Comic News: It's Ladies Choice in Bunn's & Sliney's Fearless Defenders

It was announced about a month ago that Cullen Bunn will be writing Fearless Defenders with art by Will Sliney. The main plot of Fearless Defenders revolves around Valkyries vow to the All- Mother at the end of The Fearless maxi-series: To make a new group of Shield Maidens. Well, she sets out to do so and ends up being teamed up with street level hero for hire, Misty Knight.

            In a press conference held by Marvel this past week, Bunn & Sliney divulged more details about the up-coming Marvel NOW book.  For instance, Misty and Valkyrie will be co-leaders of the Fearless Defenders. Bunn stated, “If there was ever an odd couple of characters who are fighting side-by-side, I cannot imagine a more odd of a couple than (Valkyrie) and Misty. They’re fun to write individually, but they are so much fun when they’re interacting with one another. They bring an interesting dynamic to this team and immediately set it apart as completely different from every other superhero group out there.”

            Bunn focuses on Valkyrie’s quest and goes into the core plot of the title: "The initial pitch for this goes back several months when I first put this idea out there as something I though would make a good book. I think it's the fact that it's such a different approach to a team or a 'non-team' as Tom said. A big part of what I wanted to show was Valkyrie choosing who she thinks would be worthy to be a Shield Maiden. Just even from that I started really thinking a lot about how different the challenges they faced would be and how diverse the group itself would be and how much fun it would be to see these very different characters -- presenting them in a different light and how we could see characters that readers might not be as familiar with. We could see them in a bigger way or in a different light."

            And Tom Brevoort promises that this team would be a non team: with no headquarters and rotating membership. Yet, there was some word on the core of the team.

            It has been confirmed that Dani Moonstar, former Mutant & Valkyrie, will be the second member to join Valkyrie on the team. Brevoort confirmed that she will be a core member alongside Misty & Valkyrie. Another big surprise is the resurrection of the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. Artist Phil Jimenez redesigns the character, who will be appear in issue #3 of the title and take the hero moniker of Warrior Woman. Bunn promises a new approach to the character who was NOT a hero last time readers saw her in Marvel.

            And the first major challenge is an unrevealed villain who uses the absence of Shield Maidens to her advantage during the first story arc. And while the villains of the series have not been revealed, Bunn did give one hint: "Her resources and her mile-wide mean streak is going to make her a threat for some time to come for these characters."

            And while Phil Jimenez handled design duties for Warrior Woman, Fearless Defenders artist Wil Sliney did freshen up the designs for the rest of the characters in the book. "As you can see from the covers, they wanted to keep those costumes quite traditional and they wanted me to match up with what Mark (Brooks) had already done. Where my design elements started coming in with the Doom Maidens and some of the villains that we see, because they tie in to Norse Mythology and Asgardians. I got to bring up a lot of the things that I was interested in. In Ireland, we have a lot of that kind of jewelry. That's where I was able to bring out my influence and style. Characters like Misty and Val, their looks are so strong already that we didn't want to go too far away from what we already had."

            With the all this, the Fearless Defenders set themselves apart from many other titles. Let’s see what this book has in store.

            Fearless Defenders # 1 will hit stores this February.