Secret Defenders #21
“The Aesthetic Imperative”
Writers: Tom Brevoort and Mike
Kanterovich
Penciler: Bill Wylie
Inker: Tony Dzuniga
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Jim Hoston
Cover: Penciled by Bill Wylie, inked by Michael Bair
Curator: Craig Anderson
Patron in Chief: Tom DeFalco
Released: Sept. 13, 1994
After trying and failing to reconnect with friends and family last issue, Cadaver gets back in the action, summoned by Doctor Druid to come save his and Spider-Woman's bacon from Slaymaker's twisted art project. So Cadaver commandeers a motorcycle to convey him from the Pacific Northwest to San Francisco and busts through a toll booth (since he has no money), getting mistaken for Ghost Rider by a bystander.
Druid and Spider-Woman are stuck in a mass of green bodies/body parts, listening to Slaymaker explain his plan. See, it involves... um, art? … and fusing bodies together.. to make... something?... called the Panentropic Engine, which will basically bring his insanity to life. I think.
We get interludes of Shadowoman talking with a giant creature that looks like Mooby the Golden Calf inside the sculpture Druid returned her to last issue and USAgent searching for Spider-Woman by roughing up some punks grafitti-ing a drainage pipe. But after lecturing them like the rough-around-the-edges parody of Captain America he kind of is, the Agent spots a glow that turns out to be Cadaver's bone sword and follows him to the scene of the action.
Back in Slaymaker's underground lair, we get a bit more of an explanation as to how the Panentropic Engine works. Spider-Woman says they seem to be fused with the other bodies, “right down to our nervous systems! Guy on the end has an itch. It's driving me crazy!” Why the heroes haven't started to turn green and decay isn't really explained, nor is the question of whether the others are still alive.
Cadaver and USAgent burst in and start busting heads and tentacles. Then Druid uses magic to see through Spider-Woman's eyes and decides the best course of action is to... set Cadaver on fire. He says the flames won't do him any lasting harm, though they seem to hurt, and the creatures are fearful of Slaymaker's pyrokinetic touch, a detail I either missed or that wasn't ever conveyed.
Whether it makes sense or not, it works, resulting in Slaymaker going catatonic, seeing visions of his victory and, according to Marvel Fandom, never appearing again outside of a mention in a Handbook. Druid and Cadaver leave, with the former brusquely telling USAgent and Spider-Woman to clean up the mess. And they let him, never calling him out for spiriting Spider-Woman away and sending her daughter home with a hypnotized bystander.
The dialogue in this issue is loads of fun, with USAgent summing up the scene when he follows Cadaver as: “Spider-Woman and some new-age guru, hung out to dry on a pyramid of human bodies... a nutball in a tutu performing Shakespeare in the Park... and Casper the Friendly Ghoul giving what-for to a gang of Crypt-Keeper knockoffs!” Cadaver's motorcycle ride is memorable too. “Let no thing made of man bar my path,” he shouts as he tears through the toll booth, a couple panels after looking on the bright side that his condition as a corpse means he won't have to make bathroom stops.
The details of the story itself are at times convenient (Cadaver's walking near the random guys USAgent is beating up) and confusing (see my “explanation” of the Panentropic Engine). But the point is less to explain a modern art/horror mash-up and more to get these weird characters together for crazy shenanigans, and on that note, the issue succeeds.
The modern art references also made me think of Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol run, like Deadpool's reference to the Painting that Ate Paris in issue 16. I considered making the Suggested Secret Defenders of the Week a Marvel version of that DC team, but then it occurred to me that that may be what Brevoort and Kanterovich were going for already. Druid has a couple of people in unfortunate circumstances they don't fully understand, relying on him as he uses them for his own ends. That sounds like some versions of the Chief I've read about.**
So Druid, Cadaver and Shadowoman would still form the core. Round it out with Chamber from Generation X, who was disfigured by his power and may not feel like he fits in with the beautiful mutants, and Ms. Marvel/She-Thing, who had left the Fantastic Four at this point, I believe, and later resurfaced still looking like a Thing and with animosity toward the team.
* - Druid's solution to pretty much everything.
** - I'm not a Doom Patrol scholar, but I want to read more.
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