Return of the Defenders?

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=33314

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Throughout this week, Marvel Comics has revealed mysterious silhouette images of iconic characters filled with descriptive words, proclaiming "It's either in you, or it's not" with a date of December 2011. Each image contained a piece of a hidden message that gradually came together under the watchful eyes of the CBR forum's incredibly cryptology skills. Now, with the fifth and likely final piece of the puzzle revealed, the messages are complete, but without the addition of more secret words.

Beginning with the teaser image of Iron Fist on Monday, forum member david_boring discovered that the colored letters could be grouped by color and unscrambled to form four different words. As teaser images of Doctor Strange, Red She-Hulk and Silver Surfer surfaced on the following days, messages began to take shape by putting the same colored words in chronological order of image released. Today's addition of Hulk reveals that the messages were already complete.

Red message: "Everyone you love dies."
Orange message: "Shut the engines down."
Yellow message: "The universe will break."
Maroon message: "Fight to save everything."

As speculation continues to burgeon on the forums, the running theory -- likely due to the word DEFENDER appearing in each of the silhouettes (though The Hulk seems to feature the word "OFFENDER") -- is that these images herald a return of the Defenders to the Marvel U. While the messages themselves reveal little about the prevalent theory, answers will undoubtedly come to light at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Stay tuned for CBR's live coverage of Marvel's Sunday "Fear Itself" panel with writers Greg Pak, Cullen Bunn, Nick Spencer and editor-in-chief Axel Alonso.

The Defenders is such a great name for a team but it's never really worked.

Defenders is one of my all time favorite titles. The original Marvel Presents issues and the first 40 or so issues of the series have long ago left their mark on me. Unfortunately in this summer of company wide tie-ins I gave a pass to the Defenders this go-round. Someone please tell me I was sadly mistaken in not picking up this book. I still spent $65.00 on the habit today and with the Wife out of work I couldn't justify picking up a new title.

Update: Wife is back at work and I'm up to issue 6 of the Defenders!!The book is not that good tho...

All that hype from the marketing machine. Where is the buzz now?

To paraphrase Tony Stark from "the" movie...they do have a Hulk!

There are too many "Hulks" in the MU. I wonder who thought that was a good idea? They all need to die except Shulkie and Banner's original. Everyone else can fuck off.

I stopped reading the Hulk quite a few years ago so this Betty Hulk and Thunderbolt Hulk are interesting to me at the moment. Don't despair Pro! I give Marvel 25 years or less until they have a company wide Hulk reboot.

I dropped the book after the third issue.It's crap.

I've been picking this one up, too. It feels like it should be alot better. $\:\($

Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man

The Defenders is such a great name for a team but it's never really worked.

The name "defenders" can conjure up people who directly interact with the people they protect.

As such, way back when, Marvel should have used that name for a group of "street level" heroes, for example: Spiderman, Daredevil, Black Widow, Power Man, Iron Fist, Tigra Moon Knight, etc. Maybe even Wolverine.

That would have differentiated the team from the Avengers, who'd be more in charge of "cosmic" menaces, etc.

Of course, at this point, Spidey and Wolverine are Avengers and some of the other "street level" heroes have been as well, so I don't know if the distinction would work.

I'm thinking the Avengers should be the government sponsored types (or the East Cost would be government sponsored, while the west coast would be corporate sponsored), while the Defenders would be more the "people's superteam" types. I'd rather they lay off the cosmic threats for a while.

Of course, the problem with these superteams made up of superheroes who can stand on their own is that there's very little chance that any single earthbound threat would require the whole team to beat, so they usually resort to cosmic threats. It's not like Power Rangers or G.I. Joe where every member has a unique skill that helps. I bet that Tony has something in his armor that would be much better than any of Hawkeye's arrows (hell, I bet his armor can shoot arrows if he wants to)

In the 70's and 80's when I read the DEFENDERS, what I liked was that they were all loner characters (Hulk, Dr. Strange, Hellcat, Son of Satan, sometimes Silver Surfer...) who were essentially loner characters, who almost by reluctance worked together as a team.

I loved the early Englehart stories, and the Kraft/Giffen period in the mid-70's. and Golden did some incredible covers that made me wish he did some interior art.

The last version I tried was the DeMatteis/Giffen Maguire period, circa 2006, and even with that creative team, it was a dissapointment. Like a JUSTICE LEAGUE re-tread that they tried to put on the Defenders, but it didn't fit. Would that they had a writer who gave the series the justice it deserves.

Some nice Golden DEFENDERS covers:
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