Defenders Marvel Masterworks Vol. 2

[Jeff of Earth-J]

The first issue of The Defenders I ever saw was #12, at Droste Drug Store, my secondary source for comics books in those days. (My primary source was Ahmann’s Newsstand.) It was late 1973 and my favorite character was the Incredible Hulk. I already knew that his early appearances were in Tales to Astonish and that those stories were being reprinted in Marvel Super-Heroes. I didn’t recognize Xemnu the Titan on the cover of Defenders #12; I hadn’t yet acquired Marvel Feature #3 as a back issue, and Hulk Annual #5 was still a few years in my future. But the splash page was the Hulk I know and loved, drawn by Sal Buscema and Jack Abel (although I couldn’t have told you that then), strolling across a hillside and picking flowers. The Defenders, to me, presented “untold tales” of the Hulk, “secret adventures” unknown to me! I then did something which some of you may consider odd: I made a conscious decision to not buy issue #12 or subsequent issues of The Defenders until I had completed my collection of the Hulk in his own title and Marvel Super-Heroes. After that, I reasoned, The Defenders would always be there waiting for me as back issues and I wouldn’t have to worry about not having an issue of the Hulk to read any time soon. It was to take me about seven years to complete my Hulk collection, and immediately thereafter, right on schedule and according to my plan, I began buying back issues of The Defenders. One comic I didn’t pass, though, a couple of months after the release of Defenders #12, was Giant-Size Defenders #1, and I’m glad I didn’t. Eager to get in on the beginning of something new (and not because I thought they‘d be “worth something someday“), I bought anything I could find with a “#1” on the cover. In retrospect, it was one of the most formative comics I was to acquire as part of my then-new hobby. More than just a series of reprints, a framing sequence written by Tony Isabella and drawn by Jim Starlin wove early Hulk, Sub-Mariner and Doctor tales into a series of stories related to new Defender Valkyrie via a spell cast by Doc’s lady love, Clea. Imagine: I was ten years old and owned a single comic containing the work of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett and Jim starlin in my hot little hands! Giant-Size Defenders #1 is just one of the comics reprinted in Defenders Marvel Masterworks Vol. 2. The volume begins with #7, which picks up a story thread from Avengers via Hulk and features Hawkeye. That story leads directly into the summer-long “Avengers/Defenders Clash” which crossed over back and forth between the two titles throughout the summer of 1974. All of the stories up to this point were written by Steve Englehart, and the Avengers chapters are included in the Masterwork edition as well. Len Wein took over from Steve Englehart, and after the Xemnu the Titan story alluded to above, he brought Nighthawk into the fold with a two-part Squadron Sinister story in #13-14, and the volume is rounded out by a two-parter featuring Magneto and Professor X during the interim between X-Men #66 and Giant-Size X-Men #1 when Marvel’s merry mutants didn’t have a title of their own. For the sake of nostalgia or for sheer entertainment, you can’t go wrong with Defenders Marvel Masterworks Vol. 2!