative. From Jack Norriss going from “zero to hero” as he becomes a James Bond-worthy undercover agent in the turn of a page to “the Elf” and “the deer” and every other unresolved plot point the Defenders contains, there’s simply so much disconnection to the main storyline that whole thing makes just enough sense for Gerber’s fans to promote it all as some kind of “wonderful whimsy” on the part of the writer and not the scattershot mess large parts of it actually was.
It’s no secret Gerber was unhappy in his final years at Marvel. All the various political manuvering and feuding that Alan has chronicled so well, underlines that fact in clear, uncomplicated fashion. Honestly, when you compare the Nebulon/Headmen story with his best work on Howard the Duck and other books in his early years at Marvel, it’s seems obvious that Steve was struggling with some fatigue and mental health issues and was nowhere near the top of his game. The arrival of Gerry Conway as EIC, seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back and in some cases, Gerber seems to have walked away from some assignments in mid-sentence leaving them for others to finish and clean up. As a result, even though fans (me among them) protested when he and Sal walked away from the book that was so entwined with both their professional identities, I’m sure it seemed like a relief, to them, if not to us.
I will agree with you on one other point, Alan. It was refreshing to see Jack for once, not complaining about how Valkyrie was the same person as Barbara, just because they both had the same body. Valkyrie was not Jack’s wife, I don’t care how much Jack and at times, even Gerber, seemed to want her to be.
I may discover I’m wrong in a month or two, but I believe this was where I somewhat lost track of Steve Gerber in the overall scheme of comic book shenanigans. Thanks, Alan, for a fond farewell.
Since the subject of Jack Norriss stubbornly believing Valkyrie was his wife keeps coming up again and again, I might as well ask those who are knowledgeable about things for clarification. Did Barbara Norriss and Valkyrie look identical? Because if they did then I guess at least it would give Jack at least some sort of reason for stubbornly insisting that Val was his wife.
I’m just wondering, because Val possessing Barbara was actually the *third* iteration of the character. First, you have Valkyrie introduced in Avengers #83, except she turns out to be the Enchantress in disguise. Second, you have Samantha Parrington transformed into Val by the Enchantress in Incredible Hulk #142. Third, you have Barbra Norriss get possesses by Val in Defenders #4. In all three of these versions, Valkyrie looks *exactly* the same. Plus, Samantha and Val looked pretty much the same. So, it would be even weirder if Barbara and Val also happened to look alike.
Honestly, this whole Valkyrie thing is such a mess. It’s no wonder the character became so incredibly convoluted.
It’s a subjective matter, I suppose, but to my eye, Sal B. didn’t draw Barbara Norriss as physically identical to Valkyrie back in Defenders #3 and #4. If nothing else, their hair was definitely colored different shades of blonde.
Roy Thomas had hoped to make Samantha/Valkyrie a recurring character. He was disappointed when the third version took hold.
It’s interesting reading now how much Samantha’s brief moment as Valkryie channels the Golden Age Captain Marvel — crying out a magic word (“Valhalla!”) then getting hit by a magical bolt of lightning.
She didn’t have to be confusing. A magical persona created by the Enchantress, imposed on two different women, that seemed workable to me. Then eventually they decided she was a real Valkryie, we got Samantha and Barbara both becoming Valkyrie … but no, it didn’t have to become a mess.
Sorry I’m late, just cruised from the UK to northern Spain (20 hours) and then driven 17 hours to get here (fiancee’s parents on the Costa del Sol).
Not much to add, anyway. This was a disappointing finish to Gerber’s run, with too many plot lines resolved in less than satisfactory ways. I was never a big fan but like I’ve said before it was often preferable to watch Gerber swing at meaningful targets and miss, than to see what followed with Conway’s notion of generic and formulaic ‘conventional’ super-heroics.
HI, Ala Hen. I know this is a couple of weeks old, but there was no way I didn’t want to say a thing or two about this book.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, this whole storyline shows the difference between the two Steves whose work made such a huge impact on me from 1973 to 1976. Englehart was very much a detail guy who was very cognizant of continuity. To the point that, if he has a character refer to something that was said previously, you can usually find the page and panel where said conversation took place. Flash-forwards and foreshadowing were big parts of his tool kits, along with characterization and a witty writing style.
Gerber – whom I loved for his irreverence and HIS witty writing style – was not as much into details, as I think this story demonstrated. We really should have heard more about Ruby Thursday’s political campaign (even if it had only been on a news report) before Jack went to California, as well as Kyle’s stock success. And then there were all the little threads that ended up going to nowhere from previous issues. (What WAS the deal with that monkey???)
That said, I still loved this book for Gerber’s dialogue and his incisive captions. I still think of “Sad but true, all that’s left to say is a punch in the face.” And of course, Doc’s last line – “Let us all be bozos one and all, eh?”
And it strikes me that, with the one-two punch of the THOR ANNUAL and now the DEFENDERS ANNUAL, followed by a somewhat underwhelming issue #41, we’re closing the chapter on one of my favorite periods of comic-book reading. Maybe it’s because I was in my teens, maybe it was just my personal circumstances, but Marvel from 1972 to 1976 really kept me going. With the departure of Englehart altogether and Gerber being removed from DEFENDERS, it really felt like the end of an era. (I also feel obliged to add the name of Don McGregor, whose final Black Panther and Killraven stories also came out in August 1976. But you didn’t follow those titles – a blind spot that I’ll forgive considering how many OTHER titles you write about that I love!)
I still think of myself as a DC kind of guy. But when people ask me about my favorite books, I go back to the early 1970s Marvel as being something of a golden age. And for all the brilliant stuff that was to come in the 1980s, the 1990s, and beyond, that’s still what I think.
Ah, I’m just an old f@rt…
If loving the early 1970s Marvel makes one an old f@rt, Bill, then you’re not alone. Solidarity, brother! 😉