Defenders #2

Two reviews on tap for tonight, the first of which is the second issue of the Defenders. The first issues was, if I'm being perfectly honest, bizarrely bad, to the degree that I actually considered NOT picking up the second issue. Now, I know Matt Fraction is a good writer as evidenced by most of his Iron Man work and most of Fear Itself, but that first issue? Bizarrely bad. Let's hope Fraction worked out the kinks here and we get a good comic book and not a weird farce.

Defenders #2:

Summary: Prester John and his weird animal-man forces manage to defeat the Defenders when John traps the Silver Surfer in a bubble created by his weapon, the Evil Eye... Oh yeah, and Iron Fist manages to expel the bullet that shot him last issue by focusing his chi(or something) in case you were wondering... Prester John locks the Defenders up in a cell, but they manage to escape when Dr. Strange scares Red She-Hulk unto turning human, which allows her to slip through the bars, change back into her hulk-form and destroy the controls keeping the Defenders trapped. Meanwhile, Nul, the Breaker of Worlds, is continuing his march towards John's headquarters. The Defenders run into more of John's forces, but manage to fight them off, at least until John arrives with the Surfer, still trapped in his bubble, and threatens to kill the Surfer with the Evil Eye. Dr. Strange tries to explain to John that the real threat here was Nul, who was rapidly approaching, and John surprises Strange by admitting that he WANTED Nul to arrive. It seems John had discovered a “Concordance Engine”, which John figured would open a portal in time and space allowing himself and his men to leave their current dimension and head to one not as violent and destructive as their current one. Since John's massively powerful Evil Eye couldn't break the Engine, John reasoned that Nul could. With that, Nul arrives at John's base, and the Defenders are really trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Thoughts: Much better. I still don't understand why Fraction decided to use Iron Fist, of all the characters in the Marvel Universe, as the team's comedic relief(hell, Speedball isn't doing anything! Use him!!), but alas, he is. Other then Iron Fist's idiotic actions, I can't say anything really bad about this one. The art was fine, the story flowed nicely, and the cliffhanger was fantastic. So all in all, good stuff. Still, I don't get Iron Fist's inclusion here......

Score: 7 1/2 out of 10.Iron Fist as the team joke is just odd...