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.

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.

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.