I always thought the Defenders comic books were a little weird. Like "Here are a bunch of completely dissimilar characters that have no connection, but they're not part of any teams/groups, so let's put them together as their own thing."
But having read some of them back in the day, I would love to see them find a way to put those characters together on film - no matter what they call them.
Do we know if Dr. Strange will be in Ragnarok? I remember some little clip with him and Thor, but I don't remember seeing him in any of the trailers/photos.
I'm not sure to what extent Dr. Strange will appear in Ragnarok but assume to some small degree as he appears on the international trailer.
I kind of got the impression of a bunch of dissimilar characters sort of mashed together too upon hearing about the group. What's your favorite Defenders comic story?
Anyhow thought I'd provide a character run-down of how the character mashing Defenders team came about (just using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenders_(comics)#Publication_history as source but just figured would break down somewhat). Prior to Issue #1 of the Defenders:
The origin of the Defenders lies in two crossover story arcs by Roy Thomas prior to the official founding of the team.
The first, in Doctor Strange #183 (November 1969), Sub-Mariner #22 (February 1970), and The Incredible Hulk #126 (April 1970) occurred due to the Dr. Strange series being canceled in the middle of a story arc, leaving Thomas no choice but to resolve the storyline in other series that he wrote. In the story, Dr. Strange teams with Sub-Mariner and the Hulk to protect the Earth from invasion by Lovecraftian interplanar beings known as the Undying Ones and their leader, the Nameless One. Barbara Norriss, later the host of the Valkyrie, first appears in this story.
In the second arc, featured in Sub-Mariner #3435 (FebruaryMarch 1971), Namor enlists the aid of the Silver Surfer and the Hulk to stop a potentially devastating weather control experiment, inadvertently freeing a small island nation from a dictator and facing the Avengers under the name of the "Titans Three".
These 3 founding members of the group didn't actually first utilize the name "The Defenders" until
Marvel Feature #1 (December 1971) to fight Yandroth.
The Comic Series:
Name: Due to the popularity of Marvel Feature 1, a Defenders series was then published with Roy Thomas moving into the Editor's position introducing Steve Englehart as writer and Sal Buscema doing the pencil work.
About the teams name, Roy Thomas has speculated that Stan Lee came up with since:
"The 'Defenders' is far too passive a name for my taste. I prefer more aggressive-sounding names like the 'Avengers' or the 'Invaders,' so Stan probably came up with that one."
Additions To Core Group: Notable additions to initial 3 person team included both the Silver Surfer in issue 2 (
Stan Lee had recently before this issue put into place an editorial rule this character not to be used outside of his writings but approved Englehart's pitch anyway to put him into the Defenders series). Then issue number 4 added the Valkyrie (
who'd introduced in initial crossover arc mentioned above) just to provide some texture to the team according to Steve Englehart.
Ending: The series seems to have become more of a character mash-up point as the years progressed with many writers. Issue 125 (November 1983) removed 4 of the core members that formed the basis of the team (
Dr. Strange, Silver Surfer, Namor, and Hulk leaving only Valkyrie).
At this point, the comic was then re-titled the "New Defenders" lasting a total of 27 issues whereupon in issue 152(
February 1986) entitled "The End of All Songs" the remaining members were either killed off (
including Valkyrie; an original member) or transferred over to the X-Factor comic. A complete listing of this final roster can be found here:
http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Defenders_Vol_1_152
