So “Fearless Defenders” is cancelled. To the surprise of probably no one. The news comes straight from series writer Cullen Bunn and his tumblr that the series will end with December’s issue 12. This… is not surprising, unfortunately. Nor is all that disappointing, even for someone who wanted this series to do well. The most disappointing thing about “Fearless Defenders” was how it never once lived up to the potential.
Look, okay, some people will see a team comprised entirely of name female characters in the Marvel Universe as pandering, but to me it showed that someone at Marvel does actually listen when people talk about representation. A lot of these characters were ones who hadn’t seen the spotlight in a while and were finally getting lead roles in a book. However, the series was more focused on a rather queerbaiting (look it up) subplot involving a genuinely interesting original character and Bunn’s clear favourite before discarding the plot halfway through. The series was scattered with no real focus or even a message beyond “look how many obscure female characters we can fit on one page” and it was it’s own worst enemy. Not to mention art that did not do the book justice, except for Stephanie Hans’ saving grace, and this series was almost doomed from the start.
Hopefully this book being cancelled doesn’t completely throw off Marvel from the idea of an all-woman team because the idea is solid. This just wasn’t the right book or the right creative team for it to work. For an idea like this to work at it’s full strength you either need a woman writing (like Kelly Sue DeConnick or Kathryn Immomen) or you need a male writer whose strength is writing women (like Greg Rucka). At least we have “She-Hulk”, “Black Widow” and more “Captain Marvel” on the horizon. Let’s just hope nothing happens to “X-Men” in the mean time…
