Great Comic Book Runs: The Defenders / Avengers War

Like many of my US comic book purchases of the 1970’s I never managed to collect and read all the issues in this series at the time (1973/4). Instead, it took me over 50 years to finally pick up the last 2 US issues that I missed at the time; Avengers #118 and Defenders #8, although I did read the full story when it was reprinted in the UK weekly Rampage comic in the late 1970s. As a 13/14 year I was totally engrossed in this cross-over series written by Steve Englehart and illustrated by Bob Brown and the wonderful Sal Buscema. On re-reading this series as an “old git” I found the story a fun tale that albeit predictably ends with the two teams coming together to fight the story villains, Dormammu and Loki, but there were times when I was for an all to brief period transported back to 1973 when my main worry was who would win the war between these 2 super groups.

The concept of this crossover event is that pieces of the Evil Eye have been spread all over the world, and Loki and the Dread Dormammu were fighting over its capture. They each separately convince the Defenders and the Avengers that it would be better for them to have the Evil Eye as the other would use it to destroy the Earth. So, the heroes race around the planet in search of the pieces that make up the Evil Eye before the other team can find it. Eash issue sees each group split into teams to fight the other (similar to the old JLA/JSA cross overs) including Silver Surfer vs. Scarlet Witch and Vision and Doctor Strange vs. Mantis and Black Panther etc.