Defenders #37: Evil In Bloom

Behold!  The post four years in the making.

Cast your mind back to the mid-70s and the golden age of the Defenders.  Marvel's non-team was really firing on all cylinders back them and man did I love them.  They certainly were a contrast to the stuffy Avengers.  Fighting weird and wacky villains with a roster that included the Hulk, Doctor Strange, sometimes the Silver Surfer or Namor for a weird kid in the 70s, these weird heroes just struck the right cord.  So when it came time to put my quarter down, I often put it down for the Defenders.  Now I certainly remember Defenders #37, I mean it had Power Man facing off against Plant Man who could forget that.  My memory tells me that issue #37 was one of my favorites and my memory tells me that issue #37 features the Headmen.  I love the Headmen so let's see what's inside.

Don't you love coming into a theater in the middle of a movie? Me too.  That's what this feels like as I try to remember why movers are trying to wrangle Valkyrie's flying stead Aragorn into Doc Strange's place.  Hulk is worried about the horse.

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Well now that the Hulk is agitated does the NYPD have a good plan on how to deescalate the situation?

Let's call that a hard no.  Hulk reacts the way Hulk aways reacts, by trying to murder some police helicopter pilots.  Luckily, someone tells Bert to jump just before they hit the ground and it works, because physics in the Marvel universe are weird.

I'm going to guess Hulk is firmly in the ACAB camp.  As Hulk leaps away Valkyrie's 'husband*' Jack Norris eavesdrops on some cops and explains that Nighthawk is having his brain put back in his head.  Yes you read that correctly, Nighthawk is having his brain put back into his head.  Clearly this is where the Headmen will show up.

*If memory serves me correctly Valkyrie took over the body of Barbara Norris and then didn't remember she was married to Jack.

Meanwhile Doc Strange, Red Guardian III, and Nighthawk are being held prisoner.  Maybe it's the sexy new Red Guardian, but Doc is having some performance issues.

Outside we see Plant Man is the villain that's captured our heroes.  And Plant Man being a patriotic American and therefore a capitalist, is only in it for the money.  FYI: the inflation calculator tells me that $10,000,000 in 1975 is equal to roughly $50,000,000 today.  So Plant Man is greedy but not too greedy.

Learning that his friends have been captured Jack does the only logical thing, he calls the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Champions, wait I've got it, he calls Luke Cage aka Power Man for Hire.

Meanwhile, Doc has prescribed himself a little purple pill and viola!

Sadly, their escape proves to be short-lived because Plant Man who would later go on to make a fortune inventing Pokemon unleashes spores on them.  Yes, that's right he's going to stop the Sorcerer Supreme with spores.  Also I love the old school villain feel of Plant Man, I'll shout exposition to explain just what I'm doing.  Hmm, I hope the Headmen show up soon.

Evidently being up close and personal with Red Guardian has permanently cured Doc's performance anxiety, so they easily escape.  Jack Norris not being an idiot is able to tell women apart so yes Red Guardian is not Valkyrie.  Also I'm a little disturbed by the way Jack constantly refers to her as Val and not Barbara but that's a topic for another day.

So where is Valkyrie?  Ah yes I remember this, she's in a women's prison and I have no idea why.  Once again it's like we walked into the middle of a movie.

Plant Man decides he just can't cut it as a solo villain so he goes looking for allies.  Surely this is where the Headmen show up.  But no, my middle aged brain has been playing tricks on me all this time, this isn't a Headman issue at all, it's a Bozos issue.  Now the Bozos are trippy in their own right but they're no Headmen.  

And where there's Bozos there's this guy.  

Meanwhile Nighthawk having had his brain put back into his head is having an existential crisis.

As Doc leaves his patient he thinks to himself, hey Nighthawk could use an existential crisis.  But wait! What's that smell?  It's old school Porcupine and the Eel.  Also Doc really pulls off that Ascot, I've got to reexamine my own wardrobe.

So no Headmen and not one of my favorite issues, stupid memory.   It's a shame because there's technically nothing wrong with the issue but I spent most of the issue trying to figure out what was going on and of course, Plant Man was kind of a dud.  But as much as I complain about this being in the middle of the story and not knowing what's going on, the art is phenomenal. I think Sal Buscema and Klaus Janson are a near perfect comics combination, dynamic yet good looking.   

As far as misremembering what this issue was about, as I get older I find this happening a lot.  I mix up story points of issues and runs, sometimes I insert characters who aren't in the story and for the life of me I can't tell you what happened what year.  But I guess that's just another blessing of middle-age.

Next time: I don't know maybe some Avengers, how about an issue of Marvel Fanfare, maybe something from the 90s with a foil cover, see you in 2025.