Dedicated to the definitive superhero non-team.


Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Le Defenders

Georges Batroc, known commonly as Batroc—or Batroc the Leaper—was one of numerous supervillains to briefly pose as Defenders. In word balloons, the French speaker habitually called himself Batroc ze Leaper, signaling his accent. That being said, Batroc made an uncharacteristic word choice in Defenders #64. In one panel, which included ze three times, Batroc referred to the heroic non-team as le Defenders. In this instance, it is curious that Batroc did not say les Defenders, as the French word les is the plural translation of the while le is singular. Batroc's full text from that panel appears below, with the French word gendarmes for police:

Follow Batroc ze Leaper, my fiendish friends, and we shall lose le Defenders in ze subway!
Already, we have left ze gendarmes far behind!

In the heat of the moment, spelling discrepancies are understandable. For instance, the mercenary Paladin introduced himself as Palladin (with an extra l) during his guest appearance in Defenders #62 and again in #63.

This image of Batroc first appeared in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

1 comment:

Justin said...

Interesting tidbit! Batroc's always been one of my favorite second-tier villains, so I appreciate you giving him some attention.