Review: Avengers-Defenders War HC

Avengers-Defenders War HC
Written by Steve Englehart
Art by Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, Various.
Published by Marve Comics. $19.99 USD

For someone like me, growing up as a Marvel Comics fan in the late '70s and on, there were a handful of longish stories that always got mentioned as classics, things you were supposed to track down as back issues since the reprint trade paperback had yet to be such an automatic. The Death of Gwen Stacy, The Kree-Skrull War, maybe The Serpent Crown Saga. And lots of Annuals, like whenever Jim Starlin did one, or Michael Golden.

According to his Introduction, Englehart came to be a Marvel writer just as they had phased out the Annuals he had loved, and so he took a big story he had in mind and spread it across two of the titles he was writing, The Avengers and The Defenders, and just had to make sure they came out on time. And it was a pretty big deal for the time, and for years afterward.

Essentially, he took a model from All-Star Comics, where a large group of heroes are separated to one or two at a time in different places, in order to accomplish something, form one piece of a larger victory, and blended that with the classic team-up scenario of heroes duped into fighting each other until they figure out they've been manipulated, team-up, and stop the bad guy or guys pulling the strings. He does this well--the plot is tight, and though it's simple, he makes each chapter interesting even if the goal of each--finding a piece of the Evil Eye that can supposedly restore the Black Knight to human form--is exactly the same. However, Englehart's stature as an important comics writer isn't proven so much to me by his efforts here. His characterizations are very sketchy if accurate for the times (Iron Man distrusts magic), but also often contrived (Doctor Strange believes the Avengers may have turned towards evil because interntaional criminal The Swordsman is now a member, despite Strange's own Defenders harboring fugitive The Hulk and would-be conqueror Namor, not to mention new guest member, and former rehabilitated criminal and Avenger, Hawkeye). Also, he clearly has soft spots for lesser lights like Mantis and The Swordsman, but can't make them interesting. It's funny that even after both teams have made up, Hawkeye makes fun of Swordsman for being a second-rate version of him, and he's exactly right. Englehart doesn't seem to realize that making Swordsman settle down so soon with Mantis limits the potential of both characters, whereas the single Hawkeye can still be a very entertaining, horny idiot, making clumsy passes at Valkyrie and the like.

In fact, the things I liked about Englehart's writing here are really just natural expansions of what Stan Lee did--the feet of clay heroes who fight and lust and envy--and the feeling that there are lots of little dramas hinted at and mentioned quickly, to be explored more fully when this big story is over.

The art by Buscema on the Defenders chapters, Brown on the Avengers, is merely adequate. Englehart clearly felt otherwise in the blush of creation, giving Buscema a full, dull page to depict Thor and Hulk in hand-to-hand combat, but at best Buscema is a very competent storyteller with a style like an even less interested version of his brother John. His Silver Surfer is dreadful: inhuman toad face and a body like Sal thought the character had no muscles. He draws a nice Hawkeye, though, and would go on to draw a great Hulk, but not here. Bob Brown is also a fine storyteller with a rougher style than The Avengers had been used to. I guess you can commend both artists for not being flashy, but when you have a superteam slugfest story, I think some flash would have been very welcome.

I don't think anyone really needs to spend hardcover money on this story, but I will say that I ended up reading it in one sitting, despite having other plans. It's forgettable but a good deal of fun, and that does count for something.