(Strand)om Stories: Doctor Strange and the Secret Defenders Review
Some decent villains can't offset awkward characterization which prevent this series' premise from reaching its full potential
—by Nathan on October 29, 2025—
If you're a Marvel fan, there is a good chance you're aware of a super group that goes by the collective moniker "The Defenders." The team has had several rosters over the years, most classically the joining of Doctor Strange, the Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Surfer. The group's uniqueness stems from the fact that they consider themselves a "non-team," in that they often come together when a call goes out, stomp whatever villain or monster threatens humanity, and then go their separate ways. They don't have membership cards like the Avengers, a cool plane like the X-Men, or a skyscraper headquarters like the Fantastic Four.
The roster has shifted over the years, welcoming the likes of Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Hellcat, Son of Satan, and the Beast. A "New Defenders" group in the 80s had been partially wiped out (though those folks were later resurrected), freeing up mutant members Iceman, Beast, and Angel to join Cyclops and a "resurrected" Marvel Girl in the first incarnation of X-Factor. According to Roy Thomas, fans, despite the this dissolution, were clamoring for the team-but-not-a-team to make a return, and after a brief reappearance by the original crew across a spate of early 90s annuals, a new Defenders was formed. No, not the new "New Defenders." This team would be more…secret.
In-universe continuity notes that Doctor Strange, who had orchestrated the reunion of the OG team, had seen his powers dampened around the same time, thus determining he needed other Defenders to help him in his fight against sinister threats. To that end, he pulled a variation of his old crew together: the Secret Defenders, like the old team, would come together on an "as needed" basis, but the roster would fluctuate, with Strange, I guess, having realized that some fights needed more than than a green angry monster, a silver dude with a surfboard, and the king of an underwater empire to win them.
Doctor Strange and the Secret Defenders
Writers: Roy Thomas and Ron Marz
Pencilers: Andre Coates and Tom Grindberg
Inkers: Don Hudson, Fred Fredericks, and Mike DeCarlo and Co.
Colorist: John Kalisz
Letterers: Clem Robins and John Costanza
Issues Collected: Secret Defenders #1-11
Volume Publication Date: September 2016
Issue Publication Dates: March 1993-January 1994
I know I've stated this elsewhere, but there are few more difficult things when you enjoy writing reviews of comics than coming across a story or a collection of stories that's just…fine. Lukewarm. Nobody likes lukewarm, and if you can imagine the taste of water that's not cold enough to soothe but not hot enough to provide warmth, you know what I'm talking about. It's just…bleh.
I wish it weren't so, but that's the feeling I was left with when I finished this volume. Lukewarm. Nothing to hate and rant about in a fun manner but nothing much to find exceptionally entertaining.
I have discussed at length one of the arcs included in this volume, a three-parter which teamed Spider-Man with Strange, Captain America, and the Scarlet Witch against the magic madman Xandu. I enjoyed how Thomas pulled Xandu, a surprisingly recurring criminal, into the narrative, continuing his own story in fine fashion. I did feel, however, that Thomas' treatment of certain characters, particularly Captain America, felt a little grating, particularly as he didn't give the Captain a whole lot to do. It's a general problem with team books, that with so many different characters, someone is going to feel left out of the mix.
The premise behind Secret Defenders, in concept, should work in Thomas' favor: instead of relying on the same small cluster of heroes to be randomly herded together at intervals for missions, Thomas depicts Doctor Strange as drawing groups of heroes together for individual arcs, using two to three issues at a time to tell different tales. Our heroes often battle adversaries wrapped within occult origins, though a later narrative brings us into the reaches of space. What this should allow is a nicely diverse set of heroes who keep the book exciting, fresh, and unexpected. I appreciate variety as long as it makes sense.
To his credit, Thomas (with some help from Ron Marz later in the volume), either by his own volition or at the command of others, does use a variety of caped and cowled crusaders in these narratives. From classic heroes such as Spidey, Captain America, and Wolverine, to somewhat newer additions to the Marvel Universe (at least, when these were published) such as Thunderstrike, Nomad, and Sleepwalker, Thomas never lets the roster grow stagnant. Nobody feels like they overstay their welcome, and folks feel relatively appropriate for their arcs…mostly. A team consisting of Punisher, Namorita, and Sleepwalker feels oddly thrown together, but you sense there's some kind of logic with the other team-ups or facets of other team-ups. Scarlet Witch and Spidey had faced Xandu in the past, War Machine and Thunderstrike were both "legacy" heroes, Wolverine, Darkhawk, and Nomad are edgy, cool heroes representative of the 90s turn towards violence…it could be that I'm stretching, but there seems to be, in most cases, some sort of logic applied to Thomas' teams.
Where Thomas struggles is wrapping decent characterization around our heroes. He's not given many issues per team to say much of anything I would call "significant" about our various vigilantes, super soldiers, and mystics. But there's so much action piled into each issue, we're not allowed much camaraderie to form between characters outside comments or quips, no quiet moments to slow down and appreciate who they are. I think Ron Marz pairing War Machine and Thunderstrike is a great idea, particularly with the Iron Man and Captain America parallels, and though I would not have appreciated Marz making a blunt comparison, a slightly more established connection aping the friendliness between the Armored and Original Avengers would have been nice. We get a bit of dialogue between the two, but the rest is just fistfight after fistfight.
If anything, our most interesting characters are the four who face Xandu, and this is primarily because Thomas had incorporated some of them in a previous narrative, allowing them a common foundation to work from that we just can't apply to other heroes. As far as I am aware (and I could be oblivious), the Punisher had never teamed up with Namorita prior to Secret Defenders #4 (and, I assume, hasn't starred alongside her since), so there's no chance we'd ever get them trading favorite gun types or arguing over the ethics of the fishing industry. Admittedly, as I discussed in the "Winds of Watoomb" review, Thomas' characterization is mishandled a bit even in that arc, the writer setting aside Captain America briefly, a tactic he uses in other issues, such as finding reasons for Sleepwalker to bench himself temporarily, a decision I don't fully understand. Create more tension? Raise the stakes? It's just a tad baffling to me why you would join these diverse characters and then arbitrarily separate them.
I suspect Thomas also had a greater appreciation for and an understanding of characters who either existed when he began working for Marvel or were created during his tenure as a writer and editor. He really knew who Spider-Man, Captain America, and Scarlet Witch were (and I'll count Wolverine, even if for controversial reasons), but I imagine he struggled with other characters created later, such as Nomad and Darkhawk. He endeavors to channel some of their energy and voices into his writing, but his efforts comes off as stiff. Several folks feel selected (I assume, through editorial wrangling) to embrace that "cool" factor I mentioned, and Thomas, though he gives slightly into the edginess with the villains that he uses (including a lady with dreadlocks whose calls herself–and I wish I were making this up–"Dreadlox"), appears more like a creator tasked with certain characters rather than developing these teams naturally. Our first three issues have Wolverine paired with black-armored Darkhawk, black-suited Spider-Woman, and black-shirted Nomad, and they face villains with 90s costumes and 90s names. These issues are a product of their times, and as they were developed by a writer who wasn't, the combination feels awkward.
Where Thomas does his best work, I would argue, is in developing his villains, at least those not mired in the goofiness and gaudiness of 90s fashions. Xandu is the most developed, which feels somewhat unfair, as other writers, including Thomas, had fashioned his personality, backstory, and intentions previously. A bulky bad guy named Roadkill generates the strongest connection to perhaps any character in the whole volume, coming off as equal parts terrifying and vicious yet not without a hint of empathy as Thomas crafts a mystery around his backstory and how he ended up the way he did. The payoff is worth the read, which is not a true claim for other issues.
Lukewarm. Not hot enough to hurt, not cold enough to provide comfort. Thomas, along with Marz, wrings some interesting moments out of these issues, though there isn't enough connection between myself and the characters or between the characters themselves to elicit a more emotional response than a shrug of the shoulders. I would love to believe Thomas had an interesting idea for a series–and I do think the temporary nature of the team does work–and then was saddled with characters he had no experience with or interest in using, outside the heroes featured in the Xandu issues. I've read better work by Thomas, so perhaps the unfortunate truth is that he was past his prime. I would like to blame the former suspicion, though I suppose there's enough "meh" about this volume to provide some credence to the latter.