Doctor Strange has dropped a bombshell on his teammates: he is leaving the Defenders.
Believing his powers are waning because he is adventuring more than studying,
he has no choice but to resume his older way of life. Then Luke Cage announces
he will also go since being part of a team isn’t for him. And Red Guardian
reveals that she must return to the U.S.S.R., causing Nighthawk to freak out.
Hellcat and Valkyrie are staying though, and Hulk is confused and irritated at
Nighthawk’s anger but he calms down. Farewells are made….
Jack Norriss breaks into an oil refinery in New Jersey, hoping to elude some
pursuers; no such luck: he is zapped with a ray gun and rendered unconscious by
Nick Fury (actually the rogue LMD who is later called Max Fury but that’s a few
decades away)….
The
remaining Defenders head to their other headquarters at the old riding academy.
There they surprise the villain Scorpio, who is looking for Kyle Richmond. They
attack and Scorpio fights them off with the Zodiac Key, able to fire energy
bolts and create stasis fields. The baddie hurls Hellcat into Nighthawk,
enwraps Hulk in a massive pile of machinery, and, losing the Key to Hellcat,
duels with Valkyrie, and, changing himself to water, recovers the Zodiac Key.
Seeing the Hulk free himself from the tangle of metal he was wrapped up in,
Scorpio decides that escape is the best option, teleporting out of there and leaving
the Defenders confused….
Epilogue:
A little boy delivers the newspaper to the Riding Academy where papers have
been piling up for some time. He is being stalked by the Elf with a Gun—who is
struck by a truck and killed. And so it goes….