Rampage!

Unless my maths fail me, this week is the fortieth anniversary of the launch of the comic that let us know Marvel UK meant business when it came to fighting back against the nightmarish forces of  falling sales and dwindling market share.

Why?

Because, hot on the heels of The Complete Fantastic Four, the company launched Rampage which replicated that other comic's formula of reprinting an entire issue of a team title each week.

In this case, that title was The Defenders.

Unlike the FF, the self-declared non-team had no ancient stories to use as back-up tales and so, in this comic, the subsidiary strip was provided by the man called Nova, which meant that one thing was for sure.

We were going to be getting an awful lot of art by Sal Buscema in the months to come.

As with The Complete Fantastic Four, I had very few issues of Rampage.

In fact, I think I may have had just one - issue #10 - which wrapped up the Evil Eye Saga.

Such a thing must have been more than a little confusing for new readers, as the comic hadn't bothered reprinting the Evil Eye Saga itself - thanks to it already having been published in Spider-Man's book - meaning this mag jumped straight from the epic's prologue to its epilogue, with nothing in between.

As for me, my lack of issues of this new title didn't matter in the slightest, as I had a great big pile of the original Defenders comics.

Thinking about it, this may have been the first great flaw with the comic's concept. Unlike the Fantastic Four, it seemed to be ridiculously easy to get hold of Defenders comics. You seemed to be able to get them everywhere, which can't exactly have created massive demand for the UK reprints.

The other flaw, of course, was that, as with The Complete Fantastic Four, it was madness to reprint an entire monthly comic every week, meaning that, if successful, it would have quickly caught up with the source material and be rendered no longer viable.

Fortunately, Marvel UK avoided that problem by scrapping the comic after just thirty four issues.

Unlike other cancellations, however, this turned out not to be a retreat so much as a change of tactics and, after that last fateful issue, Rampage switched from being Marvel UK's latest weekly mag to being their latest monthly.

But that venture is a story for another day. All that mattered right now was that the company was suddenly publishing a massive four titles a week, which might not have seemed that great but it was at least a turn around from the recent story of cancellations and mergers and gave hope that the company's future wasn't, after all, one of imminent and inevitable extinction.

Of course, what really matters with any comic isn't the contents. It's the free gift that comes with it. And, true to recent form, Marvel UK decided to give away a model plane with issue #1.

At least this time it wasn't a Boeing.

It was a Concorde.

What a Concorde has to do with the Defenders or Nova, I have no idea but I'm sure it was a wonderful thing to behold.

The Defenders' Netflix series trailer.

Marvel Comics, is there no stopping you?

Not satisfied with already having a million and one TV shows and movies based on our favourite heroes, this August, Marvel's set to unleash yet another small-screen spectacular on us.

And that's The Defenders.

Naturally, I'm delighted, as I can't wait to see Dr Strange, the Hulk, Valkyrie, Nighthawk and the Red Guardian team up to battle the likes of Nebulon, the football-faced woman and that gorilla with the human head.

Wait? What's that you say? It doesn't have any of those in it? Instead, it's just a bunch of characters who aren't interesting enough to be able to support their own movie franchises? Given this effrontery to my expectations, I must take a look at the trailer immediately.



I have to say that that really doesn't do anything for me. Obviously, it doesn't have the characters in it that I'd want it to have but The Defenders was always supposed to be a hotchpotch of whoever was available at the time, so I can forgive that and it makes sense to call it The Defenders, bearing in mind that one of its characters is a defence lawyer but, still, what's in the trailer feels somewhat uninspired, like someone decided to make a Guardians of the Galaxy TV show without the sense of fun, imagination or budget.

On the plus side, it's nice to see Sigourney Weaver still getting gainful employment  after all these years but, to my eyes, the show seems quite run-of-the-mill and made from a template.

But its greatest crime is that its existence suggests we'll never get a movie version of the strip, starring those characters we most strongly associate with it, which seems like a crime against reason.

Still, what do I know? The rest of the internet seems stoked by it and I'm the man who liked the Green Lantern movie, so my judgement should never be listened to.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. If you have any on the matter, you are of course free to express them in the comments section below.

This week, I have mostly been reading...

"Steve!" I hear you cry. "What have you been reading lately and when are you going to review it?"

Well, I've been reading quite a lot lately - and I'm going to be reviewing almost none of it.

This isn't because a strange new wave of apathy has swept across my living room. It's because most of the comics I've read lately, I don't have anything to say about that I've not said about other issues in their respective series.

For instance, much as I love Charlton's Midnight Tales, I can't think of anything to say about issues #5 and #12 that I didn't say in my reviews of issues #8 and #9.

Therefore, in the absence of fresh new opinions, I'm going to give you a quick round-up of what I've been looking at.

It's the second part of the Red Rajah saga, as the girl Defenders take on the boy Defenders and make a better job of it than the boys ever did.

Don McGregor's Panther's Rage kicks off with T'Challa returning to Wakanda, only to find everyone's a bit fed-up of him.

Jack Kirby's short-lived take on the Avenger gives us men turning into monsters, as the Avenger gains a new sidekick and strikes a blow for racial equality in the pulp era.

It's like a cross between The Man Who Fell To Earth and Whistle Down The Wind, as Warlock arrives on Counter-Earth and promptly gains a bunch of disciples.

Gil Kane's art's fabby but Roy Thomas lays on the religious allegory so hard it's like being run over by a copy of the Bible.

It's more winningly quirky pleasantness from easily my favourite Charlton series, as Professor Coffin and Arachne have a Hellbound diversion.

And they're back again.

Reading The Shadow was the first time I ever liked Frank Robbins' artwork.

Here, the scarf-tastic super-doer finds himself mixed up in showbiz shenanigans.

With Frank Robbins still in charge, the Shadow's up against a smuggling operation at Niagara.

It's the Shadow vs the Avenger in the battle to see whose comic's going to be cancelled first. While the strip's still here, there's plenty of lovely E R Cruz artwork to savour.

More E R Cruz on the inside and a classic cover by Mike Kaluta on the outside, as the Shadow finds himself up against a town full of Satanists.

Or does he?

One of my Kung Fu faves, as Shang-Chi finds himself up against his best friend Midnight, from the era when Jim Starlin was still on the art and proving there was more to his repertoire than being Cosmic.

Super-hero movies you want to see!

Because I always follow Casey Kasem's advice and keep both ears to the ground and my feet in the clouds, I happen to have noticed there's an Avengers movie out at the moment.

Such is my attentiveness that I know all about it.

Apparently, it was written and directed by the late Bert Weedon and stars Scarlet Johnsen as Emma Peel, while Patrick McNee reprises his old role of the Incredible Hulk. I think we all remember his classic line from the old TV shows; "Grab my bowler, Sarah Jane, I do believe I'm turning irradiated."

Sadly, being a low-budget movie with little publicity behind it, it's not likely to do much at the box office. Such is the way with these home-grown British movies. However, coming as it does after a spate of comic book adaptations, it does raise the question of what other super-hero movies one would like to see.

There was a time when I'd have loved to have seen a Killraven movie. Admittedly, that was before I'd reacquainted myself with the comics and realised just how unfilmable they probably were.

I bow to no one in my admiration for Ant-Man but fear the multiplex masses may not be ready yet for one man's battle to escape from within a glass tumbler.

Therefore, I must bow to the inevitable and demand a Defenders movie. Who wouldn't thrill to the sight of the least coordinated super-team of them all fighting the forces of fiendomness?

So, that's me accounted for, but which super-heroes who've yet to hit the big screen would you like to see immortalised in celluloid?

The Defenders #53. An educational experience for us all.

 

As I roam the elevated walkways of Sheffield's Park Hill Flats, people often say to me, "Steve, given the lack of available space for it, don't you ever worry just where Dr Doom's kingdom of Latveria is on the map?"

And I say, "No, I'm too busy worrying about the fate of Atlantis."

And it appears I'm right to do so because, in The Defenders #53, the kingdom that's never seen a crisis it can avoid, is yet again having a crisis it can't avoid. You see, Atlantis is being polluted by radiation from an underground complex in Russia.

Needless to say the Sub-Mariner's not putting up with that and, together with his allies Hellcat, Nighthawk and the Hulk, is soon heading up a convenient underwater tunnel to deal with it.

What the would-be heroes don't know is the complex belongs to a character called Sergei who's up to no good with their old team mate the Red Guardian and, just as our heroes are approaching his base, he's about to blow it up with an atom bomb in order to transform himself into the less than dramatically named "Presence".

It's at this point that the story ends for this issue, followed by a mundane back-up tale in which Clea gets kidnapped and tied up before hitting her assailant over the head with a statuette. Maybe it's my memory playing tricks with me but it seems to me that when I was a kid, Clea seemed to spend all her time being tied up by people. Who did she think she was - Wonder Woman?

When it comes to the Defenders tale, the truth is that, for all its nuclear shenanigans, the main plot's somewhat dull, taking what seems an eternity to get going as our heroes first stop off for a meeting in Atlantis before setting off to deal with the bad guy.

This sense of treading water's abetted by the fact that every page is filled with overly verbose captions that mostly serve no purpose other than to fill the book with words. It struck me, ploughing through all of this, that it felt like I was reading a Don McGregor tale and it's interesting therefore to read a comment box at the top of the letters page where credited writer Dave Kraft thanks various others, including McGregor, for stepping in and helping him out whenever he's had difficulties meeting deadlines. I do wonder if this issue was one such occasion?

Hellcat shows her smarts: "Gee, Namor -- I Don't know much about this radiation stuff but it sure sounds scary!"

But who cares about the main plot? As everyone knows, I only read Defenders tales to find out what the Valkyrie's up to and this issue finds her in her trying-to-enrol-in college phase. So, while the other Defenders get to tangle trouble behind the Iron Curtain, back home we get a sub-plot where, in her Barbara Norris guise, she has a chat with Clea, a ride on the New York Subway, a noticeably undramatic three panel clash with a villain called Lunatik and then walks up some steps - a clash so undramatic she doesn't even bother to put her books down to conduct it. Maybe there's something wrong with me but this wilfully undynamic excursion's more gripping for me than the more explosive main plot. I suppose it just goes to show that, for some of us, Character will always win out over Drama.

Babs aside, it's a disappointing issue. The fact that the Defenders tale abruptly halts halfway through the mag and we then get a fairly throw-away Clea story is somewhat frustrating, especially when coupled with the indigestibility of the writing on the main plot. What it does have going for it - apart from Babs - is Keith Giffen's art, his pages often wildly overcrowded with panels but proudly displaying the updated Kirby influence that lent it its charm.

It's also an issue that means I no longer have to worry about that vexatious matter of Latveria's location. Apparently, if page 17's to believed, it's directly north of Italy. Now that that's sorted out, all I have to do is find a way to stop worrying about Atlantis.

Defenders #23. The Sons of the Serpent.

Now, you see, this is why I should be leader of a criminal organisation. Leaving aside the fact I'm a being of pure evil who likes to stride around town in thigh-length boots and a mask, I can spot certain things lesser villains can't. Take the Sons of the Serpent. Whenever I've read a story featuring them, their modus operandi's been to try and convince white America that they're the good guys and to side with them in their battle against reason.

This being the case, you'd've thought that calling yourselves the Sons of the Serpent isn't exactly the best way to convince people you're the good guys. Maybe they'd have been better off naming themselves something more appealing like the Kin of the Kittens or the Brotherhood of the Fluffy Bunny Rabbits.

Not that it makes much difference. Whatever they're called, the Sons Of are back to their old tricks - and this time it's down to the Defenders to stop them. Being the Defenders, they of course make a total Horlicks of it and're soon captured, meaning we finish the tale with the Sons Of making their plans to dispose once and for all of their brand new arch-enemies.

But nothing's ever straightforward in The Defenders and, urgent though it may be, the battle with the Sons Of is only part of the tale as, in the course of events, the Valkyrie for the first time meets her husband Jack Norris - setting up a less than cosy relationship that goes on for several months to come - while Yellowjacket, enduring some kind of mid-life career crisis, teams up with the Defenders. Clearly, the disease that renders the Defenders incompetent in the face of all threats afflicts him too and he's quickly captured after twisting his ankle. Even the Hulk's not immune to this syndrome. In his own mag, just one pound of the pavement from his fist'd be enough to defeat a handful of goons with stun guns but here, appearing in his role as a Defender, it's not long before he too's lying flat on his face.

Of course, no complaints about the mag stick. It's the Defenders, which means it's great. Steve Gerber writes it how it should be written - even if I'd've liked the Sons Of to speak a bit posher - Sal Buscema draws it right, and the much abused Vince Colletta does a perfectly good job of inking it. Apart from the ease with which the Sons Of take out a group of characters as powerful as the Hulk, the Valkyrie and Dr Strange, I really only have one gripe about the issue, which is that when the leader of the Sons Of makes his obligatory speech on national TV, we're given it in tiny white print on a black background. Don't the people who conceive such ideas realise that some of us are getting on a bit and have to hold the comic about two inches away from our nose to read such things? This isn't dignified for a criminal mastermind.

Then again, with fallibility like that, maybe I should be a Defender.

But then, if I were a Defender, I couldn't be leader of the Brotherhood of the Fluffy Bunnies.

The choices one has to make in life.

The Defenders #11. Gnome and away.

On the downside, the Crusades were a shameful time in the history of the human race, when ignorance, blood-lust, greed and bigotry were allowed to run rampant, leading to hundreds of years of bitter and pointless conflict whose repercussions linger with us still today.

On the upside it meant that, when I was a kid, I got to run around my local streets, wearing a balaclava and a table cloth, pretending to be Richard the Lionheart fighting the Last of the Mohicans, so it's an ill wind that blows no one any good.

For the Defenders it's a similarly mixed episode in world history as, thanks to it, they get what they're after but it turns out they never needed it in the first place.

Still trying to cure the Black Knight of the medical condition known as, "being a statue," the Defenders find themselves whisked back to the Crusades, where they find the Knight restored once more to flesh and blood and doing fine without them. It seems that, at some point in the past, Merlin cast a spell that's brought him back to life but in the Middle Ages. Now he needs the Defenders' help to free Richard the Lionheart who's been captured by the local arabs. It has to be said that, even when I was a child, we were being taught in school that Richard the Lionheart was a bit of a wrong 'un who was definitely up to no good because he spoke French but it's the Hollywood version we get here, of Richard as a just and righteous king.

The only problem for the Defenders is that to free him they're going to have to overcome a group of giant gnomes that Prince John's sorcerous lackeys have conjured up. I suppose this is the difference between Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber. If Steve Gerber'd been writing the tale, they'd probably have been giant garden gnomes but these are the less colourful, more traditional kind and are so tough that even the Hulk can't give them any problems. Mention of the Hulk does raise the complaint that one of the gnomes looks far too much like him and every time you see it the resemblance does yank you out of the story.

"But wait!" I hear you cry. "The Defenders have the Evil Eye which makes the bearer virtually all-powerful. Can't they use that to overcome the gnomes?" Yes they could but, for some reason, that never occurs to them, and so they get nowhere in the battle until the Sub-Mariner discovers the gnomes, being creatures of the earth, dissolve in water. To wrap things up, Prester John shows up to deal with Prince John and his cronies and take ownership of the Evil Eye that's rightfully his. Everything sorted, the Black Knight declares he's happier in the Middle Ages than he ever was in our time and the Defenders return to the present.

So, in the end, it means the whole Avengers/Defenders War and the troubles with Dormammu have been for nothing as the Black Knight never needed the Defenders to restore him to life and the Evil Eye never got used for anything anyway. You could put it down to slack plotting and continuity on the part of Englehart - and the fact the futility of it all's never mentioned suggests it is - but then again I suppose you could say such futility and wasted effort captures the nature of life in the real world perhaps better than any more cunningly plotted story ever could.

Avengers #118. Giving Dormammu the Evil Eye.

If many hands make light work, too many cooks spoil the broth and, in this issue, the combined forces of the world's mightiest super-teams prove to be startlingly inept when in a stew. Exposed to Dormammu's dread dimension, virtually every single person on Earth (and beyond) has turned into a monster - all except for super-heroes, super-villains and selected agents of SHIELD. Why super-heroes and villains aren't afflicted isn't clear. It could be because their super-powers make them immune but then why are the non-super-powered Dr Doom, Nick Fury and Ka-Zar similarly unaffected?

No time to dwell on such matters, the Avengers and Defenders, at last singing from the same song-sheet, head off to tackle Dormammu, by the somewhat prosaic means of a footpath. Granted, it's a footpath in space and looks a bit weird but it's still an oddly tame way for a group of the world's mightiest beings to be finding their quarry.

Sadly, when they do find him, they probably wish they hadn't, as they put up no sort of a fight at all and, before they know it, they're all out of the action except the Scarlet Witch.

Needless to say this should be disastrous news but the Scarlet Witch, who too often over the years had been a total waste of space, with her constant need for a rest after using her power in some relatively minor way, confounds all expectation and actually rids the universe of Dormammu. Thanks to one of her hexes, Dormammu's essence is sucked into the Evil Eye then fired at Loki who gets his sight back but goes insane from the overdose of evil energy suddenly coursing through him. This does hint at a truth that was always swept under the carpet in Avengers tales, that the Scarlet Witch's ability to mess things up just by pointing at them meant she should've been the most powerful Avenger of them all, able to end any fight with a single gesture just by targeting the villain of the piece. Instead, like the Wasp, too often she was gratingly futile.

Bob Brown's art in this issue's vigorous but, as in previous instalments, suffers from its inking. This time he's inked by Mike Esposito and Frank Giacoia, both of whom produced perfectly good work with other artists but, for whatever reason, their styles don't mesh at all with Brown's. You only have to look at the Captain America/Sub-Mariner instalment of this tale which - inked by an anonymous hand (Frank McLaughlin?) - showed how good his work could look given the right delineator.

All in all, reading the saga from start to finish has been a bit like eating a tray of fairy cakes, insubstantial but hugely enjoyable. With Steve Englehart displaying more affection for the Defenders than the Avengers, it worked nicely because of the disparity between the two groups and because of its policy of squeezing two fights into each issue, meaning it didn't outstay its welcome. If it was an epic in terms of character numbers, it was one that stayed commendably light on its feet and that's what makes it oddly re-readable long after numerous other such "epics" have become tired with re-reading.

The Defenders #10. The Hulk vs Thor.

At some point in his life, there's one question every good comic fan must ask himself; "If I cut the figures out of this comic and stick them to some cardboard and play with them, would that make me look immature, bearing in mind I'm 47?" The next question he has to ask himself is, "Who'd win a fight between the Hulk and Thor?"

Now we all know there're two answers to that question. There's the real one which is that Thor'd win, seeing as he's as strong as the Hulk and can fly and has a hammer and can fire lightning bolts and can transmute elements and can transport people to other times, dimensions and places whenever he wants to. All he has to do is send the Hulk to another planet and that's the end of that fight.

Thor of course won't do that because that'd involve him using his noggin, and super-heroes don't use sense because they know that one good brain can never be as good as two good fists.

The second answer is the Marvel answer which is, it's the Bronze Age, they each have their own comic whose sales must be preserved, so it's always going to be a draw. That means of course that there's no possible fun at all in reading a comic where we know it has to end in a stalemate.

Well of course there is. It doesn't matter that deep down we must know there's not going to be a winner. It's the Hulk vs Thor and, being the gullible fools we are, we still have that hope that this time might be the one where we actually get an outcome.

And so we get The Defenders #10, which features the climax of the Avengers/Defenders War, as Thor and the Hulk take each other on in Los Angeles. They get to hit each other, they get to throw things at each other and then they get to grab each other's wrists and stand there for a ridiculous amount of time, trying to overpower each other, before they're interrupted by  the Avengers and Defenders showing up and calling off the fight. The Sub-Mariner, that epitome of level-headedness, has arranged a truce and then an alliance between the two teams and now they're united in their campaign against their real foes Loki and Dormammu.

The fight's great. It's extremely silly. At one point the Hulk spins Thor round so fast he drills himself into the pavement. In other words, the invulnerability of the contestants means Sal Buscema can treat it almost like its some sort of Tom and Jerry cartoon where impossible beings do impossible things. It's also good to see the Hulk being unable to lift Thor's hammer, a case of Buscema and Steve Englehart remembering that it's magic that stops people lifting the thing and not its weight. It might be straightforward but writers and artists - including Lee and Kirby - didn't always remember it.

So, that's it, the fight's over and we're all friends.

This is where Dr Strange shows the Hulk isn't the dimmest member of the Defenders, by laying the various components of the Evil Eye in the street, where they're promptly snatched by a very strange thing that works for Dormammu. Faster than you can say, "By the Dread Vishanti!" Dormammu's got his hands on the Evil Eye and is using it to drag the Earth into his dimension so he can rule it. Bearing in mind he's been stood on a floating boulder for the entire run of this saga, you can see why he's after something a bit bigger.

Having been the cause of the world's peril in the first place, the teams finish the issue by vowing to give Dormammu a good bashing. How lucky we are to have them - although if we didn't have them we wouldn't have been in any danger in the first place. Isn't it about time someone took their super-hero licenses off them?

Avengers #117. Valkyrie vs Swordsman. Captain America vs Namor.

If ever there was a character who seemed like he didn't belong in the Avengers, it was the Swordsman. It might've been because he'd once been a criminal - but then so had Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. It might've been that he tended to always keep his mask on and so always felt like a stranger. It might've just been that he had a silly moustache. But I suspect the true answer is because of his talent. He was the world's greatest living swordsman.

As I've discovered myself, the problem with being the world's greatest living swordsman is that for it to be worth anything, you have to be willing to stab people with a sword and, as we all know, good guys don't do things like that. Therefore, in order to function within the Avengers, all he could do was hit people with the flat of his blade, meaning that, for all the difference it made, he might as well have been going into battle with a plank and, somehow, I can't see that particular skill getting you into the team.

The Valkyrie of course had the same problem - all that waving around of weaponry but no actual stabbing - and so it's appropriate that Marvel's two greatest plank-fighters get to come up against each other in the issue's first clash.

On the face if it, it's not much of a clash, as the Valkyrie's clearly more powerful than her adversary but he goes some way to making up for it by being more experienced and devious than her.

Not that it does him any good, as it just leads to him getting shot in the back. That's when he does what he shouldn't and, as he collapses, runs his assailant through.

There's two issues here. One is that his assailant - who we're supposed to see as a baddie - is in fact protecting his property from theft by two strangers. The more important point is the one made earlier, that good guys in Bronze Age comics aren't supposed to run people through with swords. Admittedly it's what I might do to someone who's just shot me but then I'm not an Avenger and it does jar somewhat, a piece of real-life violence suddenly injected into a fantasy tale - especially given that we're clearly meant to think nothing of it.

Happily, although the man with the gun dies, the Swordsman survives and, despite being carried off with all the ceremony of a sack of potatoes by the emergency services, he'll live to fight another day. What's made painfully clear in this tale is the Swordsman too is fully aware that he doesn't really belong in the Avengers and it adds a poignancy to his character as, desperate not to let the team down, he refuses to surrender the Eye to Val even when he thinks he's on the brink of death.

So it's victory to the Valkyrie and off to Osaka for Captain America and the Sub-Mariner. It's a nice pairing, reuniting as it does two former World War Two allies. Interestingly, their fight's interrupted by Sunfire whose power of flinging fire around has echoes of  their ex-WW2 ally the Original Human Torch. Is this coincidence or was it writer Steve Englehart's method of implicitly completing the trinity?

I don't think anyone's going to deny that arch-Japanese nationalist Sunfire's normally a pain in the backside. The problem is, this time round, even though we're clearly meant to think he's an idiot and a nuisance for trying to take the Evil Eye off them in the name of Japan, he's right. Both Captain America and the Sub-Mariner have simply turned up in Osaka to take what they want. There's no implication that either of them have the permission of the Japanese authorities to be there or to take what's effectively Japanese property.

If Cap and Namor are guilty of arrogance, they do at least get one thing right and, instead of just fighting, they actually talk to each other as they hit each other, meaning that, by the end of the scrap, they've realised they've been duped.

At last the good guys are finally starting to act the part.

Defenders #9. Hawkeye v Iron Man. Mantis & the Panther v Dr Strange.

If there's one thing worse than a mismatch, it's two mismatches and, because of that, The Defenders #9 shouldn't work at all as we get Hawkeye vs Iron Man and then the Black Panther and Mantis vs Dr Strange. In fact it works beautifully, giving us another highly enjoyable slice of super-hero cake.

First though, thanks to his insistence of coming on to every woman he meets, Hawkeye has to survive a quick set-to with his designated driver the Valkyrie. Fortunately for him, her annoyed sword-swipe doesn't take off his head and he's free to take on his real opponent.

Now, logically there's no way Hawkeye's going to last more than five seconds against Iron Man, let alone beat him but if logic ruled comics, there wouldn't be a Hawkeye or an Iron Man in the first place, and so the archer comes out victorious, merrily running off with his segment of the Evil Eye as Iron Man's busy trying to rescue someone from being crushed by a falling building. Even though the outcome defies reason, the fight's a nice throwback to the days when Iron Man and Hawkeye were arch-foes.

If that fight's fun, the second scrap of the mag's the real highlight as the Black Panther and Mantis come up against Dr Strange. This is like a pair of house flies coming up against King Kong, as Dr Strange clearly has the power to deck the pair of them any time he wants but the segment takes place in a cornfield and you can rarely go wrong with a story set in a cornfield.

Most unlikely revelation is that Dr Strange is not only Master of the Mystic Arts but also a master of the martial arts and therefore can hold his own in a punch-up with Mantis. Was this mastery of the martial arts ever mentioned before or after? I hope not. Maybe it's just me but Dr Strange shouldn't be karate kicking people. It's just not dignified.

Thankfully, thanks to one of Strange's spells, the physical confrontation between the two ends before it's started, meaning we're spared a fight that could have done nothing but make a man in a cloak look silly.

So that's it. Three fights in and the Defenders have won every bout.

This is how it should be.

However you look at it, you can't get round the fact the Defenders are simply a more likeable bunch of people than the Avengers, and seeing their more establishment peers flopping hopelessly is a large part of what makes you want to keep reading.

But the Defenders still only have three parts of the Evil Eye. Can they possibly keep up this run of results?

Only The Avengers #117 can tell us.

Avengers #116. The Vision vs the Silver Surfer.

In The Avengers Annual #2, it was posited that, in a world without super-villains to stand in their way, the Avengers would quickly become arrogant and a menace to humanity. Judging by The Avengers #116, they're perfectly capable of achieving that even in a world with super-villains.

Looking for the Black Knight, they turn up at Dr Strange's house. As Dr Strange was at the wedding of the Wasp and Yellowjacket, and helped them defeat Surtur and Ymir, you'd expect it to be a friendly visit. But no. For no good reason, they're all geared up for a fight with someone they act like they've never heard of before. Upon being denied entry, they do what any of us would. They smash his front door down and beat up his servant. Upon being evicted from his house by a spell, they then stand in the street and rant at the house about how they're going to come back to give Dr Strange the chinning he so richly deserves. Are these people sure they're the good guys?

Frankly, in these opening pages, the Avengers come across like nothing more than thugs and idiots. Their stupidity's perfectly summed up by Iron Man making it clear he doesn't believe in magic and that, therefore, Strange must be a conman. As Iron Man's stood next to the Norse God of Thunder at the time, this lack of belief in magic reflects badly on both his powers of observation and his intelligence.

Regardless, while the Defenders set off individually to retrieve the various scattered sections of the Evil Eye needed to cure the Black Knight, the Avengers return to their HQ where they're contacted by Loki. Again they show their vast wisdom, this time by believing everything the man known as The God Of Lies tells them. He tells them the Defenders are up to no good in their quest for the Eye and so, each choosing a different route, each Avenger sets off to battle a Defender. This moment is the series' master-stroke as none of the Avengers know who they're going to face when they get there. The potential randomness of the subsequent encounters makes it all the more fun.

The first Avengers to encounter a Defender are the Vision and the Scarlet Witch who come up against the Silver Surfer on a South Sea island. Happily, the Surfer's triumphant, grabbing the first section of the Evil Eye while the Vision mithers over the injured Witch who, with her customary usefulness in a crisis, manages to be unconscious throughout the entire fight.

You can't get away from it, this is supposed to be the Avengers mag but, from start to finish, every single one of that team comes across as someone you'd like to slap repeatedly in the mouth. Despite being guests, the Defenders come across as a million times more mature and self-possessed than their would-be opponents and, by the end of the tale, you're glad to see the first round go to them. Granted, the Surfer's actions in repeatedly blasting the interior of a volcano with his cosmic bolts, in an attempt to find the Eye, doesn't suggest the most responsible of individuals but at least he can put it down to ignorance. I'm not sure what the Avengers excuse is.

Defenders #8. Avengers/Defenders War; Part 2. I know there's a war going on but all I can see are the Valkyrie's breasts.

Call me easily distracted but while I know the cover of The Defenders #8's meant to make us fearful for the Defenders' latest predicament, the truth is it makes me more fearful of  the Valkyrie's hub caps. I just hope she's in the habit of handing out protective goggles to everyone she meets because frankly she's in danger off having everyone's eyes out with those things.

But The Defenders issue #8's clearly the place for eye concerns because, inside the mag, once we get past the main story, we get the epilogue that kicks off the Evil Eye Saga from the point of view of the Defenders.

Understandably concerned that the Black Knight's been turned into a statue, Dr Strange sends a message into the void to contact the Knight's disembodied spirit but the Knight's reply's intercepted by Dormammu who, in conjunction with Loki, alters it in order to drag the Defenders into their scheme.

I can't deny I like the look of the Defenders' intro to this tale more than I did that of the Avengers. I didn't mind Bob Brown's work on Daredevil #115 but, in the Avengers segment, Mike Esposito's inks don't work anything like as well with Brown's pencils as those of the much-maligned Vince Colletta did on that tale. In this segment we get the work of Sal Buscema and Frank McLaughlin, a combination that works much more happily.

The contrast between the Avengers and Defenders is perhaps clear in even the mere four pages we're given here, as we get an insight into the Hulk's thoughts, which are that he's contemplating smashing the other Defenders, an insight into the Valkyrie's thoughts, which are that she's unhappy about possibly being in love with the Black Knight when she doesn't want to feel love for anyone, and an insight into Hawkeye's thoughts, which are that he views the Avengers as a bunch of back-stabbers. In other words, the Defenders isn't necessarily a group for those who're at ease with the world.

The Defenders have one thing in common with the Avengers though - and that's the fact they rarely turn down the chance for a good punch-up. And so, by the end of the four pages, they're all revved up and ready for a fight to the death, despite having been given no indication whatsoever that they'll have to fight anyone for anything.

Super-heroes, you do wonder what they'd do if they didn't have anyone to hit.

Avengers #115. The Avengers/Defenders War; Part 1.

Everybody loves a good cliffhanger - well, apart from people who're hanging from a cliff - and so I've decided to give you Steve Does Comics: The Serial, by looking at one of my favourite multi-part stories of the 1970s; the Avengers v the Defenders' Evil Eye Saga.

For those who don't know, it's a tale in which the forces of evil, for reasons most nefarious, conspire to pit the Avengers against their less-celebrated counterparts.

It all kicks off in The Avengers #115 but in somewhat inauspicious circumstances, as the bulk of the mag's taken up with a less than classic tale of the Avengers blundering around the English countryside, having a ridiculously hard time of battling a handful of troglodytes. Needless to say it's an England no Englishman would ever recognise, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that, right at the end when, like some people who're on the pitch, we think it's all over, we get a three page epilogue with Loki falling from a cliff, having been blinded in his last encounter with Thor.

Will he die?

Of course not.

For one thing, he's a god and it's hard to believe such a fall could kill a deity who's almost as strong as Thor.

The more important reason is that, just as he's about to impact, the dread Dormammu rescues him by teleporting him to his dead dimension and forging an alliance with him. Like many super-villain team-ups, it's hard to know why the instigator wants it. To be honest, you get the feeling that maybe they just feel lonely sometimes. Dormammu probably does, as, seen here, his vast empire seems to consist entirely of a floating boulder. Regardless, they shake hands on the deal and, from that moment on, we know a whole heap of trouble's in store for our heroes...

To Be Continued.

The Defenders #44. The Red Rajah.

Harmony. It's not just a hairspray. It's a way of life.

Sadly, in the world of comicbookland, it's the worst possible thing that could happen.

Without conflict, there's no action and, without action, there's no story. Take away the story and our heroes would no doubt evaporate, exposed as the figments of our imagination they really are.

Hardly surprising then that when the Red Rajah appears, striving to impose harmony, peace and unity on the human race, the Defenders know exactly what to do; give him a quick punch in the bracket.

With a villain called the Red Rajah, one could be forgiven for thinking Steve Gerber's still with us. As it turns out, Steve's gone and, in his place, we have Gerry Conway, Roger Slifer and David Kraft. Gone too is Sal Buscema, replaced on art duties by Keith Giffen and Klaus Janson. So, without its previous creative team, how does it get on?

It gets on great. The randomness is gone, as is most of the humour but the sense of the Defenders not being like other super teams and, frankly being somewhat inadequate to whatever task they're facing, is still going strong. Issue #44 sees them starting off with a squabble before discovering their de facto leader Dr Strange has been possessed by a gem and is the man behind the Red Rajah's mask.

Needless to say, by the end of the tale, Luke Cage, Nighthawk and the Hulk have been flattened and it's up to the girls to try and stop him.

Hold on. Where's the punch-up?

But something that leaps out at me about this tale is how much we've been indoctrinated by Marvel Comics. When Hellcat turns up, unannounced at the Defenders HQ, it's a genuine shock to the system when a fight doesn't break out.

We're so used to the idea that, when Marvel heroes meet, they first have to have a punch-up before realising they're on the same side, that the sight of the Valkyrie and Red Guardian actually having a reasonable conversation with a masked woman who's just broken into their HQ really does feel weird. Even more so that Hellcat acts like the Valkyrie's number one groupie.

I like it, it's nice to see costumed adventurers acting like grown-ups for once but it doesn't change the fact that it feels weird. In that instant, we get a little glimpse of how the world would be if only harmony really did break out and it's an oddly unsettling thing.

Defenders #38.

Defenders #38. "Exile to Oblivion!"

The Defenders. They never did things the easy way. Leaving aside the fact they were a team who weren't a team, cobbled together from whatever misfits happened to be hanging around Dr Strange's vicinity at the time, they couldn't even manage to rustle up a straightforward adventure between them, and issue #38's no exception. If anyone, including the Defenders, has the slightest idea what's going on, I'd be amazed.

Basically, Dr Strange, Luke Cage and the Red Guardian have been trapped on an alien planet, by Nebulon, another of those all-powerful-type beings from space who just can't leave the Earth alone. The only problem is it's an alien planet on which Strange can't use his magic, because magic attracts lightning, meaning they're stuck there, in a cave, with a big white ape monster and killer termites.

Meanwhile, The Valkyrie, my favourite character, has found herself in a women's prison and having to deal with the resident bully despite not being able to use her powers on other females.

Meanwhile, there's an elf with a gun disguising itself as a dead American Indian in order to shoot a couple of backpackers.

Meanwhile, perpetually underwhelming villains the Eel and the Porcupine have found religion -- just not a good religion.

So, what's going on?

I don't have a clue.

And that's what's great about it. The Defenders was a strip in which it seemed anything could happen and often did. Along with Tomb of Dracula, it's my favourite strip of the 1970s and this issue gives us everything some of us grew to love about the thing; it's completely and totally bonkers and yet holds together beautifully. The strange thing is you actually care about this odd group of characters in a way you really shouldn't. Somehow writer Steve Gerber manages to get a bunch of powered-up super-beings and injects an odd sense of vulnerability into them. Despite their power, they always seem to be slightly out of their depth, no matter what they're dealing with, whether it be threats to the world or merely trying to find their own place in that world.

Is my love of The Defenders shared by others? Judging by comments on other blogs, it seems to be but, having said that, try buying old Defenders comics on eBay and you can get great piles of them for virtually nothing. Oh well, whoever said you could judge the value of art in monetary terms?

By the way, I should have mentioned that when we first see Nighthawk in this issue, he's in hospital, having just been given a brain transplant by the Red Guardian. Six pages later, he's on an alien world, having stepped through a doorway after fighting a bunch of people dressed as clowns.

All in a day's work when you're a Defender.

Just another day in the life of the Defenders.