Defenders of the Earth
Newspaper strips go to war: The Phantom, Mandrake, Lothar, and the Junior Defenders vs. the floating brain Mindball. 65 episodes, vault locked, a funnies page curio.
Cast & Key People
Our Review
King Features put its newspaper strip estate on the field: The Phantom, Mandrake the Magician, and Lothar, plus their kids in the Junior Defenders, versus Mindball, a floating alien brain with a grudge and an army of Mongo robots. Sixty five episodes of syndicated heroics with the look of a Sunday funnies page set to a synth theme.
The show works when it plays the strips’ strengths, The Phantom’s jungle theatrics, Mandrake’s escape artist routines, Lothar’s strength, and falls flat in the Junior Defenders segments, which exist for a reason we can only blame on merchandisers. Mindball’s monologues are the highlight reel.
It sits in the King Features vault, no streaming in the US, complete series discs long out of print. A curio for comic strip completists, 6.5 out of 10.
