Late
one night, a trio of punks follows a man named Milton Childs down a dark
street, finally hustling him into an alley for some violent fun. Above, Doctor Strange,
Hulk, and Valkyrie fly across the sky searching for the source of a
disturbance in the flow of time and are unaware of the crime beneath them. The
Defenders locate a glow in the harbor and when a small ship passes over it, the
ship is suddenly inundated with dead fish. The three heroes descend on the ship
to offer help in dumping the fish back into the water but Strange is seized and
dragged below the surface by Eelar, an underwater humanoid with electrical
powers who is speaking telepathically about the need to destroy the human
race….
Back
in the alley, the punks beat and rob Childs but then a huge shadowed figure orders
them to stop and when they don’t, he takes them down with no effort and rushes
Childs to the hospital. [He is Charlie-27 of the Guardians of the Galaxy.]
Back
at the harbor, an unconscious Strange is rescued by Valkyrie as Eelar flies
through the sky to destroy the city, as his thoughts are being widely
broadcast….
Upstate,
Nighthawk is flying, brooding about the events of last issue (you know, Trish
Starr). He spies a UFO crashing to the ground and heads over to investigate.
The townspeople panic and flee, except for a young boy….
Eelar
has a huge swarm of fish batter the Hudson Tunnel until the tunnel’s ceiling
cracks and collapses. The Defenders arrive and plug the massive leak with a
balled-up chunk of wrecked automobile….
The
boy in upstate New York goes home to tell his parents he saw a flying saucer
and he is punished for lying and sent to his room. He then sneaks out of the
window so he can investigate the UFO crash. Meanwhile, Nighthawk has located
the saucer and meets the Guardians of the Galaxy from a thousand years in the
future: Vance Astro, Yondu, and Martinex with Charlie being in the city…
…where
Eelar is on a violent rampage against the hated humans. Charlie sees this but
he was sworn to remain hidden while in the city and he ducks into an alley. The
Defenders arrive and give the monster battle, having trouble because of his
powerful electric charge….
At
the spaceship, Martinex pinpoints Charlie’s location and teleports Vance Astro,
Yondu, and Nighthawk to him where they join in the fight against Eelar. Then
the boy enters the ship….
Eelar
flies off and the Defenders pursue him while the Guardians head back to the
alley where Charlie-27 was sent earlier. They find Milton Childs’ briefcase
which contains the object of their journey into the past: a Badoon
mento-programmer, used for indoctrination but the tapes are missing….
Dr.
Strange locates another mento-programmer in the glowing part of the harbor and
deduces that it created Eelar. While the monster is distracted beating up a
tree, Strange explains to his teammates and the Guardians who have arrived. The
helmet fell into the water and mutated an electric eel into a humanoid form and
its propaganda tapes sent the mindless creature on a vendetta against the
Badoon’s hated enemy, the human race. The monster is subdued but Strange
prevents Val from killing it, instead restoring it to its original eel form and
put it back in the ocean….
At
a gathering in the Sanctum Sanctorum, the Guardians explain that the Badoon
conquer Earth in AD 3007 and they are seeking records of an attempted Badoon invasion
in the 20th century but are having no luck (because only the Silver
Surfer knew about it, in SILVER SURFER #2). Strange’s primary concern is
returning their guest to their own time….
At
the spaceship, Martinex learns that the little boy is a young Vance Astro….
Story
continues in DEFENDERS #26.
“Quoth
the Nighthawk, “Nevermore!””
Reprinted
from DAREDEVIL #62.