Batroc's Beginner's Guide to French

The kickboxing criminal named Batroc introduced an activity in Fun and Games Magazine #10 (June 1980) that asked readers to identify the French translations of 17 English words. The list included Marvel (Merveille in French) but the majority of words were not connected to comic books. Known for speaking Franglais, Batroc was the perfect character to appear in this particular puzzle.

Le Defenders

Georges Batroc, known commonly as Batroc—or Batroc the Leaper—was one of numerous supervillains to briefly pose as Defenders. In word balloons, the French speaker habitually called himself Batroc ze Leaper, signaling his accent. That being said, Batroc made an uncharacteristic word choice in Defenders #64. In one panel, which included ze three times, Batroc referred to the heroic non-team as le Defenders. In this instance, it is curious that Batroc did not say les Defenders, as the French word les is the plural translation of the while le is singular. Batroc's full text from that panel appears below, with the French word gendarmes for police:

Follow Batroc ze Leaper, my fiendish friends, and we shall lose le Defenders in ze subway!
Already, we have left ze gendarmes far behind!

In the heat of the moment, spelling discrepancies are understandable. For instance, the mercenary Paladin introduced himself as Palladin (with an extra l) during his guest appearance in Defenders #62 and again in #63.

This image of Batroc first appeared in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

The Pretender-Defenders

Frog-Man may have been the only hero ever to get turned down by the Defenders. The problem was he showed up too late.

While Beast was on the lecture circuit, discussing the ins and outs of superheroics (Defenders #131), he and teammates Iceman and Angel faced the barely-super crook named Walrus.

The teenage hero known as Frog-Man joined the experienced trio during the fight and asked to become a Defender. For a time, that was about all it took to join. But the group's membership had largely solidified in #125, and the three New Defenders rejected the struggling young hero without even consulting the rest of the team.

At the end of the battle, Frog-Man's father (the reformed villain known as Leap-Frog) showed up to scold him for taking the frog-suit without permission.

Here's the kicker (which was not acknowledged in that issue): Leap-Frog was one of the numerous criminals who once pretended to be Defenders, hoping that their claims to heroism would protect them from arrest while committing crimes.

Several of the villainous Defenders for a Day had fought the Defenders before: Libra and Sagittarius (of the Zodiac), Plantman, Porcupine, and the Blob (fully recovered after he and other members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants reverted to infancy in Defenders #16).

Other villains posing as Defenders that day were Batroc the Leaper, Beetle, Boomerang, Electro, Joe the Gorilla, Looter, Melter, Pecos, Shocker, Toad, and Whirlwind (#63-64), until a group of real Defenders stopped them.

The scene of supervillains comes from Defenders #63. The above image of Frog-Man first appeared in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.