2007-09-26 A sad decline.

Here's where the Defenders go downhill: From cosmic-level heroes warring with alien gods, they become glorified riot police, battling urban unrest and property damage. Namor and the Silver Surfer are almost nowhere to be seen in this collection, while Dr Strange, the man who once liberated universes in his spare time, is reduced to a second-rate psychic and blaster. The other core members of the team are Valkyrie, whose attempts to explore her fascinating origins are badly mishandled with a nonsensical story in this collection, and the painfully uninteresting imitation Batman, Nighthawk; however, they are occasionally joined by such second-rate heroes as Yellowjacket (better known as the unfailingly unpopular Ant-Man) and the astonishingly lame 70s version of the Son of Satan (complete with pitchfork). The adventures of this unpromising bunch are sometimes incoherent, and sometimes just uninspired, but never really rise to any great heights; the art, likewise, is no more than functional, a far cry from Marvel's artistic heights in the glory days of the late 60s . The best storyline is probably their battle against the Sons of the Serpent, although the attempt to address social issues like racism and slum poverty are ham-fisted, and bathetic in the extreme. At the end of Defenders vol. 1, Dr Strange magically repairs all the damage done to THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE by Dormammu's attempt to absorb it into The Dark Dimension. Midway through vol. 2, he's reduced to saying: 'We need to telephone this woman's landlord and ensure he makes the necessary repairs to her apartment block.' Says it all, really. How the mighty have fallen.