The Making of Mandrill

At the time of his debut in Shanna The She-Devil #4 (June 1973), the villain Mandrill worked with an accomplice named Professor Skecher. Mandrill had the superhuman power to compel women to do his bidding, and the heinous Professor Skecher would tattoo Mandrill's facial markings onto the face of each follower. Sketcher himself had no visible tattoos. The adventurer Shanna O'Hara surprised both men with her athleticism and her ability to resist Mandrill's influence.

By the time the Defenders faced Mandrill, Professor Skecher was out of the picture and Mandrill's new female followers (the Fem-Force) were not tattooed in his image.

Dungeons of Doom

The covers of Shanna The She-Devil (Feb. 1973) and Marvel Two-In-One #68 (Oct. 1980) each promoted a Dungeon of Doom! The dungeons inside the two issues, however, could not have been more different.

For Shanna, the dungeon was minimalistic. Captured by the underlings of crimelord El Montano, Shanna found herself bound on the floor of a holding cell. Imprisoned alongside Shanna were her two trained leopards, Biri and Ina. Although the heroine described El Montano's men as jackals, there were no actual jackals in the cell (in spite of the cover image). Shanna easily escaped, defeating the sword-bearing jailer standing guard at the cell door.

Thing and Angel, on the other hand, ran into each other at a new disco called Zanadu Zone, only to find themselves caught in the secret dungeon underneath. Filled with mechanical traps and robots, the dungeon was the brainchild of Toad (one of the villainous Defenders for a Day and an original member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants). After escaping, a sympathetic Angel agreed to pay off Toad's debts and finance a fun house called Toadland. Candy Southern was Angel's date to Zanadu Zone and again to Toadland.

Seven Little Superheroes

The Defenders never had a television series of their own. But an episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends certainly had a Defenders-esque charm.

Spider-Man teamed up with Firestar and Iceman each week on the NBC Saturday-morning cartoon from the early 1980s. The episode titled 7 Little Superheroes upped the ante by bringing Sub-Mariner, Dr. Strange, Captain America, and Shanna the Jungle Queen into the mix.

Following the formula that Agatha Christie popularized in Ten Little Indians (a.k.a. And Then There Were None), each of the seven heroes received an invitation to an island estate. Not until they arrived did the heroes learn that their host was the mysterious Chameleon.

Revamped for the TV series, Chameleon made a suitably resourceful opponent. Using disguises and traps, he captured each hero one by one—from the dehydration devices that immobilized Sub-Mariner to the demon-robot that snatched Dr. Strange.

One of the episode's many highlights came near the end when Spider-Man triggered a chain of events that—like a reverse game of Mousetrap—allowed each of the other heroes to escape.

Equally praiseworthy were the apt portrayals of the guest stars—notably the standoffish short fuse of Sub-Mariner, the serene intellection of Dr. Strange, and the cooperative spirit of Captain America.

The episode 7 Little Superheroes first aired on NBC in the fall of 1981, before Iceman joined the Defenders and Firestar made her comic book debut.