Defenders #99: Review

Sep 1981

J. M. DeMatteis, Joe Sinnott

Story Name:

The Final Conflict?

Synopsis

Defenders #99 Synopsis by Julio Molina-Muscara

The Defenders are joined by Hulk, Namor, Silver Surfer and Clea, who show up in the hellish dimension trapped in life essence capsules. The host demon introduces himself as Maya and laughs at the Defenders since their situation seems to worse every second! Without much choice but to leave the trapped Defenders behind, Doctor Strange, Son of Satan, Valkyrie and the Devil-Slayer follow their captors to Citrusville. The place is obscene and the people are faceless, reacting like beasts when Valkyrie wanted to help them. Son of Satan can take it no more and fires his soul-fire weapon at the 6 demons. The good and the bad collide. During the battle, the soil cracks open releasing more and more hellish beings. The Defenders are outnumbered and start loosing. Suddenly, the four Defenders trapped in life essence cells show up with the Gargoyle and help defeating the demons. As a result, Citrusville's people become normal and vanish back to Earth. And the demons reduce their size and vanish. But for one, Maya, who laughs at the Defenders' attack. Gargoyle freed his teammates by providing life essence energy to the capsules, enough for their prisoners to break them without risking their lives. Maya explains he subconsciously taught the Gargoyle how to do it and drops his disguise as Maya, showing his true self as Mephisto! Mephisto claims Doctor Strange helped weaken the nexus between hell and the Earth with his recent interdimensional trips. That nexus originally suffered when the cosmos was expanded (DEF #92). The presence of Devil Slayer also helped to open more the nexus. Mephisto creates a capsule ship around the Defenders and travelling through dimensions, takes the heroes back to Earth. The Defenders witness astonished how Satan and his demons finally conquered the Earth taking over Manhattan! And that's not all, Hellcat was adopted by Satan as his daughter and they have Nighthawk as prisoner!

Review / Commentaries

Rating:

Defenders #99 Review by Peter Silvestro (July 30, 2024)

Review: And now the Defenders must face the silly demons in their own lair and we are treated to the Carnival of the Damned, which would have been amazing had the art been any good. The real horror is seen in the fate of Citrusville, which explores loss of identity, which C.S. Lewis speculated was the essence of Hell. And then there’s the changes Hellcat is going through, silly on the face of it but with a darker, scarier subtext to be explored later. Good issue, could have been a lot better.

Comments: Part six of seven parts. Satan’s manifestations are Thog (from Man-Thing comics), Satannish (Dr. Strange villain), and Mephisto (Silver Surfer nemesis). The letters page includes one by Steve Lowther, who may be the future comics artist of that name and one by future comics historian Bruce Canwell.