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Selector

Defenders #75

Sep 1979
Ed Hannigan, Herb Trimpe

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Story Name:

Poetic Justice


Synopsis

Defenders #75 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 4 stars

At Defenders HQ, Foolkiller II has shot Valkyrie’s sword out of her hand, pronouncing the non-team fools he intends to kill. He holds at bay Val, Hellcat, Clea, their friends Dollar Bill and Ledge, and his own friends Richard Rory and Amber Grant. The villain seizes Bill as a hostage to force the others to follow his orders. Rory tries to talk him out of it but ends up justifying his crusade. Val warns Clea not to attempt anything. Foolkiller takes them all into the next room where he replays the tape of Bill’s documentary, demonstrating how it ridicules superheroes and is done in bad taste. Val tries to jump him and he shoots her but instead of disintegrating her, it knocks her down. The baddie fires his gun into the ceiling, causing it to collapse. Val recovers and tries to hold the building together so everyone can escape while Hellcat goes after the fleeing villain. Ledge, who snuck out when Foolkiller was distracted, telephones the police and Kyle Richmond, who is with his lawyer Milton Rosenbaum; he excuses himself and, donning his Nighthawk outfit, flies back toward the Academy….

Hellcat dodges Foolkiller’s deadly shots, while throwing furniture at him; when he blows a huge hole in the wall, she leads him outside. The house catches fire but everyone is out safely and reunited with Ledge. Valkyrie goes after Foolkiller and starts pummeling him….

At the shore, Hulk chances upon a beached whale. He tells the whale to leave as he wants to be alone, then, realizing the whale can’t move, he mocks it for its weakness. Hulk comes to his senses, apologizing to the giant creature and dragging it back into the ocean. Hulk decides to return to his friends….

Val beats the stuffing out of the Foolkiller, Clea casts a spell to slow the fire’s spread, the fire department arrives and fights the fire, Nighthawk arrives at a scene of chaos. When they recount the recent events, NH has a fit and blames Val for it all. Then NH is approached by news reporter Fia Lunstrom who addresses him as Hawkeye and asks for a statement. Kyle tells her there is no longer any Defenders and flies off. Then the Hulk arrives, the police shoot him, and everyone runs away. Val explains that the Defenders have disbanded and Hulk jumps off in a huff. Val blames herself for the disaster. Rory and Amber explain how they were seeking the Defenders to find out what happened to James-Michael Starling; Val replies that they aren’t exactly private investigators but Hellcat proposes they give it a try….

Epilogue: In the Las Vegas city morgue, Gramps the pawnbroker identifies the body as his friend Sam a/k/a Omega the Unknown….



 

Review / Commentaries


Defenders #75 Review by (October 24, 2023)

Review: So the Foolkiller rants and pronounces everyone but him a fool deserving of death. And then he is so busy talking that no actual fool killing takes place. Well, the Defenders was always an offbeat comic so an inept villain still being able to outwit the non-team seems par for the course. Valkyrie botches the leadership job and gets Kyle’s house burned down. Kyle pitches a fit and dissolves the non-team. Hulk encounters a whale in one of his “innocent Hulk” vignettes that appear occasionally but this one looks like a parody of the thing. Richard Rory talks too much. And everything goes Omega next issue.

Comments: Part two of two parts. Dollar Bill’s Defenders documentary was aired in issue #62 and led to the “Defenders for a Day” fiasco. Final appearance of Ledge. Dollar Bill is next seen in DAREDEVIL #234 and AVENGERS SPOTLIGHT #29; he is mentioned as hosting a monster-oriented television interview series in MARVEL MONSTERS: FROM THE FILES OF ULYSSES BLOODSTONE AND THE MONSTER HUNTERS #1. Foolkiller moves on to PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #58-60 and other Spidey titles. Final appearance of Gramps who was in seven issues of OMEGA. Only appearance of Fia Lundstrom, who has an entry in the Marvel Database, where her name is misspelled “Lundstom;” she is possibly a parody of Pia Lindstrom, a real television journalist from Sweden and daughter of Ingrid Bergman. The scene of Hulk saving the whale is accompanied by the address for Greenpeace, for those who want to help out.   



> Defenders comic book info and issue index

Elektra
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Excelsioring your collection:
Statue Hulk (Battle of New York) 1/10 - Infinity Saga - BDS Art Scale - Iron Studios
Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)

Herb Trimpe
Mike Esposito
Carl Gafford
Herb Trimpe (Cover Penciler)
Al Milgrom (Cover Inker)
George Roussos (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Irv Watanabe.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Hellcat
Hellcat

(Patricia Walker)
Hulk
Hulk

(Robert Bruce Banner)
Nighthawk
Nighthawk

(Kyle Richmond)
Valkyrie
Valkyrie

(Brunnhilda)

Plus: Amber Grant (Amber Douglas), Dollar Bill (Aaron English), Foolkiller (Gregory Salinger), Horace Ledge (Ledge), Richard Rory.