Marvel Read-Through: Avengers/Defenders War

5 min readMay 19, 2021

Superheroes love fighting each other. It’s a trope of the genre and can be irritating at times when the heroes spend their time fighting amongst themselves instead of fighting evil. So far, I’ve actually been surprised at how often it happens. It seems that almost anytime heroes meet for the first time, they will fight. I thought it was a relatively newer trope, but it really has been around as long as the modern Marvel universe.

Hot on the heels of the formation of the team, the Defenders square off against the Avengers in a twelve-part arc spread out over two backup stories and six full issues across the two titles. It’s a fun story that predictably ends in the two teams coming together to fight the real villains, Dormammu and Loki. The Defenders are in possession of the Black Knight who has been turned to stone. The Avengers go to visit their friend, but find his castle empty and learn that he was last seen with Doctor Strange, so they then visit Strange. Of course, Strange and the Defenders are too busy trying to cure the Black Knight that they refuse to talk to the Avengers who are forced away by Strange’s magic defenses and his friend/servant Wong. Meanwhile, Dormammu and Loki have teamed up and trick the Defenders into believing they must assemble the six pieces of the Evil Eye to restore the Black Knight to normal, but this is just a plot for Dormammu to take over our dimension with his Dark Dimension. Eventually, Loki realizes that this isn’t going to end well for anyone in our dimension, so he tells the Avengers that the Defenders are assembling the Evil Eye to take over the world. It’s a convoluted set up for a war between the two teams, but it’s classic comic book stuff and it was a lot of fun to read.

Iron Man and Hawkeye fight without realize they are on the same side

What came next was also fun to read, but I got frustrated rather quickly. There are six individual battles, all of which were an interesting match-up of heroes and resulted in some awesome fight scenes, but it could have been avoided so easily. All they had to do was talk and realize they were manipulated into fighting each other. It began when the Avengers visited Strange but were shooed away. Simply stating their business or having Strange check out the commotion at the front door would have saved a lot of time and effort for both teams (see the panel below). Just look at the panel I’ve put next to this paragraph, if Iron Man and Hawkeye said those thought bubbles out loud, they could have realized they’ve been tricked. It really felt this way with five out of the six battles. Only Cap and Namor ended up talking and sorting out the truth.

Doctor Strange ignores the Avengers — If you investigated that disturbance you wouldn’t have had a war with the Avengers, Doctor

Once they finally realized that Loki and Dormammu had manipulated them, the two teams come together to save the world since Dormammu has already started his invasion. This was the best part of the whole arc for me. All fourteen heroes heroes working together to save the world was a blast. It only took up about an issue and a half, but it was an epic conclusion to the story. That whole section of the Avengers/Defenders War was definitely the best part. Each character got a moment to shine and a massive team-up is always a fun time. The battles alone were fun and well done, but in the context of the story they were frustrating. The final team-up was not frustrating at all, it was a satisfying end to Dormammu’s plot.

I was surprised it all ended when there was still one issue left in the arc. Turns out that issue was an epilogue of sorts, as the Defenders use the Evil Eye to save the Black Knight. They get caught up in a medieval war where the Black Knight’s consciousness has been put into one of his ancestors’ bodies. At least I think that’s what happened, it wasn’t very well-explained. They save the day, but the Black Knight decides to stay in the past and continue the war effort. After the satisfying conclusion to the Dormammu plot, this was the complete opposite. We went through this whole thing to save the Black Knight and he decides to just stay in the past, separated from the rest of the Marvel universe?? I was not happy with this ending. Everything felt like a waste. At least it was a fun journey even if the destination sucked. Englehart’s redemption continued up until the very end of this arc. His decision to remove the Black Knight from the modern age of the Marvel universe doesn’t sit right with me and reminds me of his odd creative decisions from a few weeks back.