Open Mike Night: Fearless Defenders #7

Fearless Defenders #7

Written by: Cullen Bunn
Art by: Stephanie Hans
Lettered by: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Published by: Marvel

Maillaro: I have been enjoying Fearless Defenders pretty much since issue 1, but the last two issues have been just ridiculously good, and both had a huge impact on me.  Just because of these two issues alone, I ended up going back and buying as much of Cullen Bunn’s run on Venom as I could (even though Marvel has been slow at price dropping them).  And I am also looking forward to his work on Heroes.  Damn, I’ve become a Cullen Bunn fanboy and didn’t even know it!

Weaver: You know what strikes me about this series? It really doesn’t have any bankable stars. The main lead, Valkyrie, has had a couple miniseries and a run in Defenders for a while, but has never been someone you could sell a comic around. Misty Knight and Dani Moonstar and Clea aren’t even that high up the ladder. It delivers an incredibly engaging story, though, which in my mind is much more important than star power. I think you see where the “however” is going, though.

Maillaro: However, can a book survive without bankable characters? Yeah, I thought it was kind of funny that the surprise guest star here was Clea…

Part of me couldn’t help but think that maybe they should have gone with Strange or someone a little more known, but at the same time I also can see that is against the intentions of this book. It is kind of a weird line between artistic integrity and sustainability.

Then again, I would have never thought a comic starring Flash Thompson would still be going strong and closing in on 40 issues. I do think Marvel is doing a nice job of allowing some artistic freedom in books like Fearless Defenders. I really have to admire them for taking those risks.

Weaver: You gotta find the next star somewhere. At one point, the X-Men were cancelled, at another point, they were running reprints of their own title. Iron Man also ran reprints for a while. Those franchises weren’t bankable enough to hire people to write original material, and in the case of X-Men, wasn’t bankable enough to even keep publishing the reprints. Of course now the question is more along the lines of “How many X-Men titles can we simultaneously print?”

I’m kind of surprised at how hard Fearless Defenders is sticking to its guns and featuring female characters. I mean, beyond Strange, Thor would have made sense in this issue. But clearly, they’re not in it for the ratings, they’re in it for artistic vision, and they’re doing a great job with it. I do fear for this book, though, much like our other favorite, Morbius.

Maillaro: One of the biggest problems is that the industry has shrunk so much. It is far easier to experiment and carry lower selling books when your big titles are selling hundreds and hundreds of thousands of copies. I actually wonder if a book like Starman could ever exist in the current industry. I really don’t wanna be a downer, but part of me really thinks “Hey, we should be happy we got ten issues” of Morbius or Fearless Defenders…and that is a depressing defeatist attitude.

If I was Marvel, I would just say, “Hey, we are making a Fearless Defenders movie in 2020!” Do that for all their properties, and let Disney worry about carrying the books until then.

Weaver: The flip side is that the other time it’s easy to experiment is when you have a corporate sugar daddy who just wants you to be you. Disney, for all the doom and gloom meddling that people thought they’d do with Marvel, has been exactly that kind of overlord. Time Warner, on the other hand, seems to have a very particular expectation of DC and rages whenever they don’t get what they want. I remember also hearing something that may be sort of urban legend about experimentation…that Champions and three other titles were invented during a business meeting when Marvel decided they needed to toss four new titles out, right now, to increase the space they got on the spinner racks and keep afloat.

Maillaro: So, what did you think about the twist in the end? Valkyrie manages to rescue Annabelle from Valhalla, but the two will now be sharing a body.

At first I was thinking, “HEY! We’ve seen this with Rick Jones and two different Captain Marvels”, but I think there is potential for some real fun story telling here.

Weaver: It’s an interesting continuation of the fact that Annabelle’s first instinct was to kiss Valkyrie. That now gets forgiveness foreshadowing from me.

Brunnhilda herself has dealt with this before, as has the Mighty Thor (pre-retconning) and some assorted others. It works for me. I have to wonder how it’s going to be triggered, and how often they will switch.

The Halls of Valhalla were interesting to me too, because the start with the warriors hitting on Annabelle was obviously playing into her “not interested” vibe…which made the later pillow fight invitation make me laugh out loud.

Maillaro: Yeah, part of me wanted to roll my eyes at the pillow fight line, but it was so unexpected I did actually laugh out loud while reading it too.

I will just say that I kind of missed Will Sliney’s art on this book. Stephanie Hans’ work has a real cool style to it, and it did fit the different setting, but it sometimes bothers me when a fill in issue has such a different look than the rest of the series.

Weaver: I actually really dug the art. And if you’re not able to do a more fantastical style while traveling through Valhalla and such, where are you able to do it?

Clea looked rather different than usual to me, but that might just be me not having seen her in 30 years. Also…there wasn’t anything for Dani to do in this issue, and Misty only gets to angrily smash a monitor. If there was anything I’d dock this points for, those would be it.

Maillaro: Normally, I would agree that a team book without the team annoys me. We have talked about that before. But I don’t mind a stand alone story, especially after a big arc. This issue really NEEDED to give some kind of closure after issue 6. I actually had to shut down my tablet a few weeks ago when I read issue 6. I had really felt like I got kicked in the balls.

And I did think the art was great on this book, just a little jarring. Wasn’t enough to make me take any points away, but it did bear some mention.

Writing 4.5/5. It was a powerful story and done so well. I also liked the “compromise” at the end. I was expecting Brunnhilda to die and Annabelle to become a new Valkyrie. This worked much better.

Weaver: I was expecting Valkyrie to ask Misty to sacrifice to resurrect Annabelle. I was happier with this solution.

I’d also give a 4.5/5 for the writing, but it’s really close to a 5. Just a few small issues with it, nothing major. The art, I loved it. And the colors were nice, I liked how well they were blended, something that comics simply couldn’t do when I was a kid. I’m giving the art a 5.

Maillaro: I think a 5/5 for art works too. OH! And before I forget, once again, I loved the cover of this book. The Fearless Defenders seems to be a team constantly “Under Construction” so it worked perfectly.

Sorry for the short column this week. We both have some RL stuff we are dealing with. See you next time!