Synopsis: Defenders 57 was written by Chris Claremont and drawn by George Tuska, with assist by Dave Cockrum and opens with months earlier Hulk smashing a table, trying to break the Orb of Agamotto as it shows him an image of Ms Marvel, someone the Hulk has battled before. Dr Strange and Valkyrie calmed the Hulk down and the affair was quickly forgotten.
Months later Dr Michael Barnett, therapist to Carol (Ms Marvel) Danvers is drinking away his sorrows. He’s distraught over knowing Carol’s secret and that he can’t be as close to her as he’d like. He is interrupted by an Arthur Shaman, who hypnotises him and delivers him to Advanced Idea Mechanics (known as A.I.M.) A.I.M. have a plan to plug a leak in their security by finding out how Ms Marvel found out things about their organisation and killing her.
With her ‘seventh’ sense alerting her to oncoming danger to her and the Defenders, she seeks them out, finding Nighthawk and Hellcat, coming in after a night on the town. A.I.M. use some kind of mind scanning technology to pull information about Ms Marvel’s fears from Michael Barnett and conclude that the best weapon to use against her is the Hulk. The plan is formed, now this is the plan. Capture the Hulk, brainwash the Hulk, pit him against Ms Marvel and solve many problems at once, including using a killer with no ties to them. That’s their plan? They’re a terrorist organisation in the eyes of the law, why do they care about not being linked to this?
They send out a big robot, who freezes the Hulk after disabling Valkyrie and Clea, who were with the Hulk at Dr Strange’s place. At that exact moment, Nighthawk flies by and drops a tracer on the vessel taking Hulk to A.I.M. and directs Hellcat and Ms Marvel at his place to come with him.
They get there and start tearing stuff up, able to grab hold of the big robot without being seen, Ms Marvel destroys it, without running the risk of being frozen like the Hulk, Hellcat demolishes Arthur Shaman, while the rest of the A.I.M. troops in their yellow beekeeper outfits are beaten by Nighthawk. Hulk and Dr Barnett are freed and Ms Marvel explains that her seventh sense must have interacted with the Orb of Agamotto months earlier because ….. well guessing.
Notes: Not the weakest Defenders story, but to be honest there are so many better ones. Actually here they are
https://liverpoolmunky76.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/giant-sized-defenders-5/
https://liverpoolmunky76.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/defenders-26/
https://liverpoolmunky76.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/defenders-27/
https://liverpoolmunky76.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/defenders-28/
https://liverpoolmunky76.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/defenders-29/
This is not as enjoyable as them, not simply because of my Guardians of the Galaxy fandom, but it’s just a bit of a fill in issue, that doesn’t really make much of a difference to the title as a whole, nor does it work as a one shot.
Next Time: Mechanical Madness, from the King
My Marvel Life 