It's recently been announced that the long-running Marvel Masterworks line has been put on hiatus. This won't impact the upcoming Captain America and Ghost Rider Masterworks that collect work of mine, but it does cancel the next Defenders Masterworks that was slated to come out in January. I wrote an introduction for that volume and, rather than see it go to waste, I'm sharing it here. Enjoy!
The primary focus of that first year was what came to be known as “The Six-Fingered Hand Saga,” a sprawling supernatural epic that, to my delight, is still held in high regard. I enjoyed injecting occult elements into Defenders. It gave the book a unique flavor that made it stand out from the rest of the Marvel line and opened the door to stories that could explore the more spiritual and metaphysical aspects of life, the universe, and everything. But with that epic under our belts, where could we go next? It was time, I decided (looking back, I can’t say if that decision was conscious or intuitive), to dig deeper into our characters, to put spotlights not just on the Defenders as a whole, but on the individuals who made up the team. When you’ve got multiple heroes, villains, and cosmic plot lines fighting for space, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of those individuals. I’ve found that the best way to rectify that is by putting on the brakes, eschewing the epics for a bit, and focusing on single-issue stories: one-offs that allow the creators to drill deeper into the characters’ psyches and tell a complete, satisfying tale with a definitive beginning, middle, and end.
The first spotlight issue in this volume—Defenders #102’s “The Haunting of Christiansboro”—focuses on the Gargoyle. Looking back, I find it interesting that, not yet 30 when these stories were written, I chose to create a character who was an old man, pushing eighty (which seemed absolutely ancient to me at the time. I wonder if I was unconsciously exploring my own feelings about growing older. Sitting here all these decades later, it seems I was.) The average superhero was youthful, vibrant—but Isaac Christians had lived a long, tumultuous, wearying life; and yet he retained a vibrant spirit, a sweetness of soul, that refused to surrender to the darkness. The “Christiansboro” story allowed us to take a deep dive into Isaac’s backstory—and laid the groundwork for 1985’s Gargoyle mini-series (which I hope will grace a future Masterworks volume). Don—whose design for the character was visually reminiscent of Jack Kirby’s Demon, which, in turn, was inspired by a Hal Foster image from the Prince Valiant comic strip—turned in genuinely eerie, evocative work, enhanced by the gorgeous inks of the legendary Joe Sinnott.
Next up is “Yesterday never Dies”—which turns the spotlight over to Devil Slayer. One of the advantages of working on Defenders was that it had a history of mining the more obscure characters in the Marvel Universe—and they don’t get any more obscure than Eric Simon Payne. The beauty of that for a writer is that he’s free to make the character his own, without interference from The Powers That Be. If we were using major characters like Spider-Man or Wolverine in the book, we’d be in the editorial crosshairs, but no one was going to march into Defenders editor Al Milgrom’s office complaining about the way we portrayed Devil Slayer, because no one cared. “Yesterday” deals with Payne’s tortured past—as well as his relationship with 60s burnout Ira “Sunshine” Gross (clearly a progenitor of “Sunflower,” the mother figure in my creator-owned series Moonshadow. And would you believe me if I told you I just realized that?), who embodied the last gasp of naïve hippie idealism in the face of the cynicism and avarice of the 1980s. The story also brings in two Avengers: Wonder Man and my favorite of the original X-Men, the Beast— the latter of whom would, the following year, prove extremely important to the book.
The Beast is back for “Rising”—Hank McCoy’s arc building on a story I began in Avengers #209—but the heart and soul of the tale is another obscure character I adored: Daimon Hellstrom. Defenders was a book that flew under the radar—not only were our characters from the fringes of the MU, but our sales, while never warranting cancellation, were on the low side—and the aforementioned Powers That Be weren’t paying the same attention to us that they would have paid to the Big Guns. How else to explain a Christmas tale that features the crucifixion of Satan’s son and a scene where the devil reveals that he and God are one and the same? Take a look at Daimon’s face—expertly detailed by Perlin and Sinnott—as that shocking, illuminating truth sets in: a truth that changes his character—if not forever (it’s comics, after all), then certainly for the remainder of our run.
Next up is a crossover that began in Captain America—a book I was writing at the time, illustrated by the killer art team of Mike Zeck and John Beatty—and then leapt into Defenders, bringing together story threads I’d been nursing in both titles. The second part is most notable for the unexpected death of Nighthawk (unexpected not just to the readers, but to me. Sometimes when I’m writing things simply happen, the story and characters upending my carefully laid plans: Kyle Richmond’s demise was one of those things), which, in turn, led to “On Death and Dying” in Defenders #107—the title taken from the classic work by Elizabeth Kubler Ross. That story begins with Valkyrie’s murder, and having the team reeling from the loss of two members allowed me to once again put the brakes on and explore the characters’ thoughts and feelings as they discuss mortality, the afterlife, grief, hope, and the inevitable ending, and perhaps new beginning, that waits for all of us. (I remember a review at the time saying Defenders was like superhero group therapy. It wasn’t meant as a compliment—they clearly thought the book was way too talky, too invested in psychology and emotion over action—but that’s how I took it.)
Valkyrie didn’t stay dead for long as Defenders #108 launched a two-part story, co-written by Master of Marvel Continuity Mark Gruenwald, that explored, and clarified, Brunnhilde’s tangled back story. Collaborating with Mark, either as my editor (as he was on Captain America) or a writing partner, was always a joy. All of us who work in this business love comics, but I don’t think I ever encountered anyone who loved them more than Mark. All these years later his death—in 1996, at the shockingly young age of 43—still breaks my heart.
We return to spotlight issues with “Hunger—not just a favorite story in this volume, but a favorite out of my entire Defenders run. A sequel to “Yesterday Never Dies,” “Hunger” is a study in existential angst, crushing despair, and the search for meaning in a universe that seems sorely lacking in that quality—with the ghost of “Sunshine” Gross providing a kind of Greek chorus. The truth is Eric Simon Payne isn’t remotely likable—he’s done despicable things in his life—but he is relatable, a truly Dostoyevskian, tormented soul, and we find ourselves caring about him despite those despicable things.
I often look back at stories I wrote early in my career and cringe a little, sometimes more than a little, knowing how much better I could do now, but “Hunger” remains one that I’m truly proud of. It was a challenging piece of work and Don Perlin (enhanced by long-time Marvel inker Mike Esposito) rose to the occasion, bringing powerful emotions, and a truly haunting quality, to the tale.
Defenders #111 focuses on Hellcat. No Marvel character has ever journeyed quite so far as Patsy Walker, who started out in the 1940s as the star of teen-humor books, eventually making the surprising leap to the mainstream Marvel Universe, where she became a member of the Avengers named Hellcat. In the course of our Six-Fingered Hand storyline, we’d transformed Patsy into a literal hellcat—and perhaps the daughter of Satan himself (and the sister of the man she loved, Daimon Hellstrom). “Fathers and Daughters” put all the questions swirling around Patsy’s origins to rest and (provoked by a request from editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, who wanted it made clear that Marvel’s Satan and the biblical Satan weren’t the same being) also allowed me to explore, and explain, the mythology of Marvel’s Hell-Lords. In the end, Patsy has to face down the most dangerous devil of all, her personal devil. That she does this adds to her evolution as a character—and clears the path for Patsy’s reunion with her true father.
Next we have two epics that are crowded, some might say overcrowded, with heroes and villains: an Avengers Annual—masterfully illustrated by Al Milgrom—which pits our Defenders against the then-current Avengers line-up, and a three-part Defenders-Squadron Supreme crossover. The annual brings back an old Defenders foe, the bizarre alien entity called Nebulon, who sets both teams against each other. Defenders #112—#114 ran through the entire summer of 1982 and featured the Defenders and the Squadron, as well as the return of Fantastic Four villain Overmind, and Null, the Living Darkness—last seen in Defenders #102. Mark Gruenwald, who was prepping his groundbreaking Squadron Supreme mini-series, generously allowed me to use three new Squadron members he’d created—Arcanna, Nuke, and Power Princess—and even provided designs for their costumes. The final chapter of our trilogy was co-plotted by Don, who pulled out all the visual stops, as the Defenders and the Squadron literally join forces to defeat Null.
I’ll be honest: These massive crossover events have never been my forte. I struggle with them, afraid I’ll drown beneath the weight of all those characters. Did I succeed or fail with this one? I’ll leave the final judgement to you.
Speaking of final: The last story in this volume is another all-time favorite. “A Very Wrong Turn” is a tribute to one of the greatest minds of the 20th century: writer/artist/absolute legend Theodore Geisel—aka Dr. Seuss. One of my earliest, and warmest, memories is walking, hand in hand with my parents, to the Avenue J library in Brooklyn, sitting down in the children’s section and discovering Geisel’s wondrous worlds. His books had an impact on me that echoes through my work, and life, to this day. In 1982, my son Cody was two years old and we were constantly reading Seuss’s work. Wouldn’t it be fun, I thought, inspired by those readings, if we could do a story set in a Seuss-like universe? That was yet another joy of Defenders, which had a history of smashing norms, thanks in no small part to the iconoclastic work of Steve Gerber: I was free to always change things up and move in whatever oddball direction the whims and winds took me. (It helped tremendously that I had an editor who allowed me to do that. Milgrom gave me all the creative room I needed, but was always there to offer guidance and save me from racing, like Wily Coyote, off the edge of the creative cliff.)
I mailed Don a stack of Seuss books and he did an extraordinary job of capturing Geisel’s playful, mind-bendingly imaginative style. (One of the things I truly respected about Don was that he wasn’t the kind of artist who stopped evolving. I watched him, over our more than three-year stint on the book, continually challenging himself to expand his artistic reach. “A Very Wrong Turn” is proof of that.) I don’t recall what the readers thought of our journey into Seussiana—if that’s not a word, it should be—but Don and I loved it, and I still hold this story close to my heart.
Truth is, I hold all these stories, the successes and the failures, close to my heart. My years on Defenders allowed me to experiment, play, build up creative muscles, and take the first tentative steps toward finding my individual voice as a writer. I couldn’t have written Moonshadow, Kraven’s Last Hunt, or any of the work that followed had I not had the freedom Defenders allowed me. And for that I am forever grateful.
©copyright 2025 J.M. DeMatteis
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