New Defenders, The (1983 series) #134

After a long absence, Beast returns to the Defenders’ Rocky Mountain HQ and is surprised to find no one around. He is suddenly seized from behind but it turns out to be Valkyrie with the other team members nearby. They explain that they have been finding threatening messages on their answering machine from someone called Manslaughter and they are all on edge. They fill him in on the whole story…

…Cloud awoke to find a garland of flowers around her neck but it hid snakes inside, accompanied by a sinister note. Angel then flew through the Aerie and found no one but a threatening note was attached to his wings. Moondragon’s psychic sweep revealed no intruders. Then when Iceman was working out, the machine burned the words, “The heat’s on” into his chest. Moondragon, her mental powers blocked, expressed her concern to Gargoyle, who was suddenly trapped by a pentagram of flame before vanishing. Moondragon called for help, the others came, and Valkyrie discovered that her sword Dragonfang was missing from its scabbard….

And now, the heroes find the mysterious villain Manslaughter standing in their midst, holding Dragonfang. Val hurls a knife at him which he catches and tosses back as he only needs Dragonfang to kill them. He hints he is working for the villain from the previous issue but is mainly doing it for fun. And then he snaps his fingers, makes a quip, and their television set explodes and Manslaughter vanishes before their eyes. Moondragon insists that they cannot defeat their foe so long as the headband dampens her psi-powers and wants to remove it but Valkyrie will not permit it. But Beast has an idea how they can defeat their enemy….

That night, the Defenders all stay awake and alert in the large room until Cloud insists on using the restroom, with Val standing guard outside. But Manslaughter suddenly appears in the bathroom and cuts Cloud’s throat; the others rush in but the villain is nowhere to be seen. The heroes conduct a search of the building but Manslaughter suddenly appears in the basement and snaps Iceman’s neck. But Angel sees the villain and confronts him; Manslaughter sprays nerve gas on Angel, which is blocked by a full head gas mask but seeps into his wings. Angel flies up through a window into the sky but then he drops to the ground. Valkyrie arrives to spar with Manslaughter, matching her poleaxe to his stolen Dragonfang. But the bad guy has poisoned the magic blade and a small cut to her leg is all he needs to defeat her and he moves on, leaving the sword behind. He is next confronted by Moondragon, psychic to psychic but he reveals that his sole psi-power is reading opponents’ autonomic nervous systems, meaning he can block their senses making himself invisible unless looked at straight on. And then Manslaughter links his nervous system to her mind in an unbreakable bond, meaning that any injury done to him will be felt by her—and the bad guy demonstrates by slicing open his palm; Moondragon does indeed feel it. Manslaughter makes clear that if she kills him, she will die too. And then the Defenders spring their trap: Beast’s plan was to make the villain believe he had succeeded in killing the Defenders. Cloud’s powers were used to fake her and Iceman’s deaths, while Val and Angel were placed in cryogenic sleep until an antidote for their poisons could be found. Beast asks the iced-up villain what he did with Gargoyle but Manslaughter denies any responsibility or knowledge of Isaac’s fate. Moondragon insists on killing the baddie because the violation of her mind was so shameful; Cloud calms her down by telling Moondragon, “I love you….”