Secret Defenders, The (1993 series) #22

Doctor Druid walks down a stone staircase in a building in flames, while making a deal with an unseen Slorioth….

Shadowoman meets an enigmatic giant that reveals her life to her: Jillian Woods was a normal girl whose father abandoned his family, forcing Jill to work to support her mother who had a string of relationships with worthless men. Jill attended the University of San Francisco where she developed and interest in the occult. She met guest lecturer Anthony Druid and they realized they had been lovers in an earlier incarnation. Druid tried to steal the belongings of a dead sorcerer named Magnus and Jillian died….

Interlude: Joshua Pryce confronts a young couple and picks a fight over a damaged candy bar—to prevent the man and his pregnant wife from being killed by a falling girder. He goes off bickering with the person in his backpack….

Jillian is surprised to learn she is dead but the figure explains that Druid uses the power of the Bride of Slorioth to channel her spark of life into her own shadow. Now she is denied the afterlife while Druid controls what remains of her life. She crashes out of the statue and starts wrecking Druid’s Sanctum, even beating up Cadaver. Finding Druid, she takes him by the throat; he warns her that he is her only link to this world and what he did, he did for love. She hurls him across the room. He pulls himself together and describes a new mission. He has been working to free them from their respective curses and this may be their “final defense.” Also contacted secretly are Drax the Destroyer, Cloak and Dagger, and Deathlok. Druid asks if Cadaver is ready and he assents. He asks after Shadowoman but Jillian says that identity is dead, she is now a walking Sepulchre. Druid teleports the three of them away…just as Joshua Pryce bursts into the Sanctum looking for Druid and has just missed him. He removes Al, a head in a jar, from his pack and asks for guidance. Looking at an oak tree prompts Al to foresee a great evil coming upon the world. To face it Joshua plans to collect a counter-force….