Secret Defenders #10: Sorry I Underestimated You Guys

Secret Defenders #10
“Revenge, Part Two”
Writer: Ron Marz
Penciler: Tom Grindberg
Inker: Don Hudson
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: John Kalisz
Editor: Mike Rockwitz
Group Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco
Released: Oct. 12, 1993

The Silver Surfer takes a back seat in “Secret Defenders” #10 as War Machine and Thunderstrike face off against Nebula, Geatar (aka Six-String) and her numb-to-pain enforcers Kruk and Kurg. If you think the two Earthlings are outmatched, join the club, but it appears we're both wrong, at least under the pen of Ron Marz.

Nebula's pretty confident, and it seems she has good reason, as Kurg and Kruk keep right on coming, even after War Machine unloads some heavy ordinance (a bomb he refers to as “heavy ordinance”) and Thunderstrike slaps one of them* right across the mug with Mjolnir Jr. (aka Thunderstrike – that's not confusing).

Krunk.

With Nebula off to reduce Titan to cinders, T-strike tells War Machine to stop her while he takes on the pack of pirates she left behind. Knowing Thunderstrike isn't long for the Marvel Comics universe and he's one of the few comic book characters to actually stay dead, this made me a little nervous – unnecessarily so since I know (spoiler alert for a comic I haven't read either) he buys it in his own series. Rhodey turns on the afterburners and tears into the ship in one of the best scenes in the issue.

Arriving cloaked in Titan's orbit, Git-fiddle heads back to the cargo bay to see why a decompression alarm went off. He's promptly blasted into the vacuum by War Machine, although he does have an air supply. I'll have to check the good old Fandom wiki to see if Axe-tar ever returned to menace any other Marvel heroes.

When War Machine arrives on the bridge, Nebula launches her big bomb, to which, you may recall, the Silver Surfer is strapped. War Machine goes to save him and disarm the bomb, which he's able to do by interfacing with the device's tech since anything Jeff Goldblum's “Independence Day” laptop can do, Stark-designed armor can do better.

Rhodey hangs on to guide the bomb to a less-damaging landing spot while the Surfer finally apprehends Nebula. They leave her in custody on Titan and book it back to Phobos to save Thunderstrike's bacon.

Turns out they didn't need to rush.

I know dude was Thor for a while, and I am fond of him, but I was rather surprised to see Thunderstrike casually victorious here. Could be I underestimated him, or could be this was only meant to be a two-part story and Marz liked the joke. Frankly, I'm fine with either explanation.

Dr. Strange only shows up on the final page, where Wong congratulates him on his choice of allies for the Surfer. It's not totally out of sync with the rest of the series, since it's implied that there's intuition as well as magic guiding the tarot cards with which he selected past lineups, but still, I would have liked to see it tied a little tighter to the establishing concept.

Grindberg's art didn't work quite as well for me as it did in the previous issue. His quirky style is more successful than I would think, but the early splash pages seem kind of empty and lacking the weird busyness and detail from issue 9. Kurg and Kruk are shadowy, indistinguishable blobs on the first page. As with any critique I make of an artist, I must add the disclaimer that it's light years better than I could do.

Marz kept writing the Surfer's solo series for a while, so I'm a little curious to see if War Machine or Thunderstrike ever called in the favor the Surfer promised them. If they didn't, maybe Marz and Grindberg could reunite for one of those flashback limited series Marvel is wisely producing these days for grumpy old comic fans like me who prefer the stories from back in our day to some of the newer stuff. I'd buy it.

There are fewer choices for Suggested Secret Defenders of the Week this time, but I'm intrigued by Alphonso Chasef's pitch of Hercules, Thor, Wonder Man and She-Hulk. Although they've all worked together and have comparable power sets, I think they would be pretty competitive with one another and could make for a fun mix.

* - In my (secret) defense, Nebula indicates in this issue she can't really tell them apart either.