Favourite comics: Defenders Issue 6

What's better than our favourite superhero saving the world? well it has to be multiples of our favourite superheroes saving the world together. As a kid I always loved any comic that featured super teams from the Mighty Crusaders (the first team I can recall) to the Justice League, The Avengers, The Legion of Superheroes, The Fantastic Four, the Guardians of the Galaxy and more. There’s just something special about a super team, something unique in the way the characters interact and develop relationships over time, or maybe it’s just that 13 year old kids just love seeing groups of colourfully costumed characters beating the stuffing out a of a baddie, yeah it’s probably that!

One of my favourite teams at the time was Marvels Defenders which had a rotating line-up from 1972 until 1986, with Dr. Strange and the Hulk usually being constant members along with a number of other mainstay characters that joined and then left the team at various points in the comics run. Although the first issue of the Defenders that I bought was issue 5 (a great fun comic in its own right ) it was with issue 6 “The Dreams of Death” which saw the reintroduction of the Silver Surfer to the group, that it became my favourite comic at the time. Defenders issue 6 was cover dated June 1973 and appeared in the UK around October/November. I still recall the day I visited my local newsagent in the town we stayed in at that time around November and saw a big pile of various US comics neatly stacked on the counter with Defenders issue 6 at the top. I had only purchased issue 5 a few weeks previous to this and loved it so this was a no brainer, I immediately purchased issue 6 and headed home to devour every page (at 13 years old you just didn't read comics). The story itself features the Silver Surfer returning to the Defenders to apologise for the way he acted the last time they were together.

The Surfer finds them being attacked by Cyrus Black and helps defeat him and his henchmen. Black retreats and plans a new attack. During this respite Black discovers that he can make the illusions in his dreams become real and uses this ability to attack the Defenders again this time overpowering them. However, Namor realises that they are in a different reality and convinces Black that none of this is real which causes Black to wake up and realise that his plans have yet again failed.

Future issue of the Defenders would still be good with the legendary cross over storyline between the Defenders and the Avengers and Gerber’s Headmen storyline. But for me the first 15 or so issue were the best of the 152 issues featuring some of Sal Buscema’s best art with fun adventure stories by Steve Englehart.