Cancellation of The New Defenders was officially announced in Spring of 1985, with 7 issues still to print. So Peter Gillis had time to ensure the title went out with a real bang.
The New Defenders #149-150 (1985)
Pencils: Don Perlin
Inks: Art Nichols, Dell Barras, Alan Kupperberg, Randy Emberlin
Cloud's origin is finally revealed, with a little help from Seraph. Cloud turns out to be a sentient nebula, befriended by the star roaming Cosmic Cube from Gillis' early stories. Surrounding stars begin disappearing, so Captain America groupie the Cube sends Cloud to Earth to find help. Once on Earth, Cloud witnesses teenage couple Carol and Danny crash their car. She decides to take their forms to blend in, but the shock renders her amnesiac. Which is the state the Secret Empire later found her in, implanting false memories of a life on Earth. If this all sounds overly convoluted, that's because it is.
Visiting Carol and Danny in a coma proves enough to restore Cloud's memories. Cloud then teleports the Defenders to her home in space, to stop the Star Thief from blinking out the entire galaxy. You may remember the Star Thief from Starlin's Warlock - a rather silly petulant giant faced villain. Gillis' twist is that this thief is a comatose young alien princess (there's a lot of comas going around), who in her nightmares is tapping into the Cube's powers to take her frustration out on the universe. Once defeated, Cloud says her goodbyes to friends Seraph and Iceman, before turning back into a nebula. It's a fairly definitive way of writing Cloud out I suppose, but it feels like there was much left unexplored with such a unique character.
This cosmic style adventure doesn't really suit the New Defenders, whose adversaries have been of the more supernatural or down to Earth variety. And yes, I'm aware the Dragon of the Moon is an alien. As the Cube himself points out, he was hoping for the Avengers instead, as this double sized space romp is definitely more their bag.
The New Defenders #151-152 (1986)
Pencils: Don Perlin
Inks: Dell Barras
First off, new inker Dell Barras is a revelation. He's more an embellisher than inker, as he adds a glorious level of detail to Perlin's pencils never seen before or since. Shame they only discovered him just as the title was ending.
The Defenders return to the mansion to find Manslaughter lying in wait for them. What follows is essentially a re-run of #134, as he takes the team down one by one, with one twist - rather than kill the Defenders, Manslaughter is so impressed with them that he begs to become their newest member. Needless to say, the gang voice objections to a homicidal assassin joining their merry band. In his first appearance, Manslaughter is introduced as a cunning professional killer with a twisted streak. Now he's portrayed more as a maniacal fun loving lunatic. Either way, as a long term recruit, his previously murderous ways are the definition of problematic.
The Defenders' hand is forced by the arrival of Interloper, an 8 foot tall, hitherto unknown Eternal, who has slowly been making his way on foot from Siberia the past 4 issues. Conveniently Interloper turns out to be Manslaughter's former instructor, so he insists that both join the imminent fight against a returning Moondragon. It's also revealed that Interloper had previously defeated the Dragon of the Moon alongside King Arthur a millennia back. The bossy big man quickly takes charge of this ragtag outfit against an enraged, dragon empowered Heather.
The double sized final issue is a pretty darn epic battle with Moondragon, who has by now entirely succumbed to the Dragon and her darkest emotions. Surprisingly Manslaughter is the most effective against her, using their previously established psychic bond to drive Heather even nuttier.
After a quick respite and a random power upgrade bestowed by the Beyonder (final issue or no, arbitrary Secret Wars II crossovers were compulsory), Moondragon set to work finishing off the Defenders, with the aid of the now soulless Gargoyle. She takes the X-boys out of the fight by threatening their loved ones: in Warren's case, girlfriend Candy; Bobby got Cloud's twin comatose hosts, Carol and Danny; while Hank got, er, Chris the live-in mechanic. While they're preoccupied with that dilemma, Interloper suggests that the remaining Defenders sacrifice themselves to destroy the Dragon once and for all. Following some coaxing, Valkyrie, Andromeda and Manslaughter all join hands for the big finish. Angel, Beast and Iceman rescue their non-powered friends, only to find everyone else turned to ashes. Except for Sassafras the dog, you'll be relieved to hear she survived unscathed.
I've always found the ending hard to read, as it's sad and slightly bittersweet, with a team full of potential gone all too soon. Peter Gillis gave a rather different outlook in an Amazing Heroes preview: "I insisted on not killing anybody since I really dislike that, and, hopefully, the other characters will return someday." I'm guessing something changed along the way, as the 6 Defenders turned to dust look pretty dead. 4 ended up in Valhalla, which generally requires you to be dead to enter. To be fair, Gillis brought them all back at the earliest opportunity, in the pages of Doctor Strange and Solo Avengers, which we'll get to eventually.
So who really killed The New Defenders? Moondragon or Jim Shooter? There are three prevailing theories, yet no definitive answer as to why it was cancelled. Firstly, let's look at sales: averaging 130,000 copies put it in the bottom 6 of Marvel's newsstand monthlies, along with the also axed Dazzler, Power Man & Iron Fist, Thing, Micronauts and ROM. Hovering just above were Captain America and Hulk, which were also considered for the chopping block. To put that number into perspective, this was Marvel at their sales peak, with top title X-Men selling over 330,000. Their average across 40 titles was 220,000, compared to DC's 150,000. Although the lowest selling titles were still profitable (even Micronauts hovering just above the 100,000 mark), editor in chief Shooter faced periodic pressure from management to trim low sellers. Despite their success, Marvel had limited editorial staff and resources, which were stretched thin publishing 40 books a month. To keep overheads down, further growth was restricted, with a policy to replace the least popular books with new titles that sell better.
Well, at least in theory, as these half a dozen titles ended up making way for the New Universe line, which turned out to be a massive sales flop. Amazing Heroes appeared to confirm the New U theory in April 85: "The reason for the cancellation, according to Marvel, is to free up editorial and creative personnel for projects relating to the company's 25th birthday next year, but the celebratory projects have not been made public yet." The irony is that the New Universe had its budget slashed by then owners Cadence, who were looking to make Marvel a more attractive financial proposition for sale. Which meant that the 8 New U titles were chiefly staffed by assistant editors and novice creators working for exposure, rather than decent pay. Subsequently, none of the creative teams on the books that made way were offered work on the New U, including Gillis and Perlin.
Peter Gillis stated in '85 that New Defenders was "being cancelled to make way for X-Factor", although he later went with the New Universe theory; "...cancelled way in advance and not for sales reasons". In all likelihood, the end probably came about due to a combination of all three factors, not just X. Gillis discussed his future plans for the title with Peter Sanderson shortly before the axe fell, ideas which sadly would remain unrealised.
"Upcoming guest stars of varying duration will be Johnny Blaze, Doc Samson, and Sub-Mariner. Sub-Mariner will be staying around for a while. I'm planning on the return of Jennifer Kale and Dakimh the Enchanter (from Man-Thing)."
Also lined up was "the formation of a brand-new super-group, the like of which has not been seen before. They're called the Galaxy Dancers, one of whom will have been introduced in 1984. They are not heroes; they are not villains. They are completely non-violent. They will inject a note of lyricism into The Defenders for a bit."
I very much enjoyed my return visit to New Defenders mansion. It was like meeting up with old friends. Looking back, it's quite a scattershot title by design, with some storylines standing the test of time better than others. However, the Moondragon arc running throughout remains great, one of the best epic sagas Marvel have published.
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