Daredevil #4 marked the first appearance of Zebediah Killgrave (a.k.a. The Purple Man). With the power to control minds, Killgrave would make a career forcing others to do his bidding. Both methodical and self-serving, the vindictive supervillain demonstrated characteristics of the Neutral Evil...

Tunnelworld, perhaps more than any other dimension visited by the Defenders, would make and apt setting for Dungeons & Dragons. That being the case, the realm deserves attention in a discussion about the nine alignments outlined in that game.A principal antagonist within Tunnelworld was...

In the world of Marvel Comics, Project PEGASUS (Potential Energy Group Alternate Sources United States) was a sizeable research center operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. Quasar was the first costumed crimefighter hired to protect the facility, where scientific inquiry included the study of...

Giant-Size Defenders #2 reprinted an adventure of the Black Knight originally published in 1955. Set during the time of King Arthur, this version of the character battled treacherous forces while masking his true identity. To throw enemies off guard, Sir Percy of Scandia feigned cowardice under...

Following in the footsteps of a costumed assassin called Foolkiller (Man-Thing #3-4), a self-appointed successor adopted the Foolkiller persona and granted himself poetic license to murder anyone he deemed a fool. For his first target, the new Foolkiller assassinated the supervillain Blockbuster ...

The alignment sytem popularized by Dungeons & Dragons is worth revisiting, as each of the nine alignments can encapsulate a variety of characters. Often represented as a grid (with Lawful versus Chaotic, with Good versus Evil, and with Neutral tendencies in-between), the alignments describe...

Before Blob joined numerous supervillains in pretending to be Defenders, he pulled off a similar stunt in X-Men #20 (reprinted in #71). During that earlier crime spree, Blob and fellow evil mutant Unus disguised themselves in costumes matching those of the original X-Men. The ruse exacerbated an...

A series of cameo appearances beginning in New Defenders #147 culminated in #152, when the mysterious Interloper joined the team in a climactic battle against the Dragon of the Moon. Interloper had faced the wicked creature one thousand years earlier and had been living in seclusion ever since. ...

One month before Sub-Mariner regained his memory as the Prince of Atlantis in Fantastic Four #4 (May 1962), a very different Atlantean appeared in Tales of Suspense #28 (April 1962). In that tale, a water-breathing giant named Titan communicated telepathically to the residents of Manhattan. When...

Like other members of the Squadron Sinister, the villain Whizzer was a nod to a member of the Justice League of America—specifically Flash (Barry Allen). Unlike the rest of the Squadron Sinister, Whizzer also had a similarly named counterpart at Timely Comics (a predecessor to Marvel Comics)....

Immediately after Marvel Feature #1-3 introduced the dynamic Defenders as a superhero team, Marvel Feature #4-10 re-introduced Hank Pym as the astonishing Ant-Man. Finding himself trapped at a shrunken height, without the gadgetry he previously used as Yellowjacket, this revamped version of Ant-Man...

Defenders #6 (Vol. 2) revived the costumed adventurer known as Red Raven. Orphaned as an infant and raised on a floating island of bird-people, the character returned to human society as an adult. Equipped with a pair of artificial wings, Red Raven made his crimefighting debut in 1940. Like many...

Strange Tales #98 included a ghost story about the crew of The Flying Dutchman, a legendary ship from seafaring lore. The title of the story was They Vanished Forever When superheroes later encountered the haunted ship, the term Flying Dutchman also referred to the vessel’s netherwordly captain....

At the time of his debut in Shanna The She-Devil #4 (June 1973), the villain Mandrill worked with an accomplice named Professor Skecher. Mandrill had the superhuman power to compel women to do his bidding, and the heinous Professor Skecher would tattoo Mandrill’s facial markings onto the face of...

The covers of Shanna The She-Devil (Feb. 1973) and Marvel Two-In-One #68 (Oct. 1980) each promoted a Dungeon of Doom The dungeons inside the two issues, however, could not have been more different.For Shanna, the dungeon was minimalistic. Captured by the underlings of crimelord El Montano, Shanna...

Dr. Strange #55 found the sorcerer supreme distraught. Clea had ended their relationship two issues before … a decision some time in the making. Acting as a mystical guide, Dakimh the Enchanter visited Dr. Strange, who was experiencing visions that his life lacked substance—an...

Defenders #92 placed the non-team into pairs, with each heroic duo searching for various missing persons … missing persons who were in fact personified aspects of the entity Eternity. Mystically teleported by Dr. Strange, the mission took Hellcat and the Son of Satan to a temple in India, and...

In several of his comic book appearances, Golden Archer of the Squadron Supreme seemed to fire ordinary arrows. Other times, such as Defenders #113, he suffered defeat before taking his first shot. There were instances, however, when Golden Archer used specialized arrows in step with the superhero...

While Nighthawk was the only member of the Defenders with a direct counterpart in the Squadron Supreme (a group pf heroes from a parallel Earth), other similarities existed between the teams. Although the two would never meet, Red Guardian—a Soviet crimefighter who joined the Defenders during...

Defenders #7-8 creatively repurposed an establish character. Red Ghost, who had demonstrated the ability to mentally command apes after bombarding them with cosmic rays, found them increasingly difficult to control. As a result, the villain decided to try out his power on porpoises—also highly...

As Dr. Druid grew in prominence, the similarities between his origin story and the origin of Dr. Strange became hard to overlook. Avengers Spotlight #37 reconciled this coincidence while reinvigorating the character.Within the issue, Dr. Druid learned that the lama who had sent for and trained him...

According to the cover blurb, Marvel Two-in-One #34 was the shocker of the year Though not particularly shocking by comic book standards, the story within the issue made for a worthwhile read. The protaganist of this introspective tale was a tendrilled extraterrestrial long frozen in ice....

Of all the Rutland Halloween Parade tie-in comics during the Seventies, the most prophetic was Thor #207 (Jan. 1974). The story’s splash page depicted a parade float carrying two men dressed as Superman and Batman (illustrating an awareness of DC characters within the world of Marvel Comics). As...

During the Defenders’ run-in with the Zodiac, the villain Scorpio led the astrological organization. The true identify of Scorpio was Jake Fury, the complicated brother of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury.Spidey Super Stories #34 presented a friendlier version of the Zodiac. In this story, three...

Avengers #119 (Jan. 1974) continued a comic book tradition of acknowledging the real-life Rutland Halloween Parade, where residents of the Vermont town celebrate in superhero attire. For several years in a row, Marvel Comics depicted parade organizer Tom Fagan dressed as Nighthawk, an ironic...