Issue(s): Defenders #66, Defenders #67, Defenders #68
Cover Date: Dec 78 - Feb 79
Title: "War of the dead!" / "We, the unliving..." / "Valhalla can wait!"
Credits:
David Anthony Kraft & Ed Hannigan - Plot
Ed Hannigan - Script
Ed Hannigan / Herb Trimpe - Penciler
Bruce D. Patterson / Pablo Marcos - Inker

Review/plot:
This confusing and overly long "Val in Valhalla" story marks David Anthony Kraft's exit from the Defenders series and penciller Ed Hannigan transitioning into the writer role (with Kraft getting co-plotting credits for the whole arc, but Hannigan getting plot and scripting credits beginning with issue #67) and Herb Trimpe taking over on art. Kraft left the book over the Work For Hire agreement that Marvel was asking all of its freelancers to sign at this time. The reason for the agreement was due to a change in copyright law; covering all the details would require a website of its own, but the agreement set off a huge creators' rights movement amongst the comics artists and writers (and dovetails with the movement for the return of original art, which leads to a subset of issues around Jack Kirby specifically; again, it's a big story and i'm not getting into it). Kraft specifically was working on a Beatles comic book for which he would be getting regular royalties and he quit the Defenders in part because it wasn't possible for him to get the same type of deal on regular Marvel books.

Anyway, back to this arc.

The plot is basically that the guy with the best hat in all of Asgard decides that as his prize he ought to get to rule Valhalla.

The Valkyrie is split in half, with her evil Barbara Norriss side teaming up with hat-guy. Nighthawk and Hellcat literally die in a car accident in order to join Val in Hel (and act like completely incurious idiots when the evil Val dupes them into working for her for a while), and the Hulk is brought to Asgard as well. They fight, the Hulk destroys a mountain...

...and hat-guy is defeated. This process also exorcises the Barbara Norriss persona permanently, making Valkyrie a real Asgardian Valkyrie once and for all (and possibly the Brunnhilde of Wagner's Ring Cycle, although there already was a Brunnhilde appearing in older Thor comics).

Hannigan's art is actually pretty good this story. I don't know if Patterson is a good inker for him, or if he's just more inspired by the Asgardian setting, or if it's just a case of "you only miss them when they're gone"...

...but his writing isn't so great and neither is Trimpe's art.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - Valkyrie loses the Barbara Norriss persona.

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Hulk starts this arc being pursued by the military. We know from Hulk #243 that the Hulk appearance here occurs after that issue and before Daredevil #163, and the pursuit by the military works well with the knowledge that Talbot is not back in charge of Gamma Base.

References:

• Valkyrie and Barbara Norriss were bonded in Defenders #4. Queen Casiolena, one of Hat-guy's allies, was also last seen in that issue.
  
• Hat-guy's (Oh, all right, his name is Ollerus the Unmerciful) toadie Poppo the Cunning uses the Crystal of Eternal View, which was last seen in Thor #149.
  
• Odin accuses Hela of frequently overstepping her bounds. He uses her attempt to take the life of Balder in Thor #275 as an example.
  
• Like in issue #65, another huge chunk of the Defenders is referenced: Defenders #23 through Defenders #40 represent the story of Val sorting out her identity.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The title to #68 references the Warren Beatty film "Heaven can Wait".

David Kraft quickly went on to form Fictioneer, the publisher of the long-running and well-respected Comics Interview. He's the 3rd Marvel guy to start his own publishing company; the others being Mike Friedrich and Bill Black.

For what it's worth, the spelling of Barbara and Jack's last name, which varied a little at first, was standardized as "Norriss" pretty early on.

Thanks Matthew.

When did Steranko start his magazine?

Steranko's Comixscene/Mediascene/Prevue started in either 1972 or 1973.

Oh! Just as a point of order, Fictioneer was something Dave Kraft created while still in high school, when he became a literary estate executor of Otis Adelbert Kline, though it is correct that he published Comics Interview through Fictioneer. So technically, he was the 2nd Marvel guy to start his own publishing company- he just hadn't started at Marvel yet. His first work there was drawing George Perez's first full-color gig, Creatures On The Loose.
Fictioneer also published hard back editions of Jack London, Frank Baum, the autobiography of A.E. van Vogt, Robert E. Howard, and E. Hoffmann Price, a colorful ex-soldier and pulp writer who became an early mentor. If you click my name (or any of these yellow "post" names, if you weren't aware), you can find an overview in the June 1, 2016 entry, 3rd one down at present.

Argh, obviously with Perez around, Dave the Dude did the writing, and George Perez drew the issues- as if longtime fans didn't auto correct that. Ha ha! And I did mean, the yellow underlined names posted here will lead you back to the blogs and websites of those posters.

Barbara was already set up for a status quo as a college student, which added significantly to the story engine, so
I would like to know why they essentially eradicated that version of Val with this storyline. Perhaps it was a deck-clearing exercise for the strip's most convoluted character: there was no way to introduce all the elements emerging from her tortured genesis on a regular story-to-story basis. Jack was gone with Gerber, so the drama of her situation might've been seen as exhausted- she was still popular enough with the readership to headline a three-issue arc. Another front is opened for Patsy as well, with the callback to Millie and modeling.

Sometimes in this period, it's hard to tell how much of the story reflects what the readers loved and wanted and how much lay with the creative teams' whims. I think what the writer wants is generally prime throughout Marvel history, and then sales and certainly fan mail might create speculation as to which parts of the "formula" could be refined to greater success.

Not to nitpick, Cecil, but Jack Norriss was hardly "gone with Gerber," being an integral part of the Scorpio arc culminating in #50.

You're right, I was thinking about him only in relation to Barbara.