Seeing how much Morrison is obviously a successor to Gerber, nothing would please me more than to see Morrison and Marvel patch things up and have him write the Defenders. It'd be like a mix of Doom Patrol and Seven Soldiers.

Gerber was awesome, the Headmen saga (with its great starts and stops) could be the best Defenders tale ever (though the shorter and more emotionally satisfying Scorpio saga is probably my favorite), and as the 70s came to a close Gerber's exit from Marvel was the primary symptom of a general drop in excitement in the "universe".

Besides the inability to wrap up the Omega saga, we were left with another writer to resolve the murderous Elf sub-plot. And no one used the Hulk in a group setting better.

I'd dig out all my old issue, but thanks for info on the trades, I'll have to revisit these that way!

Thanks for a wonderful review of a woefully underappreciated author.

I actually buy every Steve Gerber comic I can find, but the Phantom Zone has so far eluded me...

I was lucky enough to read these stories when they were published, and I still recall them as some of the finest that have ever come from the Big Two. Marvel's writers in particular during those days were trying to introduce concepts that hadn't been included in mainstream comics. (Although DC was doing some of the same in the O'Neil/Adams Batman and Green Lantern.)

For those interested, I'd recommend the following from the same period: Gerber's Man-Thing run, Steve Englehart on Captain America, The Avengers, and Dr. Strange; Don McGregor on Killraven and Black Panther.
(Check the Grand Comic Book Database at http://www.comics.org for specific issue numbers.)

Again, great article, Greg! You've got a new fan (and RSS subscriber).

They aren't all from Gerber's run, but it was that era that led to these great characters.

A 'team' that was formed out of 'big names' was carried by the 'small names'.

(Heck, I even like the 100-125 era: Beast, Moondragon, Angel, Cloud... though it did get kind of screed up at the end.)

Already brought it, read it and loved it.

Mileage varies. I like volume one just fine, but partly because it was all new to me except for the Avengers/Defenders War, which I'd already seen the TPB collecting.

However, Defenders volume one is nothing like what is described in the above column. It's totally okay early 70's Marvel heroics, it's fun, but it's from Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart and Len Wein and they are more interested in the 'non-team' idea. Though I think Wein was starting to realize that was kind of a lame hook and he better start building some real friendships among these people; he might have done something with it but he was only there for a couple of issues before Gerber came on.

But it was all standard Marvel bickering superteam stuff before Gerber. That was why Gerber's run was such an amazing standout; without him I think the book would probably have stuttered to a halt somewhere around #30.

So, survey says: volume one is fun and worth a look. But if you just want Steve Gerber, then volume two is the one for you. In the meantime, there's Essential Howard the Duck out there and the Defenders have a guest shot in that one, too.

As to Steven Grant's efforts, he was not only doubly but trebly handicapped, in that the writers after Gerber, starting with David Kraft but really picking up with the tail end of Ed Hannigan's work, had tried to simultaneously retain the superficial feel of the comic's surreality while regularizing the cast and the format of their adventures into a multiple-subplot 1970s team comic.

Grant inherited Defenders who didn't chance upon or find themselves forced into adventures, but were being regularly approached by villains and heroes alike. Despite a nice reversal of expectations move in his story, I have to think the infinitely more, well, superhero-y tone the book had was what damaged the Omega conclusion he put together. Instead of a resolution in keeping with Omega's logic, he had to write what amounted to a big fight scene followed by a "cosmic" revelation.

That said, yeah, he did a much better job with an impossible assignment than people give him credit for.

Beyond that, I can only add "What you said, Greg! Total agreement!" I especially concur with the props to the massively underrated Phantom Zone miniseries. Gene Colan's art works so much better than anyone would have any reason to anticipate. And not just for the scenes set in the actual Phantom Zone -- by the time we reach the climax Supergirl, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman have seen major action against the escaped villains, and Colan does justice to each one. And the script -- apart from anything else, this is Gerber expressing his inner fanboy in the best possible way, penning a love letter to the accumulated lore of the Silver Age Earth One Superman, incorporating stuff that had been established in prior stories over two or three decades and then turning it into a genuinely chilling story of menace. Those Phantom Zone criminals aren't jokes: they're vicious psychopaths, each of whom have all Superman's powers. This story does the best job ever of depicting just how terrifying that would be.

The Gerber Defenders run is pretty much just in the upcoming volume two; the advance listing seems like it has to be wrong because it would not include the last two issues of the Headmen story and usually the editors of the Essential line are a lot better about not quitting in the middle of a story. I'd pay a couple of bucks extra to have it all right there.