The Defenders: Marvel Vault One-Shot

[Jeff of Earth-J]

The story behind this story is as interesting as the story itself. Back when Kurt Busiek and Erik Larsen were doing The Defenders, editor Tom Breevoort commissioned a fill-in from Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley. Nicieza wrote the plot and Mark Bagley penciled it, but it never reached the scripting stage. When it was decided to release this “untold tale” as part of Marvel’s “Tales from the Vault” series of one-shots, it was discovered that Marvel had lost the plot/script. They contacted Nicieza, but he had lost his copy, too, nor could he remember what the story was about. Same thing with Bagley. So the new editor hired Busiek, who was the writer at the time this story would have taken place, to write a story based solely on Bagley’s finished artwork. Bagley’s a strong storyteller, so the task, while difficult, is not impossible. Is the end result to what Nicieza originally intended? None can say (although I would tend to think not). It’s not the best Defenders story I ever read, but it’s quirky enough to earn a place among other quirky Defenders stories of the past. If this story-behind-the-story sounds interesting to you (or if you simply like and miss the original Defenders), you should check this one out.