The cards are pulled once again, summoning a new non-team of Defenders who must plunge farther back through the prior incarnations of our universe to save them all in Defenders Beyond #1. Words by Al Ewing, pictures by Javier Rodríguez and letters by Joe Caramagna.
Karen Charm: I turn the card to reveal “The Prince of Loaves” (What kind of deck is this?) and behold, Mark Turetsky appears before me!
Hi, Mark, thanks for joining me. That’s the fourth card I’ve pulled, and it’s taken until now to summon anybody to talk about this comic book with me. I’m trusting the magical forces of the omniverse that you’ve done the reading and have things you wanna say.
Mark Turetsky: What the — Defenders? But wait, what year is this? I’m not the Mark you know, I’m the Mark from 2017 who’s read Loki: Agent of Asgard and Ultimates. But why was I summoned? Anyway, I’m sure it’s fine. Happy to be part of the team!
Karen: It must be because I just finished reading Loki: Agent of Asgard in 2022, thus creating a beacon to you. Make no mistake, though there are strange things afoot, this is no team.
In the Science Fortress Under the Sea
Karen: Immediately, we’re greeted with the spectral face of Dr. Stephen Strange (RIP) inside a crystal ball hovering above a gnarly anglerfish. It makes sense to see Strange here, since he book-ended the previous series and was the one who assembled our Defenders there. Now deceased, Strange has sent a posthumous last spell and testament to Adam Brashear (aka Blue Marvel) in order to pass down his admin status of the non-team. All this is clearly explained, but I’m really taken with that anglerfish.
Yes, Brashear lives in the depths of the ocean, so you reasonably would expect to see various aquatic life through the windows. The anglerfish, though, is featured so prominently here on the title page, and shows up at interesting points throughout the issue. I’m thinking this image is hinting at the nature of the quest our heroes are about to embark on. The other big, unexplained clue we get is the title itself — “Malkuth: The Neutral Zone.”
Mark: Aside from the practical thing about drawing anglerfish (they provide light to a lightless environment), it’s also a nice bit of imagery: the big shiny that’s just there to lure you in, only to chomp on you when your guard is down. We’ll have to see if that image pops up anywhere else in the mini.
As for the name “Malkuth: The Neutral Zone,” Al Ewing has described this mini as going “[i]nto the Mystery, right to the very top of the highest realms, to map the Marvel Godhead.” And to do that, he’s pulling heavily from Kabbalistic imagery, namely the 10 sefirot of the Tree of Life. Let’s just say the sefirot are the ways in which God, The Unending, manifests through physical and metaphysical reality. While the previous miniseries dealt with the process of Creation, pulling heavily from Bereshit (the Book of Genesis) mashed up with the genre precursors of superhero comics, this one is exploring the structure of that creation itself.
Malkuth, in Kabbalah, is the sefira that’s associated with the material world. It’s the sefira that is lowest down on the Tree, but it’s not cut off from God or anything like that, just a bit removed from the Divine Presence. And while it’s still attached to the Divine, it’s, well, a kind of neutral zone. (Many thanks to Zach Rabiroff and Robert Secundus for helping with this Kabbalistic knowledge.)
Rodríguez even includes an easter egg in the form of 11 jellyfish arranged as the map of the Tree of Life (which I pulled from Wikipedia).
The pattern also recurs in the arrangement of the coins on Loki’s Ten of Coins card. As to why there are 11, when I said there are only 10 sefirot, that’s because there’s Da’at (Knowledge), which is the mystical state where all 10 sefirot are in perfect harmony.
Also, every card drawn here is a 10. Ten of cups, wands, swords, coins and crowns (of course they needed to invent a new suit, since there are five Defenders and only four suits!). A 10 on each card, 10 sefirot. Make sense?
Karen: It has been a long time since I first became fascinated by the Kabbalah imagery in End of Evangelion, but I think I’m following. I also missed the jellyfish formation, likely because I was distracted by Blue Marvel’s wonderful home. Rodríguez is doing exceptional work throughout this issue, and the strips of solid color against black are so graphically appealing. His use of shadow and color throughout is amazing.
Blue Marvel is of course a character Al Ewing has used to great effect before, in both Mighty Avengers and Ultimates, which get referenced in Dr. Brashear’s reluctance to get sucked into Strange’s madness. He’s not interested in being anyone’s pawn, and puts his card (the 10 of wands, reversed) back on the deck. We see the anglerfish in the background again as Brashear tries to send away his unwanted guest, but it’s too late to get out of the trap now.
Strange, looking more and more like Eternity as the pages go by, has set everything in motion, and the next card drawn is the Ten of Swords (that sounds familiar …), with Ms. America Chavez depicted with the swords in her back. Chavez was also on the Ultimates with Brashear, and the two are close. As the narration lets us know, she’s one of the only people with access to Blue Marvel’s subaquatic palace. I guess that explains how she’s able to show up at that exact moment.
Mark: Personally, I can’t say that I’m a fan of America’s recent retcon. It seems like an instance of depowering the superhero so that they can take on smaller problems, rather than coming up with cosmic-level conflicts for her to come up against (I’m also wondering how long it’ll be until this retcon gets reverted, especially with her MCU counterpart ascendant). I’m a big fan of Ewing’s work with these two characters previously. Ultimates and Ultimates² were both a textbook example of how to tell stories on a huge, conceptual level as well as how to tell stories about how teams work and don’t work together in those contexts. When it comes to Marvel Cosmic, there’s the stories of Star Wars-esque space fleets battling it out and then there’s the more abstract “cosmic” side explored by creators like Ditko and Starlin. We call both of these things cosmic, but they’re really about different things. Ultimates/Ultimates² and this current era of Defenders stories fall under the latter definition of “cosmic,” and I’m 100% here for it.
Karen: Those two series are what put Ewing on the map for me, and it’s exactly the kind of galaxy-brained storytelling I’ve loved the most. A large part of my excitement here is how we seem to be continuing that macro-narrative.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way through the Sixth Cosmos
Karen: The self-directed Tarot reading barrels along, calling forth two more additions. Did we forget to mention that Blue Marvel received a box of stuff from the previous Defenders run? It included the headpiece worn by Taaia, mother of Galactus, science hero of the Sixth Cosmos, and my favorite new Marvel character of the past … five years? If we remember, she handed off her hat to Dr. Strange when the group parted ways last time, saying if they ever needed her again she could be summoned with it. Well, when the Ten of Cups is drawn, the thing begins to ring, and that can only mean one thing. We’re about to get a “barrel full” of scare quotes (and I couldn’t be more thrilled).
Mark: Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing’s Loki saga is one of the main things that brought me back to comics as an adult, and so getting the return of that particular incarnation, the chaotic-but-trying-their-best god of mischief, stories, lies, what-have-you is extremely exciting, if bittersweet for me. Bittersweet because they’re billing it as one last story before rejoining the post-Secret Wars timeline. Loki is something of a loose end, since they survived the end of the Seventh Cosmos in Agent of Asgard and were last seen drawing a door labeled “NEXT” and walking through it, and so didn’t get reformed into the Eighth Cosmos like everyone else. This issue also pointed me to Loki and Taaia’s appearance in a Ewing-penned, Lee Garbett-drawn story in the recent Thor #24 which explains how Loki and Taaia met up. Loki’s reunion with America is also a nice callback to Marvel Now Point One #1, the official start of Gillen and McKelvie’s Young Avengers, where America punched this incarnation of Loki in the face. What do you think of the way Rodríguez draws this Loki?
Karen: I think Loki looks excellent here, never looked better in my opinion. I’ll admit to being something of a Loki skeptic, but reading through Agent finally had me joining the ranks of people who have glommed on to the character for gender stuff. Here, she’s* the perfect puckish rogue, playing the Bugs Bunny role in all the best ways. Just causing problems on purpose. The sequence where she fans out a hand of pilfered tarot cards is great comics. That missing tooth, also! I know that was already a part of the design, but I love it under Rodríguez’s pen.
*Loki changes gender presentation throughout the issue, and Blue Marvel’s narration changes pronoun use accordingly. For the moment in question, Loki is referred to as she/her, but when we’re referring to the character generally we’ll use they/them.
Speaking of America punching Loki — how about that “WHAMM!!” lettering? As much as credit is due to letterer Caramagna, I do believe that particular instance is courtesy of Rodríguez (Apologies if I’m wrong). For real though, I can’t praise the art enough. For instance, I don’t know if I’ve ever liked Tigra more.
Mark: And some more Rodríguez praise for you: I’ve lauded his mixing of coloring styles in the previous Defenders mini, and here, I just freaking love the way he mixes the more moody, subdued colors of Blue Marvel’s undersea base with bright primary, Silver Age color work for his various machines and gizmos. As for Tigra … I can’t say I’ve ever really “gotten” her deal, mostly because I haven’t read any stories where she’s a featured character, more just someone who’s there as part of a team (a status she hilariously nods to with her “Oh no. Am I having a team-up?”). Still, for the few pages she’s on in this issue, she definitely makes an impression, and with Rodriguez’s melding of animal and human poses and movement for her, she’s intriguing to just (excuse the pun) marvel at.
To Eternity And Beyond
Karen: With everyone now in place, all hell breaks loose. The barricaded portal to the Neutral Zone cracks in half and the structural coherence of the panel grid gives way, sending our Defenders hurtling topsy-turvy into adventure. The massive “BROOOM” and “WHOOOOMMP!” SFX on this spread are likely Caramagna’s work this time around, and are a perfect compliment to the mayhem. Turning the page, we get another spread anchored by an outstanding drawing of Eternity. The exaggerated pose and coloring calls to mind Tradd Moore (another favorite of mine who does this cosmic stuff veeeery well; see Silver Surfer Black), and I just think it’s a real treat.
Mark: Yes! The change in color scheme on the page turn between those two spreads is just *chef’s kiss*. And Loki’s laughing face on that page. We could argue whether he’s a god of lies or stories here, but here outside of time and space, he’s a god of pure chaos, of mischief. And he’s loving it. And if Eternity is Malkuth, we’re moving outside of it, into The Mystery, as Ewing named it in Ultimates #100. It’s without time and space, represented on the page as sheer blackness. There’s no there there, but there is structure. Rodríguez breaks up the blackness into interesting panel shapes. I think this might be Yesod in the Tree of Life: the foundation upon which the world is built. It’s the connection between Malkuth below and the upper sefirot. It’s the only sefira connected to Malkuth, so it’s a good bet that’s where we are. But I suppose we’ll learn more next time.
Karen: OK, I love this segment because it’s abstract comics, baby! Totally non-figurative, just an arrangement of black panels for two pages and yet the movement implied by the panel shapes has you somersaulting through the darkness. We’re not only spinning clockwise, but we’re getting closer to something. Rather than show us what is arguably unshowable, we’re induced to feel what the Defenders are feeling, with just simple black shapes. Comics is magic, everybody. Thrilling!
We do come to rest back in the Known with a final-page reveal. It’s beloved ’80s character the Beyonder. Yaaay.
But seriously, he looks really cool and alien here in a way I don’t think is common. Also, is that omega symbol usually there?
Mark: He’s definitely shown up in that armor before, but he’s usually flexing and making with the muscle poses in it. Here he’s in a casual contrapposto pose, looking as if Doryphoros wore ridiculous comic book armor. Just look at these two! You can’t tell the difference!
The armor’s metallic finish here is reflecting a whole lot of colors that shouldn’t be here where there’s no light! The omega is new, though, as far as I know. If I had to guess at its significance, it’s because Doom killed off all of the other Beyonders in Time Runs Out, and our friend here is the last of them (the Omega, if you will). And speaking of known, the cover teases “a jaw-dropping final addition on the last page,” but he was in teaser images for the series. And the series is called Beyond.
Karen: Speaking of teasers, we are going to have the Phoenix showing up eventually, too. This issue is at an end, however, leaving us with the question “Whatever happened to the 2nd Cosmos?” The previous Defenders was a guided tour through the various iterations of the multiverse that readers of Ultimates would be familiar with. We made it as far back as the Third, which was a super archetypical existence before science or magic, an eternal battle between Lifebringer One and Knull or something. The Second Cosmos, we are told in Ultimates2, is “first of the new breed, originator of the Omega Force.” So maybe that explains the Omega symbol, huh?
I am loving our first entry in the series and am incredibly excited for What Comes Next. In Immortal Hulk, Ewing essentially mapped out Marvel’s underworld, and since then his various projects have been laying out what is above (See S.W.O.R.D. for some great shit). To have Rodríguez in tow as a collaborator and fellow storyteller makes this the highest-caliber comic. I think we are going to continue to be wowed. What do you think, Mark?
Mark: This is a strong start, and paradoxically, a strong continuation of Ewing and Rodriguez’s last Defenders series. I’m loving it. And looking forward to finding out about that Second Cosmos. This team was such a huge cosmic tease with this stuff last time, leaving us wanting more cosmos … es. (Cosmi?)
Karen: I’m left with two final questions, the big one being what the ultimate threat will be and, secondly, will Tigra save the Marvel Universe?
Marvelous Musings
- David Bowie’s “Station to Station” seems oddly apt:
“Here are we, one magical moment, such is the stuff
From where dreams are woven
Bending sound, lost in my circle, dredging the ocean
Here am I, flashing no color tall in my room overlooking the ocean
Here are we, one magical movement from Kether to Malkuth
There are you, you drive like a demon from station to station”
- Are you thinking about Bowie because of the Beyonder’s outfit too? [KC]
- The very next line is “The return of the thin white duke, throwing darts in lover’s eyes.” As Strange puts it, there are no coincidences. Only synchronicity. [MT]
- Mark, if you’re from 2017, how come you know so much about 2022?
- I’m here now! And I’ve got the internet.
- Tigra’s “Oh no. Am I having a team-up?” just slays me.
- Blue Marvel’s base is named Kadesh. The name isn’t original to Ewing’s work on the character, but in the Torah, Kadesh is a geographical place. Nobody quite agrees precisely where it is, or even if different mentions refer to the same place. Still, it marks the Southern border of biblical Israel, and so might be a conscious tie-in with Malkuth (the lowest point on the Tree of Life). That’s only here in this comic, though. The two aren’t associated anywhere else.
- Ewing might also be toying with another structure here, the Hero’s Journey as popularized by Joseph Campbell. Here we have The Call to Adventure, The Refusal of the Call (Dr. Strange literally calls it that, which is what brought this to mind), Supernatural Aid, The Crossing of the First Threshold and possibly The Belly of the Whale.
- There’s also a nod toward Christianity in here, too. Blue Marvel calls Kadesh “a house with many rooms.” (John 14:2)
- We’ve got 10 sefirot and five issues. How’s that going to work?
- Thank you again to Rob and Zach (Check’s in the mail, Zach).
Karen Charm is a cartoonist and mutant separatist, though they’ve been known to appreciate an Eternal or two.
