The New Defenders

Suffering from creative burnout on the series, DeMatteis felt a change was needed. As of issue #125, The Defenders was retitled to The New Defenders as the original four members (Doctor Strange, the Silver Surfer, the Hulk, and Namor) are forced to leave the team, in response to an alien prophecy that states that these four, operating as a group, would be responsible for destroying the world. While The Beast reforms the team as an official superhero team complete with government clearance. The "New Defenders" concept provided a substantial boost to the series's sales, but left DeMatteis in a creative drought, as he realized in retrospect that "...I created a book that was exactly the kind of the thing that I hated to write. I made it into a standard superhero team..."

DeMatteis stayed on for only six issues of The New Defenders before turning it over to writer Peter Gillis, whose run was marked by shorter, more personal stories. Gillis recounted, "I had been working for a while at Marvel, and was constantly pumping for more work, and specifically a series of my own. So when I heard DeMatteis was leaving Defenders, I was in Carl Potts' office like a shot, and I got the gig."

Though the series remained a modest hit through the Gillis/Perlin run, it was cancelled to make room in Marvel's production schedule for the New Universe line. Perlin recounted that Potts tried to soften the blow by telling him and Gillis the news while treating them to lunch at an Indian restaurant. The final issue was The New Defenders #152. In the final issue, several members (Gargoyle, Moondragon and Valkyrie), plus allies (Andromeda, Manslaughter, Interloper) seemingly die in battle with the Dragon of the Moon controlling Moondragon. The remaining mutant members leave the team to join X-Factor. Gillis has claimed that killing off the other members of the group was a directive from the editorial staff to free up the surviving members for usage in X-Factor, pointing out that he shortly after revived several of these seemingly-deceased members in issues of Solo Avengers, in Strange Tales vol. 2 #5–7, followed by issues #3–4 of the relaunched Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme series.

Subject ID: 79647

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Suffering from creative burnout on the series, DeMatteis felt a change was needed. As of issue #125, The Defenders was retitled to The New Defenders as the original four members (Doctor Strange, the Silver Surfer, the Hulk, and Namor) are forced to leave the team, in response to an alien prophecy that states that these four, operating as a group, would be responsible for destroying the world. While The Beast reforms the team as an official superhero team complete with government clearance. The "New Defenders" concept provided a substantial boost to the series's sales, but left DeMatteis in a creative drought, as he realized in retrospect that "...I created a book that was exactly the kind of the thing that I hated to write. I made it into a standard superhero team..."

DeMatteis stayed on for only six issues of The New Defenders before turning it over to writer Peter Gillis, whose run was marked by shorter, more personal stories. Gillis recounted, "I had been working for a while at Marvel, and was constantly pumping for more work, and specifically a series of my own. So when I heard DeMatteis was leaving Defenders, I was in Carl Potts' office like a shot, and I got the gig."

Though the series remained a modest hit through the Gillis/Perlin run, it was cancelled to make room in Marvel's production schedule for the New Universe line. Perlin recounted that Potts tried to soften the blow by telling him and Gillis the news while treating them to lunch at an Indian restaurant. The final issue was The New Defenders #152. In the final issue, several members (Gargoyle, Moondragon and Valkyrie), plus allies (Andromeda, Manslaughter, Interloper) seemingly die in battle with the Dragon of the Moon controlling Moondragon. The remaining mutant members leave the team to join X-Factor. Gillis has claimed that killing off the other members of the group was a directive from the editorial staff to free up the surviving members for usage in X-Factor, pointing out that he shortly after revived several of these seemingly-deceased members in issues of Solo Avengers, in Strange Tales vol. 2 #5–7, followed by issues #3–4 of the relaunched Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme series.

Subject ID: 79647

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