Of Ambitions and Giant Amoebas

Book: The Defenders

Issue No.: 65

Published: August 29, 1978

Title: “Of Ambitions and Giant Amoebas”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Original paper copy

About half of this issue of The Defenders is the resolution to a storyline I don’t really know anything about. Which is part of the fun of jumping into the middle of the run of a comic book that was around for several years. That storyline is set in the Soviet Union and features Red Guardian and a super guy called Presence (weird name, maybe the guy’s a big late-period Led Zeppelin fan). Like I said, I’m late to this particular party, but apparently a giant amoeba has captured the nuclear-powered Presence, and the Soviet powers-that-be send nuclear-powered Red Guardian to rescue him and destroy the amoeba, before the amoeba destroys the world.

Red Guardian is so nuclear-powered that she can’t be around people, so she’s basically locked up in a big lead-lined prison. Fighting big amoebas is no fun, but she’s happy to take the job as it gets her out of her solitary cell. And also she and Presence have some kind of past, so that’s some extra motivation.

Long story short, Red Guardian frees Presence and the two destroy the amoeba. And since they’re too radioactive to be around anybody else, they decide to retire together to the wilds of Siberia or some similarly desolate province of the Soviet Union.

Most of the rest of this issue deals with the fallout from the “everybody’s a Defender now” storyline, which saw a ton of B- and C-list Marvel heroes and villains join the Defenders. I think at this point there are only three Defenders left — Nighthawk (he’s kind of Marvel’s Batman), Hellcat (fashion model-turned-superhero), and Valkyrie. And Nighthawk is realizing something’s wrong with Valkyrie — she’s freaking out and wanting to fight everybody. I mean, Valkyrie is a warrior goddess, she’s always ready for a fight, but something has her lashing out violently and mindlessly.

The story ends with Valkyrie and her winged steed both disappearing in a flash of light. Not sure what’s up with that, but I suspect we’ll find out in the next issue, teased as a story titled “Godwar.”

There were only two Marvel books published the last week of August 1979 (not counting the UK-only Star Wars Weekly). There’s one more August book I haven’t covered, Laff-a-Lympics no. 9. For whatever reason, the Fandom.com Marvel Wiki doesn’t have any week-specific publishing info for Laff-a-Lympics. So I thought I’d go ahead and write a little about it here to finish out all of Marvel’s August books.

Laff-a-Lympics is one of the licensed Hanna-Barbera books Marvel was publishing in 1978. The TV show it’s based on features a bunch of Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters (including Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, and Captain Caveman) competing in Olympic-style sporting events. In issue no. 9, the competitions are cowboy-themed — stuff like lassoing cows and horse riding. But the main story involves some dudes from the bad guys’ team (the “Really Rottens”) stealing the trophy before the competition is finished. Some of the competitors team up with a local retired lawman to recover the trophy.

It’s a light, low-stakes tale, but Laff-a-Lympics continues to be the best Marvel Hanna-Barbera book, mainly because it features one full-length story instead of a handful of short stories.

Week 35 Wrap-Up

Including the Laff-a-Lympics book, that’s three 35-cent Marvel books for the last week of August 1978. Total cover price is $1.05. Adjusted for 2025 inflation, that’s about five bucks.

That’s also a wrap for August, which means it’s time for my top five Marvel books for that month. It’s taken me forever to make it through the August 1978 books, and my favorites for the month include a lot of the usual suspects: Godzilla, King of the Monsters no. 16, Fantastic Four no. 200, Tomb of Dracula no. 67, Uncanny X-Men no. 115, and Howard the Duck no. 28.

Since it took me so long to read all of the August ’78 books, I think I’m going to try something different for the September books: a speed run. My idea is to take a few weeks off, then read Marvel’s September 1978 books in basically real time, 47 years after the fact. That means reading and writing (at least a little) about anywhere from six to eleven books per week for the four weeks of September. I’m not sure if this is a good idea, but I think I need to shake up my Marvel Time Warp routine, so I’m gonna give it a shot and see how it goes.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in September!