Defenders (1972-1986) #148 by Peter B. Gillis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
There was a time when Marvel editors commissioned little stand alone fill-in stories to keep in their drawer for when creative teams were running late and they needed to get a book out on deadline. What I suspect we have here is one of those stories. Gillis brings back his weird detective duo from a previous one issue fill in story for a caper that makes little to no sense and unites Gargoyle and Beast with Daimon Hellstrom and Patsy Walker (who, you know, used to be in this book…)…who do little more than react to the weirdness going on around them.
Sometimes stories like this can be a lot of fun. This one tries far too hard to be quirky…especially with the inclusion of a character who is very obviously just Groucho Marx…a joke that would have seemed strange in 1985 and falls even more flat in 2020.
I’m sure things will get back to normal with the next issue…but it also wasn’t long after this that the book got cancelled.
Random Ramblings Of A Ragamuffin 