22: Defenders of the Earth

The New Defenders #145 (1985)

Pencils: Don Perlin
Inks: Art Nichols

The remains of the New Defs take a moment to feel sorry for themselves post battle in Five Women, the flipside of the earlier Three Women. On a side note, this team had an impressively gender balanced lineup by 80's standards. With Moondragon fled, Cloud injured and Angel blinded, the remaining Defenders find themselves at a low ebb and consider calling it a day. Luckily old Champions teammate Johnny Blaze rides in to cheer up the ex-X-Men contingent. It's a quiet, talky issue for reflection and setting up future plotlines, with Seraph returning and the mystery of Andromeda. Departing inker DeMulder is replaced with the mismatched Art Nichols, who rather swamps Perlin in an ugly ink heavy style.

The New Defenders #146-7 (1985)

Pencils: Luke McDonnell, Don Perlin
Inks: Art Nichols

The battered Defenders take refuge at Doctor Strange's sanctum, searching for a cure for Warren's blindness. Brunnhilde's Valkyrie sense leads them into a bizarre encounter with party loving Adam Ant lookalike Hotspur. This crazy New Romantic turns out to be an 18th century dandy (and possibly highwayman), reborn after making a deathbed deal with the devil. Hotspur gets off on inflicting pain, hallucinations and debauchery, as much as Gillis can get away with in an all ages book. 

One of his victims is Andromeda, a recent arrival to New York from Atlantis. As luck would have it, she left her home to join the Defenders, and also due to hitting the glass ceiling imposed on Atlantean warrior women. I love (presumably) Perlin's design for Andromeda, although Gillis never got to develop her much further, with her personality and abilities largely duplicating Valkyrie's. 

A pretty strong 2 parter, where Nichols inks blend much better with fill in artist McDonnell on the first part.

The New Defenders #148 (1985)

Pencils: Sal Buscema
Inks: Art Nichols

A weirdly timed fill in, considering the previous issue ended on a cliffhanger. It's the return of private eyes Cutlass and Typhoon, who I appreciate even less second time around. This time it's the turn of Beast, Gargoyle, Hellcat and Hellstrom to stand around looking baffled. The obligatory MacGuffin is a grey aardvark statue, which combined with an annoying scene stealing Groucho Marx cabbie, seems to indicate a nod of the hat to Cerebus. Although  Groucho stand in Rufus T Hackstabber was created by Doug Moench in Master of Kung Fu, so maybe that's a stretch. Sorry to say, I find that theory more interesting than this silly farce of an issue.

Next comes the home stretch, as PBG wraps up the loose ends.