Have to admit, haven't read the DeMatteis Defenders, but it's gonna be hard to top Stern's Avengers, particularly since Hercules was involved and nothing tops good old Herc.

Stern's Avengers

I did not enjoy DeMatties' run on the Defenders. Wasn't Manslaughter some sort of masochist who would torture heroes with a knife because the wounds would transfer to his body, and this was all somehow a good thing?  Didn't he actually join the team? And Cloud, the transgenderal naked teenager, who turned out to be more than one person and thus was not switching genders so much as identies? And Moondragon was possessed by some sort of Dragon of the Moon? Did his run go back as far as the Six-Fingered Hand story wherein it was "revealed" that the Patsy Walker, the Hellcat, was actually another daughter of Satan? Convenient name she picked out... Hedy Wolfe had no idea with whom she was contending...

Stern's Avengers was a classic run.  She-Hulks and soap operas, Starfoxes and Spidey appearances...

DeMatteis did begin his run with the Saga of the Six-Fingered Hand (Defenders #94, intro Gargoyle), and while I agree that Stern's run was "better," this Defenders run was a close second, and that initial arc that ended with Hell on Earth in issue #100 was awesome!

Aside from anything JB did at the House of Ideas, these two Marvel runs are my favorites, though I preferred Marc's original Defenders to his New Defenders, and Perlin and DeMulder were two great tastes that did not go great together.

DeMulder looked good over JB in the She-Hulk graphic novel, though, didn't he?

TODAY'S TOSS-UP (8/19):

Jim Aparo's Brave and the Bold or his Batman and the Outsiders?