DEFENDERS #10

Orrgo the Unconquerable and the Headmen take on the Defenders!

By Tony Whitt     November 04, 2001

It's hard to resist any comic that has Orrgo the Unconquerable on the cover saying, "Look into my eyes-you will buy this comic book," and during flu season, my resistance has never been at its best. Besides, I've been meaning to give the new DEFENDERS title a once-over for some time nowit was the series I most enjoyed back in my misspent youth, and I misspent a lot of money on those brilliant issues by J. M. DeMatteis.

Sadly, I can't say that this new incarnation of the series is quite as brilliant. I have no doubts that Kurt Busiek could bring back the Champions and make them into the next cult favorite, but I don't see that magic working here. Granted, Busiek is faithfully presenting these heroes the way they were "back in the day," with Hulk calling everything (including Dr. Strange) stupid and referring to everything in the first person, Namor going on and on about his precious Atlantis, and Hellcat having a wit just as sharp as her claws. He also bring some new dimension to the Dr. Strange character, making him not quite as heroically inclined as he's been in past incarnations. There's something downright sinister about the Sorcerer Supreme here, especially in the last few scenes of the book. But the other characters, such as Valkyrie, Nighthawk, and even the Silver Surfer, get short-changed.

Of course, that could also be due to the huge number of characters he's having to juggle. Not only is he dealing with all the Headmenone of the goofiest groups of supervillains that Marvel has ever producedhe's got Modok and Orrgo to deal with as well. Quite a bit is going on at a breakneck pace, and by the time it's over, you wonder what just happened and why your head hurts so much.

The headache might be induced by the artwork, of course. Larsen and Buscema's work isn't very easy on the eyes, and it certainly doesn't add much to an already busy storyline, either. There's a dearth of detail work and a bunch of bold, blocky lines that have no subtlety or grace. Aesthetically, this book is a failurethere's nothing in the visuals worth looking at. Even Orrgo's final fearful expression is given short shrift, though frankly I'm not sure how anyone could manage to make a rock look convincingly fearful. Simply, the Defenders have never looked worse.

Finally, it's hard to know exactly whether this book takes itself seriously or whether we're meant to think of it as a joke. The cover would lead any reader to think that the series is the same kind of piss-taking that John Byrne reveled in back when he wrote SHE-HULK, but there's no indication apart from a few one-liners. Even the onomatopoeia of the sound effects appears to be part of a larger jokehow many comics actually use a word like "Brakkathoom!" on a regular basis, really?but if there's meant to be a joke here, it's lost somewhere in the mix. Perhaps future issues will reveal the truth. This one doesn't.

THE DEFENDERS

Grade: C

Issue: No. 10

Author(s): Erik Larsen, Eric Stephenson, Kurt Busiek, Sal Buscema

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Price: $2.25