Publication history
The origin of the Defenders lies in two crossover story arcs by Roy Thomas prior to the official founding of the team. The first, in Doctor Strange #183 (November 1969), Sub-Mariner #22 (February 1970), and The Incredible Hulk #126 (April 1970), occurred due to the Dr. Strange series being canceled in the middle of a story arc, leaving Thomas no choice but to resolve the storyline in other series that he wrote. In the story, Dr. Strange teams with Sub-Mariner and the Hulk to protect the Earth from invasion by Lovecraftian interplanar beings known as the Undying Ones and their leader, the Nameless One. Barbara Norriss, later the host of the Valkyrie, first appears in this story. In the second arc, featured in Sub-Mariner #34–35 (February–March 1971), Namor enlists the aid of the Silver Surfer and the Hulk to stop a potentially devastating weather control experiment, inadvertently freeing a small island nation from a dictator and facing the Avengers under the name of the "Titans Three".
The Defenders first appeared as a feature in Marvel Feature #1 (December 1971), where the founding members gather to battle the alien techno-wizard Yandroth and remain as a team afterward. Editor Stan Lee, wanting to write all of the Silver Surfer's stories personally, had asked other writers not to use the character, and suggested that Thomas use Doctor Strange instead. Thomas has also speculated that Lee came up with the team's name: "The 'Defenders' is far too passive a name for my taste. I prefer more aggressive-sounding names like the 'Avengers' or the 'Invaders,' so Stan probably came up with that one." Due to the popularity of their tryout in Marvel Feature, Marvel soon began publishing The Defenders with Steve Englehart writing and Sal Buscema penciling, while Thomas moved into the editor's seat. Despite Lee's continuing edict on the use of the Silver Surfer, he approved Englehart's pitch to include the Silver Surfer in the story.
Valkyrie was introduced to the team in issue #4 (February 1973). Englehart wrote "The Avengers–Defenders War" crossover in The Avengers #116–118 (October–December 1973) and The Defenders #9–11 (October–December 1973), leaving The Defenders afterwards because he "didn't want to keep doing two team books at the same time." Len Wein briefly wrote the series and introduced such characters as Alpha the Ultimate Mutant and the Wrecking Crew. Wein also added Nighthawk to the cast because, in his words, doing so "gave me a character to play with who didn't have a whole lot of previous history ... [a] character I could do anything I wanted to without worrying about how it would affect any other titles that character might appear in."
Steve Gerber first worked on the characters in Giant-Size Defenders #3 (January 1975) and became the writer of the main title with issue #20 the following month. He wrote the series until issue #41 (November 1976). Part of Gerber's oeuvre was reviving forgotten characters; he brought back three pre-Marvel characters, now organized as the Headmen, as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Defenders met Gerber's Howard the Duck in Marvel Treasury Edition #12 (1976).
Due to Marvel's shuffling of editors-in-chief, a brief run by Gerry Conway abruptly ended in mid-production on issue #45. David Anthony Kraft and Roger Slifer volunteered to write the series, but issue #45 had no written plot, having been drawn by Giffen following a story conference with Conway. Kraft and Slifer were unable to contact either Conway or Giffen, and so had to puzzle out Conway's plot from the unscripted artwork.
David Anthony Kraft's run as writer included "The Scorpio Saga" (issues #46, 48–50) and the "Xenogenesis: Day of the Demons" storyline (issues #58–60). The "Defenders for a Day" storyline in issues #62–64 saw dozens of new applicants attempting to join the Defenders, as well as a number of villains attempting to present themselves as Defenders members in order to confuse the authorities and the public as they commit robberies. Kraft and artist Ed Hannigan explained some of the Valkyrie's backstory in The Defenders #66–68 (December 1978 – February 1979). At Kraft's request, Hannigan helped write issue #67 but found that he could not handle both writing and artwork at once, and so transitioned to being just the series's writer with the following issue.
Steven Grant wrote a conclusion to Steve Gerber's Omega the Unknown series in two issues of The Defenders, at the end of which most of the original series' characters were killed. While Gerber seemed unhappy with Grant's conclusion, it nevertheless tied up the loose ends of the comic series, and is considered "canon" by Marvel.
Writer J. M. DeMatteis took over the series with issue #92. He and Mark Gruenwald co-wrote The Defenders #107–109 (May–July 1982), which resolved remaining plot points from the Valkyrie story by Kraft and Hannigan published three years earlier.