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Defenders #3 - Breaker of Worlds Part 3: The Man With Ω On His Palms

3

The Defenders finally face off against Nul, Breaker of Worlds, and have a choice to make: could we be seeing a slip in morality in some of the Earth's mightiest heroes?

The Good

The sequence with Red She-Hulk and Nul made me tip my hat to Matt Fraction, as he made me care about a character I had no intention of ever liking. The whole Red Hulk family left an extremely bad taste in my mouth, and I'm surprised that it's not so bitter any more.

The combat with Nul didn't drag, and it did enough to keep each member relevant (more on that later) without dominating the issue. There's a lot of SCIENCE (note the caps) in this issue, but there's some fisticuffs to balance it out.

The ending narration with the Silver Surfer is especially strong, as it establishes the Surfer's power; it also brings a weird sci-fi element to the ship barreling through space, with a somber "don't screw with the Surfer" message. Strong writing kept me interested, and smiling at the exposition.

The Bad

Despite a strong start, I feel like this issue was just tying up loose ends without any effective climax; the banishment of Nul just felt a little too "deus ex machina"-y for me, which is weird, considering the book features Doctor Strange, a walking deus ex machina.

Speaking of Strange, he did little in this book, alongside Iron Fist and Namor. While She-Hulk, the villain and Silver Surfer got top billing, the others seemed to fall by the wayside, cast a spell, throw a punch and generally stay quiet.

The Verdict

Despite the above, I think it's good that Fraction kept this arc from rolling on too long; the greater theme of this book is chaos, and it will be great to see what the Defenders can whip up with this new toy of theirs. The only problem is that I see one of the members leaving (don't ask me, I just have an intuition), which might send the book into a downward spiral.

However, provided it can keep the team solid and give each member the face-time to keep them interesting, this book should fill a "warriors of the weird" niche that I'm all too happy to push them into. These characters are tough to write on their own, and even more challenging to threaten as a team: if there's anyone who can do it, it's Matt Fraction.

This book is tough to rate, as it wasn't amazing enough for a four, but it didn't disappoint me enough for a three; this book is still worth your time, but this issue felt a little bit off.

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