According to the book 'Marvel: The Untold Story', Gerber was consistently late with his deadlines and drove the editorial staff nuts month after month, and eventually just got let go. It would certainly explain his abrupt removal from Defenders. I know he always gets mainly credited for Howard the Duck, but his work on Defenders, GOTG, Man Thing, and Omega the Unknown are seriously underrated.

I always liked how Nighthawk and Jack Norris were perfectly fine after brain surgery. Popped right back up like they got a cavity filled

I crushed on Valkyrie so hard as a kid

Steve Gerber is definitely one of my absolute favorite writers he doesn’t shy away from documenting the human condition which is one of suffering and pain blended with minuscule and fleeting moments of happiness and joy that already passed.

Gerber's run is why I collected the title.

Marvel needs to collect this stuff. And Gerber's Foolkiller series. And reprint Omega the Unknown. Gerber is great.

Man I love this old wacky Marvel comics from the 70s.

I read these and other STEVE GERBER comic books and I always was taken with the weirdness and interesting stories that I saw nowhere else. I appreciate his writing now more than ever. He was a true original writer.

I do remember the issue with Valerie being tied to a inverted cross. Crazy...

Yep. The Defenders were my book in the 1970's. I still have this series. When I read it at the time I would have loved to have been able to discuss it without being beaten up.

I absolutely loved the Defenders during Gerber's run! The baby deer, Dollar Bill, the Head Men, such amazing quirky stuff.

Val's crucifixion is SO cool. The run is at its best when brushing up against Real Life. Val's identity crisis starts off very well and offered a peek at a more mature approach. Defenders #24 has sharp scripting- every line as DD, Banner, Daimon and Cage converge is rich with observations. Nebulon's motif is great satire!! Wish the story in the annual had space to develop more.

Thanks for this-- Big fan of the original Defenders run-- If David Lynch had been a comic book writer, this is what it would look like.

Yeah Gerber was freestyling his ass off on this title.

Imagine being an editor at marvel having to deal with that run or even Elf with a Gun.

Steve Gerber is easily one of the supreme talents and greatest writers of all time he suffered so much tragedy and pain in life he deserved so much better I wish I knew him .

Steve Gerber's Defenders: a gateway to madness.

Really wish Kyle's line to Strange about his changed awareness was followed up. A natural fit, this, for Strange Brain Parts, yah?

Wonder if Elf with a gun inspired Scourge of the underworld that started in Captain America a decade later. A killing spree of Marvel's useless villains yelling "Justice is served!", randomly showing up in numerous other Marvel titles & ending the story-line in Cap # 319 just as mysterious as it began. Years later being fully explained leading to Captain America # 350 which I thought cheapened the intrigue of the original character. Your episode just reminded some Marvel sub story-lines when Marvel at the time was actually fun & enjoyable to me instead of currently being constantly retconned, renumbered, continuity totally ignored by lazy, popular writers (Ex, Morrison, Vaughan Bendis) or being influenced by their disney overlord's movies on the division's properties instead of it being the other way around. As usual, nice re-visit of one of your old episodes.

Spider-Man did show up to help them fight Lunatik.

I love odd stories. The odder the better. Reviews like this help me know where to look. Thank you for doing stories like this!

This is the finest distillation I've imbibed in a minute

"War Beneath The Waves" and "The Red Ghost" were 2 of my favs!! Valkyrie was always fun to look at in the 70's, ha Still have all my Defender comics in mint condition along with tons of other titles including the little known "Red Wolf". Thanks for the upload my friend

Really appreciate the deep dive! I love the scripting, too. Characters speak with insights instead of just clichés. DAK said Steve appreciated the Elf resolution. Squared nicely with the randomness.

As a 70s kid it was easy to look back at the 60s comics with envy but looking at it now the 70s was a great time to be a young comic reader. The writers, stories and new characters were fun, and most of the 60s comics were available as inexpensive monthly reprints. One of the things I liked about the Headmen was that some of the characters were first introduced in other non-superhero comics; I always thought that was cool when a writer did that.

I just found you. You and COmics Tropes are my favorite channels. How the heck does this not have more views!?!?!

I loved Elf! I hated what later writers did with him just as I DESPISED what lesser writers did with Gerber's Kidney Lady from his run on Howard The Duck.

Everyone fellating Alan Moore for his incredible Watchmen... Meanwhile Gerber had done it all and more 15 years earlier whilst also still respecting authorial intent and using original characters of his own creation for half of it.

The visuals in your video are amazing!!! Great explanation too! Thanks!!

Appreciate this,it's a lucid,fairly detailed,walk through some challenging issues. Thanks SBP

You have covered alot of Gerber's Marvel work: Omega the Unknown, Defenders, Man-Thing and Howard the Duck. How about covering the Foolkiller; especiallsince the mini-series has never been collected and hopefully you can find out why.

This is that time when "utterly insane" can't possibly capture the level of unhinged.

Steve Gerber's one of my major heroes . . I always love the fact that gerber felt superheroes were absurd and silly.... An interesting contrast is looking at his four issue Ultraverse series The Exiles, which is a Savage takedown of superhero comic circa the age of Image, and ended with the sudden and arbitrary death of all the characters saved the one that was already dead and had been revived as the hero Ghoul ....

You hit all my sweet spots, don't you? Interesting that Strange and Banner are in a team made as an effort to make a "non-team" of second stringers. The Hulk had definitely hit a creative wall at the time...one writers and artists like Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola, and John Byrme were chilling away at when Peter David finally slew the status quo.

It happened in a mainstream Marvel comic in the 70s because everyone wasn't permanently butt hurt and looking for a reason to be pissed. Sometimes a good story is just a good story

I remember when this title came out I didn't understand how Hulk could be part of a team because back in those days he was just an angry monster

The Defenders by SG is my FAVORITE comic run of all time. His writing here is like coherent Grant Morrison. He was never better, story was never sacrificed for personal "soap box" moments, and it still pisses me off how Marvel dismissed such a talent.

I HAD THOSE COMICS!!!

big fan of defenders in general, steer gerber in particular. i forgot about elf with a gun!

After hearing the Doom Patrol reference , I had to wonder if I was the only one who noticed the Headmen bore a strong resemblance to the Silver Age team of villains from the Patrols first series... the Brotherhood of Evil? Chances brain was placed in different bodies ala the Brain, the gorilla is Mallah obviously, Ruby Tuesdays morphing head brings the stretching shape-shifting Madame Rouge to mind, and the wrinkled too much skin guy is General Immortus. Better yet, Gerber used the characters that already appeared in the old Marvel monster titles.

Captain America and Spider-Man both showed up and helped out the Defenders they just came later in the series

This was so unexpected and fucking excellent. Could comics (mainstream like current avengers or NoT X-Men) do story's like these, that could sell, and be accepted? I dunno.

WTF, I love the Sons of the Serpent now! Defenders is one of my all time favorites Marvel titles. They gave shout outs to Rush and BOC too🤙 I even liked the New Defenders (with 4 OG X Men) and always check out every new interation. My favorite is the classic Strange/Hulk/Nighthawk/Val and whoever happens to be around (Daredevil, Moon Knight, Cage, even Cap and Spider-Man at one point) I didn't love The Fearless Defenders or the Civil War era version. Also didn't like how the MCU repurposed Heroes for Hire as the Defenders (classic logo and all!).

I always love the Defenders a little bit more than the Avengers they wore a loose fit superhero group and there were some Avengers who did become Defenders for a little while like Hawkeye

And I thought Spocks brain was bad...

Valkyrie is hot

Choom

The Defenders often came across as a haphazard, hit-or-miss collection of characters with a dose of wth? thrown in. I could never figure out why Namor, Valkyrie, Hulk and Strange would choose to associate so closely?

The cast of characters were NOT "misfits", the combination of characters was odd, but you got it wrong

Defenders ran 152 issues, not 139.

What drugs was Gerber on when he wrote these?

Humm...The History of Heroic Graphics?

all superhero groups are "misfits". Avengers and Justice League were all star groups.

DOCTOR WHO “Elf with a Gun” Written by Steven Moffat

Never liked night bird. Or bird brains costume. Ewwwwwww.