1. The Hulk
2. Dr. Strange (as the Sorceror Supreme).
3. The Silver Surfer.
4. Namor.

I gotta say, it was a small team but a darn powerful one.

airedale Wrote:
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> 1. The Hulk
> 2. Dr. Strange (as the Sorceror Supreme).
> 3. The Silver Surfer.
> 4. Namor.
>
> I gotta say, it was a small team but a darn
> powerful one.

It was a powerhouse lineup.

The best tank like a character in the Hulk.

The best magic character in Doctor Strange.

The best of Galactus Heralds, with upper-level comic powers in the Silver Surfer.

Perhap the best underwater based character in Namor

And if that wasn't enough one of the best Asgardian warriors in Valkyrie joined in issue #4!

For some reason the Defenders comic itself never grabbed me. Perhaps they were too powerful, and writing good stories for them was not easy!

If memory serves, at one point the roster was Doctor Strange, Silver Surfer, Namor and Hawkeye. Talk about power disparity.

Don't forget Valkyrie .

In the first cross over with the Avengers, there was some creative writing to show the Vision breaking even with the Surfer. The fights were all separate, Hulk vs Thor, Captain America vs Namor, Hawkeye vs Iron Man, Black Panther and Mantis vs Dr. Strange and finally Swordsman vs Valkyrie. This benefitted the Avengers quite a lot.

Is a Defenders movie in the works?

I think it could do very well.

The Silver Surfer was the only good thing about the Fantastic four movie.

Doctor Strange is scheduled to make his debut this November.

The Hulk was a breakout character in the Avengers.

Valkyrie, I think would not be too hard to cast.

While these are ultra powerful superheroes, Marvel does have its share of ultra powerful Villians and the movie could treat all characters equally in terms of luck or odds against.

The Defenders were my favourite Marvel heroes until they were finally too mutated by various latter day hacks.

A Defenders project is on the slate, but it involves the Netflix Marvel heroes, so it's very unlikely to end up as anything resembling the original Defenders.

However, if they ever DID do the original Defenders, they wouldn't have to fight Thanos - most of their big storylines involved incredibly offbeat characters so it would have the same level of quirk and cool as Guardians of the Galaxy (who weirdly enough crossed over significantly with the original Defenders).

The Defenders netflix lineup will presumably be Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist (possibly Elektra?)

FTJ Wrote:
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> (possibly Elektra?)


I think Elektra's to murder-happy on the show to ever be part of the heroes team for more than a short story arc. Ditto on Punisher, so... while either may appear on Netflix's Defenders, they won't be part of the team.

I've been going back and reading a lot of Marvel titles from the Bronze Age (70s-80s) with a lot of enjoyment in the process. Do the Defenders still hold up as well as X-Men, Avengers and The Fantastic Four do?

Classic Defenders is my guilty pleasure comic. I have been collecting old issues over the years. If you weren't into mainstream Marvel, Defenders was a fun read.

J Bone Wrote:
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> I've been going back and reading a lot of Marvel
> titles from the Bronze Age (70s-80s) with a lot of
> enjoyment in the process. Do the Defenders still
> hold up as well as X-Men, Avengers and The
> Fantastic Four do?


No, they do not. Outside of the Hulk, who had his own comic book, the rest were not " A-list " type of super hero's.

The other problem is the group was very powerful and didn't have any popular villains to fight.

The X-Men, The Avengers, and The Fantastic Four had far more issues, and better know stories.

This is not to say that the Defenders isn't worth exploring.

Writers like Steve Gerber brought the Defenders to an amazing level, very different - and mature - compared to a lot of the Marvel 70s offerings.

It's definitely the "subversive" branch of Marvel, as plagiarised by Bendis.

Flying Tiger Comics Wrote:
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> Writers like Steve Gerber brought the Defenders to
> an amazing level, very different - and mature -
> compared to a lot of the Marvel 70s offerings.
>
> It's definitely the "subversive" branch of Marvel,
> as plagiarised by Bendis.

Amusingly it's also one of the few super-teams I've never made a composite hero off of, after all Namor, Dr. Strange, Hulk, and Silver Surfer all combined into one? Even a cosmic level game would have extreme difficulty in challenging such a character.

Flying Tiger Comics Wrote:
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> Writers like Steve Gerber brought the Defenders to
> an amazing level, very different - and mature -
> compared to a lot of the Marvel 70s offerings.
>
> It's definitely the "subversive" branch of Marvel,
> as plagiarised by Bendis.


That might be as good a recommendation for exploring this title again as I could hope. Revisiting Marvel in the 70s has been really surprising. For example reading the Avengers debate issues such as sovereignty of Soviet air space or government oversight (issues 181-91) is incredible and went completely over my head. Steve Gerber was a unique talent and while the Defenders may not have had a great villain, Xemmu aside, I know he can tell a good story.