Defenders: There Are No Rules

The gimmick behind “The Defenders” has always been that it’s the team of superheroes that were forced to be together.  Usually it’s by some kind of magic, and that’s the case here after Doctor Strange summons a group of heroes to stop the threat of one Carlo Zolta after he’s sent traveling through time by the Masked Raider.  Zolta was aiming to reset the schemes of the Enclave, his EVIL science organization, but was thwarted by the Raider who has now come to Strange for help in stopping this threat.  Pressed for time, Strange uses the Tarot of the Sacred flame to add the Silver Surfer, Betty Banner in her Red Harpy form, and a sentient cloud of gasses that first coalesces into a star, and then into the shape of a human.  The five of them are then set to travel through time to stop Zolta and maybe save all of reality in the process.

This isn’t your normal time-travel story, even by Marvel standards.  That’s because the Defenders are going back in time so far that they’re starting from the current Eighth Cosmos of the Marvel Universe and then going back to the Sixth, the Fifth, the Fourth… and so on with each cosmos representing a more primal form of the ideas which drive them.  Such a big-brained storyline comes to us from Al Ewing, who showed us in “The Ultimates” that he’s good at wrangling these kinds of big ideas into a proper story, while his work in “Immortal Hulk” also let us know that he’s pretty great at tying in the minutiae of the Marvel Universe into one as well.  There are plenty of Easter Eggs for people who are as dialed into these things as the writer is, but knowledge of them isn’t necessary to enjoy the story.

Which is ultimately an engaging one as its scope and ideas are executed well by Ewing and artist Javier Rodriguez.  Rodriguez is one of those artists who’s good at drawing anything, just check out his work in “The History of the Marvel Universe,” and this is another great showcase for his work.  It’s full of gigantic and esoteric concepts that you’d think would be difficult to render on a page, but the artist pulls it off in style.  What they can’t quite do is to make the micro-struggles of its cast stand out against the macro-setup of the story, and you won’t come away with any greater insight into them as a result.  The adventure they go on here, though, will certainly linger in your head as it’s an impressive example of big ideas expertly realized.