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Review: Defenders Epic Collection- The Six-Fingered Hand

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Quick Summary

Pros: The first half of the book is great and has exciting individual stories that all build up to an even more exciting conclusion. The book’s themes and topics of discussion are interesting and suit the tone of the book. Some aspects of stories in the book’s second half are interesting.

Cons: The stories in the book’s second half are not all great. The artwork is lackluster in some places.

Overall: This is a unique and interesting collection of stories from this era. It has a team of superheroes take on darker and more occult threats than most superheroes would tackle, while also dealing with themes related to these topics. This creates a book with plenty of exciting and interesting narratives to follow along with. Readers interested in the history of the Defenders or in occult, superhero team-ups should definitely consider checking this volume out.

Story

Earlier volumes in the Defenders series mostly centered around somewhat standardized clashes between a group of rotating heroes and a random villain. The team was essentially a less formal version of the Avengers. This volume changes things up by firmly entrenching the team in the occult. This leads to stories that are often dark and mysterious, with an almost-horror tone running through most chapters. In many ways, I feel like the stories in this volume served as a precursor to similar comics of the future, such as the Justice League Dark (Reading Order).

In this way, Defenders Epic Collection: The Six-Fingered Hand, by J.M. DeMatteis, feels like a reinvention of the Defenders as a team and works well as a collection of unique Bronze Age comic stories. Most of the stories here are unique, interesting, and captivating from start to finish. This is particularly true in the volume’s opening arc, which takes up nearly half the book. From here, the stories get a little worse but never dip below an average level of quality. In the end, this is a worthwhile book with appeal that comes out in many forms.

(spoilers start here)

The first half of The Six-Fingered Hand details the Defenders’ battle against the titular “Six Fingered Hand”. At first, these chapters are mostly isolated from one another and have the Defenders dealing with individual threats. However, each threat also contains a tease toward the Six Fingered Hand’s ultimate plan. This builds as the chapters progress and climaxes in a battle against the Devil himself. The result is a tense and epic battle that works as a great conclusion to the narrative.

It also helps that each of these chapters has some unique messaging to go along with it. The individual encounters ponder loyalty, insanity, faith, and the general nature of life. All of these messages also suit the somber and introspective theme of the comic as a whole.

Unfortunately, the second half of The Six-Fingered Hand is not quite as universally positive. The stories collected in this half all have their positives and all manage to rise above mediocrity. One explores how a twisted sense of nationalism can be destructive and another works as a great evolution for Valkyrie. However, none of them stand out quite as significantly as the stories in the book’s first half.

In addition, the fake-out deaths of Valkyrie and Nighthawk are pretty cheesy. These characters die in lackluster ways and end up revived in only a few chapters. It takes the punch out of their sacrifices and generally feels like a cheap approach to the narrative. 

(spoilers end here)

Art

The artwork across The Six-Fingered Hand has its ups and downs and ends up being one of the less satisfying aspects of the collection. There are a number of places, across the read, where the characters’ faces appear overly gaunt or where they do not properly convey the emotion demanded by the scene. In addition, there are places where the level of detail drops or where splash pages simply does not look as impressive as it should. However, the page structures are great throughout the volume and work well in telling the story. In addition, the quality of the artwork improves as the collection progresses, with a few pages really standing out in some of the later chapters. Overall, the visuals here aren’t quite what I would hope for but are not a serious flaw for the collection as a whole.

Continuity

Defenders Epic Collection: The Six-Fingered Hand continues the story from Defenders #91.

The story here continues in Defenders Epic Collection: Ashes, Ashes… (Review).

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

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