The next year in the life of Luke Cage is remarkable for how ordinary it is. As Power Man, he fights a few new villains and has a couple of grudge matches with old ones. Bits of new information are added to his tragic backstory. He has the requisite romantic ups-and-downs. He meets some more of his fellow costumed crime-fighters—and his book is used as a launching pad for Marvel’s newest black superhero. But none of it seems to amount to much—which may be the point. Luke is a workaday hero trying to make ends meet in a decaying city, spending his time in greasy diners, filthy alleyways, dilapidated buildings, and moonlit construction sites. It’s only the crime lords who seem to enjoy any luxury. Everyone else, good guys and bad, struggles on the edge of poverty and despair. Perhaps Power Man is, at its heart, a story of perseverance.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale). Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Now continuing… The True History of Luke Cage, Power Man!
January 1967 – Luke Cage pays a visit to Reva Connors’ grave in a cemetery in Harlem, telling his deceased girlfriend about his faltering relationship with Dr. Claire Temple. Claire soon turns up, having learned that Luke was there from his friend David “D.W.” Griffith, and assures him that she doesn’t want their romance to end. Luke and Claire kiss and make up, though he still worries that his status as a fugitive will always cast a shadow over them. When they head back to Midtown Manhattan later, Luke saves businessman Maxwell Plumm from falling to his death after being thrown from the skeletal structure of a new skyscraper by a masked construction worker calling himself the Steeplejack. Though the Steeplejack gets away, Plumm explains that he knows the villain’s true identity; he’s a former employee named Jake Mallard who wants revenge for the accidental deaths of his two brothers on that very construction site. Luke hands Plumm a business card and suggests he hire him to take care of the Steeplejack. Luke then escorts Claire back to her storefront clinic near Times Square.
At the clinic, Luke and Claire find Dr. Noah Burstein, the man responsible for Luke’s superhuman powers. Burstein is glad to see they have reconciled but agrees that Luke’s criminal past will always be a threat to their future unless he can clear his name. Claire wonders if there’s any way for Luke to prove he was innocent of the drug-possession charges that led to his conviction, but Luke is convinced the only person who could provide such proof is the man who framed him, Willis Stryker, and he’s dead. However, Burstein suggests that Luke find out which rival gang Stryker stole the drugs from that he planted in Luke’s apartment—perhaps they might have some kind of records that would help exonerate him. Though it’s been nine years, Luke decides it’s worth looking into, and he spends the rest of the day talking to his various informants, including the notoriously unreliable Flea.
In the evening, Plumm hires Luke to guard the construction site, so he heads over there around midnight and finds the Steeplejack sabotaging the building’s steel girders with a homemade acetylene torch. To Luke’s surprise, the Steeplejack proves to be a tough customer, but he quickly falls victim to his own sabotage and plunges to his death. When the Steeplejack hits the ground, the chemical tanks strapped to his back explode, incinerating his body. Satisfied that he’s earned his pay, Luke heads home to his rooms above the Gem Theater on W. 42nd Street.
February 1967 – Luke is curious when D.W. presents him with a special-delivery package that’s just arrived, though he becomes suspicious when he sees there’s no return address. Before he can open the package, he is called away to a meeting with Flea at a phone booth on a corner in Hell’s Kitchen. When he arrives, Luke finds Flea lying in a nearby alley, having been fatally poisoned. Flea manages to get out one word before he dies—“Cottonmouth.” Once Flea’s body has been taken away in an ambulance, Luke returns to his office and opens the package. Two cottonmouth snakes leap out and bite him, though their fangs cannot penetrate his impervious skin. Luke grabs the snakes and beats them to death. A pair of burly men called Mike and Ike then burst into the room and announce they work for the man who sent the package. Their attempt to intimidate Luke fails, and he beats them up and forces them to reveal that their employer is the notorious Midtown drug lord called Cottonmouth. Luke realizes that Stryker must have stolen the heroin used to frame him from Cottonmouth’s gang.
Luke drags Mike and Ike to the skyscraper where their employer has his offices and confronts Cottonmouth and his diminutive assistant, Slick. Angry about Flea’s murder, Luke tries to punch Cottonmouth in the face, only to discover that the gangster has super-strength to go along with his weirdly reptilian eyes. Luke is caught off guard when Cottonmouth apologizes for having Flea killed, saying he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known Flea was working for Luke, as he wants Luke to join his organization. Offering his guest a glass of wine, Cottonmouth says he sent over the snakes merely as a test of the “Hero for Hire’s” resourcefulness and admits to being suitably impressed. Hoping to gather the evidence needed to clear his name, Luke agrees to throw in with Cottonmouth. However, Slick points out that their men won’t accept Luke unless he first proves himself, suggesting he steal back a shipment of heroin that was hijacked a week ago by their rival, the Harlem crime boss named Morgan. Familiar with Morgan’s operation, Luke agrees to retrieve the heroin singlehandedly. He heads up to Harlem, fights his way through Morgan’s heavily armed henchmen, and promptly returns to Midtown with the stolen drugs. Cottonmouth and Slick are delighted and heartily welcome Luke into their gang.
Over the next couple weeks, Luke learns everything he can about Cottonmouth’s operation from top to bottom, though he’s unable to find any written records detailing their activities. To keep Claire safe, Luke stays away from the clinic and has no contact with her or Burstein. He tells D.W. only that he’s working undercover on a big case.
March 1967 – Luke finally has the chance to search Cottonmouth’s office one night, hoping to find the records in his desk. He’s flummoxed, though, when he finds nothing and wonders how Cottonmouth can run such a complex organization without any written records. He decides the time has come to call in the NYPD narcotics squad but is caught in the act by Cottonmouth and Slick. Cottonmouth is outraged by the betrayal and attacks, pitting his super-strength against Luke’s. As they fight, Slick moves around them, trying to get a clear shot at Luke with his pistol. However, Luke inadvertently knocks Cottonmouth into Slick, sending the little man crashing through a window. Cottonmouth is horrified as Slick falls 35 stories to his death, since he relied on Slick’s photographic memory in lieu of keeping written records. Enraged that his investigation has come to nothing, Luke finally defeats Cottonmouth and turns him over to the police.
The following evening, Luke eagerly goes to visit Claire at the clinic, only to learn from Burstein that she’s left town, possibly for good. He is stunned when Burstein gives him a note Claire left saying she’s gone to Los Angeles and doesn’t want Luke to follow her. Boiling with anger, Luke rips up the note and storms out of the clinic.
April–June 1967 – Increasingly bitter that Claire has left him, Luke struggles to get enough paying clients to make ends meet, even though he receives a good deal of positive media coverage for smashing Cottonmouth’s crime ring. As a result of the publicity, most New Yorkers finally start thinking of him as a superhero called Power Man rather than just Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.
July 1967 – Luke is hired by J.C. Pennysworth, the African-American Chief Operations Officer of Richmond Enterprises, to protect a skyscraper construction site from a gang of extortionists called the Wrecking Crew. The villains have already demolished two of the company’s other new buildings, and Mayor John V. Lindsay has refused to pay their multi-million-dollar ransom. Shortly after arriving at the construction site at W. 29th St. and Broadway, Luke meets two other superheroes, Doctor Strange and Nighthawk, who have come as a personal favor to the owner of the company, Kyle Richmond. Though Luke initially mistakes the interlopers for the extortionists, the three heroes agree to team up when the building is suddenly destroyed by the real Wrecking Crew—the Wrecker, Thunderball, Bulldozer, and Piledriver. The ensuing battle goes sideways when the Hulk arrives on the scene and wreaks havoc. The fighting stops when Thunderball finds a small adamantium capsule in the rubble—the real reason they demolished the building—and announces that the gamma bomb it was supposed to contain has gone missing. The villains take advantage of the heroes’ shock, bludgeon them into unconsciousness, and escape.
After they all come to, Luke joins Doctor Strange, Nighthawk, and the Hulk as they track the Wrecking Crew uptown to Harlem, where one of Luke’s young fans informs them that the villains have invaded the Harlem Boys Club. Ignoring Doctor Strange’s words of caution, Hulk storms into the building and attacks the Wrecking Crew, followed by Nighthawk and Luke. Fortunately, the fight moves out into the street before any harm is done. The Wrecking Crew is soon defeated, and the heroes turn their attention to locating and defusing the gamma bomb. Determining that the boy they met earlier was unwittingly carrying the bomb in his baseball mitt, the heroes track him down. Doctor Strange then uses his magic amulet to hypnotize the Hulk, causing him to change back into Bruce Banner, who created the first gamma bomb. Using a bomb-disposal kit magically purloined from a military base, Banner is able to defuse the bomb, whereupon he immediately becomes the Hulk again. The heroes breathe a sigh of relief, though the Hulk is none too happy that Doctor Strange made him fall asleep. Luke worries that he won’t be paid for his night’s work since he failed to prevent the skyscraper from being destroyed. However, a couple days later, he receives a portion of his fee from Kyle Richmond himself for helping recover the gamma bomb. For reasons he doesn’t quite understand, Luke receives the lion’s share of the credit for capturing the Wrecking Crew.
Luke is baffled by a midsummer snowstorm in New York City. Reports of bizarre weather come in from around the globe, but the cause remains a mystery. Near the end of the month, more strange occurrences are reported after Luke wakes up and discovers that everyone in the city passed out two days ago. The Fantastic Four soon announce that these later phenomena were part of an alien invasion plot that they’ve foiled.
August 1967 – A panic in the Gem Theater leads Luke into a vicious fight with Erik Josten, a minor super-villain who called himself “Power Man” and fought the Avengers a few times. Having recently gotten out of prison, Josten is furious that Luke has appropriated his code name and is determined to take it back by force. Their battle causes extensive damage to the theater, but Luke doesn’t take it too seriously until he finds a young girl hiding behind her seat. Enraged by Josten’s utter disregard for the girl’s safety, Luke escorts her out of the theater and then kicks the villain’s ass. Mocking his claims of having defeated the Avengers, Luke tosses Josten into the street and threatens to give him a worse beating if he ever tries calling himself “Power Man” again. As Josten is picked up by the police, Luke takes the little girl to a nearby ice cream parlor.
Later, Luke returns to the theater to survey the damage with D.W., who believes their insurance will pay for the necessary repairs, though he’ll be out of work while the building is closed. Luke tells D.W. that he’s planning to go to Los Angeles to track down Claire, as he’s learned that she’s been sending Burstein postcards from a hotel in Pomona. He just needs to scrape together the bus fare. Heading up to his office, Luke is ambushed by Stiletto and his new partner, Discus, who tosses around razor-sharp discs, though they can’t lacerate Luke’s invulnerable skin. The fight soon carries them outside and down the street to a Nathan’s hot-dog restaurant. There, Luke beats both of his foes into submission, only to have Tyler Stuart, the former warden of Seagate Prison, turn up and reveal that Stiletto and Discus are his sons. All too familiar with the state of America’s prisons, Stuart doesn’t want his boys incarcerated, though he doesn’t condone their vigilante actions. Luke admits that Stuart was the only warden who ever treated him fairly, and since all three of them know he’s really the escaped convict Carl Lucas, he decides to let them slip away before the police arrive. However, he warns Stuart to keep his sons away from him in the future.
Luke is caught by surprise when a powerful earthquake suddenly strikes New York City. He goes out into the neighborhood around Times Square and helps people trapped in quake-damaged buildings. It is soon reported that the tremors were caused by a pair of disgruntled scientists, who have been taken into custody.
September 1967 – When Luke is finally ready to head out to Los Angeles, D.W. decides to accompany him, seeing his temporary unemployment as a chance to visit Hollywood. Luke is glad to have the company for the long, cross-country trip. Unfortunately, their bus breaks down halfway, and the passengers are split up onto different lines. After a few stops, Luke and D.W. find themselves the only passengers left on their new bus. As they’re passing through Arizona, the bus is ambushed by a group of men in militaristic uniforms with automatic weapons. The driver is shot dead, causing the bus to crash into a stand of pine trees. Not sure whether D.W. has survived, Luke smashes his way out of the wreck and beats up their assailants. He discovers that the gunmen work as police officers in a nearby gated community called Security City and uses their own handcuffs to shackle them to the bus. After D.W. has come to, the two friends hike out to Security City and find it to be more like a military encampment than a small town. They force their way through the main gate and head toward city hall, facing fierce resistance from the heavily armed citizens. Since D.W. is not bulletproof, Luke surrenders. They are led at gunpoint to a meeting with the head of the city council, who turns out to be Luke’s old foe Gideon Mace. Having survived their last encounter, Mace gloats over finally besting Luke and brags about his scheme to manipulate the carefully selected residents of Security City to create a new social order with himself at the top. However, D.W. has activated the building’s sound system, causing Mace’s ranting to be broadcast through the loudspeakers outside. As a result, the citizenry riots, furious at having been played for fools. Luke knocks out Mace with a punch in the head and leads D.W. to safety outside the settlement, leaving behind the bloody insurrection.
Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Luke and D.W. bribe a clerk at the hotel in Pomona to learn that Claire has been spending most of her time at a circus at the county fairgrounds. Heading over there to look for her, Luke is called upon to save the life of a hapless trapeze artist, Luigi Gambonno. Somewhat grudgingly, his identical twin, Ernesto Gambonno, offers Luke and D.W. free admission to the circus. The two friends soon find Claire, leading to an awkward reunion as she reveals that she came to California to help her ex-husband, a scientist named Bill Foster whose association with the former Avenger Henry Pym has left him stuck being 15 feet tall. Feeling like a freak, Foster has taken a job at the circus to fund his research into a cure. Claire explains that she wanted Luke to stay away so Foster, who aspires to be a superhero, wouldn’t discover that he’s a fugitive from the law. Luke reacts to these revelations with anger, so when Foster arrives wearing his superhero costume, the two rivals for Claire’s affections get into a bitter brawl. The fight ends abruptly when they are both lassoed with electrified cables that shock them into unconsciousness. Luke comes to sometime later and discovers that they’ve stumbled upon the notorious Circus of Crime. Seeing Claire being manhandled by Ernesto and Luigi Gambonno, Strongman, and the crafty Clown, Luke overcomes the Ringmaster’s hypnosis and attacks them. The Ringmaster commands the still-hypnotized Foster to stop Luke. However, Luigi Gambonno feels indebted to Luke for saving his life earlier and snatches the Ringmaster’s top hat, using it to free Foster from his trance. Live Wire refuses to use his electrified lasso to kill Foster, infuriating the Ringmaster. D.W., who’s been hiding in the shadows, then uses the top hat to hypnotize the Ringmaster and Princess Python as Luke and Foster defeat the others. While the Circus of Crime is turned over to the police, Claire decides that she’d rather be with Luke and tries to let her ex-husband down easy. Luke is overjoyed to be reunited with Claire after their six-month separation. He and Claire then join D.W. for a tour of Hollywood before returning to New York.
Back in his office above the closed-for-renovations theater, Luke is aggravated that someone in the building next door set up a gymnasium in his absence, leading to near constant thumping on the shared wall between them. Finally, a flabby, stumblebum masked wrestler comes crashing through the wall, causing Luke to completely lose his temper. Calling the intruder fat and stupid, Luke roughs him up until his manager, Bernie Steinsinger, intervenes and makes the wrestler apologize for his clumsiness. Steinsinger promises to pay to have the damage repaired. Luke feels bad after he calms down and realizes the wrestler is mentally disabled, probably from too many blows to the head in the course of his career. A few hours later, though, the wrestler returns, now a heavily muscled powerhouse calling himself “X,” and fights with Luke again. Luke’s office suffers extensive damage before the battle moves out onto 42nd Street. Though he lacks Luke’s superhuman strength, “X” is more than a match for him due to his superior fighting techniques. As their brawl drags on, “X” becomes increasingly reckless and murderous. Finally, he inadvertently hits Steinsinger in the head with a broken brick, mortally wounding him. The shock brings “X” to his senses, and he begs Luke to help his fallen friend. Luke calls an ambulance to the scene, and when it arrives, “X” suddenly reverts to his former flabby physique. The police agree to allow the remorseful wrestler to accompany Steinsinger to the hospital. Luke is left bewildered by the senselessness of it all.
October 1967 – Late in the month, Luke and D.W. celebrate the reopening of the Gem Theater. The building’s owner, D.W.’s uncle, has also gotten Luke’s office repaired. Hearing someone sneaking around upstairs, Luke charges up there to check it out and encounters a white-haired intruder with surprising strength and stamina. Luke is unnerved by the man’s fiery red eyes just before he leaps out through the window and seemingly turns into a bat. Luke then goes into his office, followed cautiously by D.W., where they discover $100 on the desk and a stop-me-before-I-kill-again message written on the wall in blood. The message is signed “Janos Trevorik,” a name Luke is able to find in the phone book. Incredulous, Luke wonders if he’s just been hired by a vampire.
In the morning, Luke goes to Janos Trevorik’s address and meets his attractive landlady, Hazel Donovan. Recognizing Power Man, she agrees to let him into Trevorik’s apartment, since the man owes her money. They are shocked to discover a coffin in the main room, along with a vast collection of occult artifacts. Poking around the room, Luke finds brochures for a group called the Magical Society that operates out of a place in Greenwich Village. He decides to look into it and leaves his business card with the distraught Donovan. At the Magical Society, Luke meets its suave, young director, R. Lambert Martinson, who fuels Luke’s suspicion that Trevorik may be a vampire. Using a list provided by Martinson, Luke spends the rest of the day visiting other members of the society. They all confirm Martinson’s description of Trevorik as a nocturnal creep with red eyes and preternaturally pale skin. After nightfall, another encounter with the man who broke into his office convinces Luke that he’s dealing with one of the undead. Freaked out, Luke rousts D.W. out of bed to see if he has any information on vampires. D.W. offers a couple of books on vampires in the movies, and Luke decides they will have to do. They spend the next few hours poring over the books, trying to learn as much vampire lore as they can.
Just before dawn, Luke receives a frantic phone call from Hazel Donovan claiming that Trevorik is trying to break into her apartment. Luke snaps a baluster out of the staircase and races to the scene. When he arrives, Donovan says Trevorik just ran off to an abandoned brownstone on the corner. Luke gives chase, kicking down the door and entering the dilapidated building. After a couple of shadowy brushes with his foe, Luke finds Trevorik raving like a maniac in a room on the second floor. Luke punches him in the face, knocking him to the floor, and then forces open the shutters, flooding the room with early morning light. As Trevorik recoils from the sunlight, Luke gets ready to stab him in the heart with the wooden baluster. However, at the last moment, he notices that Trevorik is wearing completely different shoes than he was before. Taking a closer look at Trevorik, Luke realizes he is not a vampire but merely an albino. A minute or two later, Luke discovers Martinson hiding in a closet and roughs him up. Trevorik comes to his senses and reveals that Martinson and Donovan conspired to trick Luke into murdering him so they could seize his extremely valuable collection of occult artifacts. Martinson had drugged Trevorik and disguised himself during Luke’s earlier encounters with the “vampire.” Trevorik commends Luke for being smarter than Martinson and Donovan gave him credit for. The conspirators are arrested by the police, and Luke takes the grateful Trevorik out for breakfast. Luke is embarrassed that he could be fooled into thinking that vampires were real, but Trevorik insists that such creatures do, in fact, exist. Luke wonders if his new friend is putting him on.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Luke finds himself trapped within a force-field bubble. Try as he might, he is unable to escape. Finally, the force field vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. He then learns that, while he was trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army.
Luke continues to work routine cases while he and Claire rebuild their romantic relationship. He’s gratified that she chose him over her ex-husband, whom Luke thinks was a bit of a jerk, and he forgives her for taking off for California without a word of explanation. He’s also glad that his efforts to rebrand himself as Power Man have largely been successful, though acting as a superhero isn’t particularly lucrative. He hopes that things will only get better in 1968.
Notes:
January 1967 – Luke Cage’s adventures resume in Power Man #18 and following. Luke is no doubt infuriated by the race riot that occurs at the Statue of Liberty on New Year’s Day, as revealed in Daredevil #109, which was engineered by the subversive organization called Black Spectre.
July 1967 – Power Man joins forces with the Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Nighthawk against the Wrecking Crew in Defenders #17–19. At this point, the Defenders are still largely avoiding publicity, and Luke may be unaware that his colleagues even consider themselves members of a regular team, since none of them mention it. The unseasonable snowstorm results from Dormammu imprisoning Gaea in Doctor Strange v.2 #8–9. The people of New York City are then rendered insensate for two days by alien invaders in Giant-Size Fantastic Four #3.
August 1967 – Earthquakes strike Manhattan in Marvel Team-Up #28. Power Man remains behind the scenes.
September 1967 – Interestingly, during Power Man #24–25, Bill Foster is referred to only as “Goliath” and not as “Black Goliath,” except non-diagetically in the story title and on the cover. He adopts the “Black Goliath” moniker during his next appearance, in Black Goliath #1, where he also reveals that he’d lied to Claire about being trapped at 15 feet and needing to work at the circus to fund his research. It was merely a ploy to try to get her to come back to him. An odd bit of trivia: though they are two completely different people, the Wrecking Crew’s Thunderball and the Circus of Crime’s crafty Clown apparently have the same name: Eliot Franklin. The masked wrestler, Willie Dance, unwittingly drinks a variant of the super-soldier serum that was stolen from its inventor by a petty crook. While fleeing the police, the thief hid the canister in Dance’s locker room, thinking it must be valuable. Dance mistakes it for a protein shake. Since the serum is not followed by Abraham Erskine’s “vita-ray” treatment, Dance becomes mentally unstable, as is usually the case, until the effects wear off.
December 1967 – Various superheroes are seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233. When the Falcon goes missing, Nomad (the hero formerly known as Captain America) stops by the Gem Theater to see if Power Man knows anything about it. However, Luke is out working on a case. The story in Captain America #183 claims that Luke is in Los Angeles while the building is closed for repairs, but that happened a few months ago. This brings us up to Power Man #27.
Jump Back: Power Man – Year Two
Next Issue: Secrets of the Scarlet Witch – Part Six
Saturday
Friday
OMU: Hulk -- Year Six
The next year’s worth of the Hulk’s adventures is chronicled primarily by writer Len Wein, who handles the character’s solo series and, with some help from Steve Gerber and others, the team book The Defenders and its quarterly companion title Giant-Size Defenders. Wein explores the Hulk’s childlike mentality as he suffers through a series of traumatic experiences in the USA, the USSR, Canada, and Scotland and contrasts it with Bruce Banner’s bitter cynicism. We also reach the end of artist Herb Trimpe’s landmark run on Hulk as he brings back a succession of former adversaries such as Doc Samson, the Gremlin, the Shaper of Worlds, the Wendigo, and Zzzax. This “greatest hits” approach nicely sums up Trimpe’s free-wheeling, bombastic approach to the series.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Continuing on with… The True History of the Incredible Hulk!
January 1967 – The Hulk’s voyage home from Counter-Earth comes to a violent conclusion as he smashes out of his space rocket soon after it enters the original Earth’s atmosphere over North America. Having detected the unauthorized craft, the United States Air Force blows it out of the sky seconds later with a pair of interceptor missiles. The shockwave from the explosion alters the Hulk’s downward trajectory, causing him to crash-land in the hills outside the small mining town of Lucifer Falls, West Virginia. Knocked unconscious, Hulk changes back into Bruce Banner and is soon taken in by a local family, Clay and Belinda Brickford and their children Clay-Boy, Allison, and Jimmy-Jack. During a simple yet hearty supper, Bruce is astonished when the Hulk’s old foe, the Missing Link, enters the house dressed as a coal miner. Though Bruce doesn’t remember their previous encounter, something about the deformed brute makes him very uneasy. He tries to suppress his misgivings when he sees that the Brickfords are happy to see the Missing Link, whom they call “Lincoln.”
The next morning, Bruce accompanies Clay and Lincoln to the coal mines to earn his keep and is surprised to find that Lincoln actually enjoys the work. The other miners do not share his enthusiasm, though, and are anxious about losing their jobs when the mine is inevitably tapped out. Bruce works alongside them for the next two weeks, and although it is a far cry from the research laboratories he’s used to, life in an Appalachian coal mine proves not to be quite the hellish existence he’d always imagined it would be. He is cheered by Lincoln’s good-natured outlook and comes to see the weird-looking fellow as a kindly soul. They spend their weekends hiking in the hills and fishing, genuinely enjoying each other’s company.
After church on Sunday, Bruce grows concerned when Jimmy-Jack suddenly becomes deathly ill while playing with Lincoln. Recognizing the boy’s symptoms as consistent with radiation poisoning, Bruce borrows Clay’s truck and drives to the nearest city to purchase a Geiger counter. That night, he checks the areas where the children tend to play but finds nothing out of the ordinary. Next, he surreptitiously scans all the members of the Brickford family while they’re sleeping, again with no results. Filled with dread, he checks Lincoln and discovers that his new friend is dangerously radioactive. Returning to his own bedroom, Bruce becomes depressed about having to destroy Lincoln’s idyllic life.
In the morning, Bruce takes Lincoln aside before they go down into the mine and informs him that he’s the source of Jimmy-Jack’s radiation sickness. If he doesn’t leave Lucifer Falls and seek treatment, Bruce warns, Lincoln could end up poisoning the entire town. Not really comprehending what he’s being told, Lincoln shoves Bruce away, his superhuman strength sending Bruce crashing through the boarded-up entrance to a mine shaft. Plunging into the blackness, Bruce turns into the Hulk and smashes his way back to the surface. Only vaguely remembering each other, Hulk and the Missing Link get into a fight that wrecks the entire mining operation. They inadvertently trigger an explosion that causes a huge cave-in, sending the combatants deep underground. There, Lincoln finally realizes that Bruce was right—the radiation in his body is rapidly approaching critical mass. Before Hulk realizes what’s happening, the Missing Link explodes with the force of a small nuclear bomb. However, as Hulk slowly digs his way out of the rubble, the Missing Link’s body reforms again, his deadly radiation completely spent, and he joins his co-workers in fleeing the devastation. Confused, Hulk wanders off into the Appalachian countryside.
February 1967 – Hulk makes his way back to New York City, despite his antipathy for the place, and falls asleep in an alley. He wakes up as Bruce Banner and, worried about freezing to death, decides to seek refuge with the Fantastic Four, whose Baxter Building headquarters is only a few blocks away. When he arrives, the building’s doorman at first assumes he’s a vagrant but then remembers that he’s visited the world-famous heroes before. Thus, he calls up to the team’s headquarters and receives permission to put Bruce on their private express elevator. In the tower, Bruce is greeted by the Thing, who offers him some coffee. Bruce explains that he’s come hoping Mister Fantastic has made some progress on finding a way to cure him of being the Hulk. The Thing is clearly somewhat bitter about his teammate’s repeated failures to cure him of his own monstrous form but mentions that Mister Fantastic developed something called a “psi-amplifier” last week. Bruce is excited, having been thinking along the same lines, and asks to see it. Though Mister Fantastic is out of town with the Human Torch and Medusa, the Thing nevertheless escorts him to the lab. A cursory examination convinces Bruce that he may be able to modify the psi-amplifier to cure both of them by harnessing the different forms of radiation in their bodies (cosmic rays versus gamma rays) to cancel each other out. Thus, the Thing allows him to work on it all night without interruption. Eight hours later, Bruce is ready to test his modifications and calls the Thing to the lab. Once they’re both wired up to the machine, Bruce activates it, but the initial jolt of energy causes the Thing to cry out in pain. Panicking, the exhausted, stressed-out Bruce suddenly changes into the Hulk.
Assuming he’s been captured again, Hulk goes berserk and destroys the psi-amplifier machine, but something goes terribly wrong, and when the smoke clears, he finds that his mind has somehow been transferred into the Thing’s body—and vice-versa. Hulk doesn’t really understand what’s happening, though, and while he is aware that he seems to be covered in orange crusty stuff, he’s too enraged to think much about it. He’s also distracted by the ugly, green brute who keeps talking about Banner while trying to restrain him. After wrecking the lab, Hulk throws his unknown enemy off the building. Then, seeing a tall, muscular figure apparently helping his foe, Hulk races down into the alley and punches the stranger in the face. It is only then Hulk realizes that the interloper is not a man, as he had first assumed, but a woman—Thundra. Blaming the green monster for making him hit a woman, Hulk renews his attack. The brawl between the two behemoths continues for several minutes, until they crash through the sidewalk and land in the path of an oncoming subway train. Hulk is unconcerned, still focused on his stunned enemy. At the last moment, Thundra leaps down through the hole and stops the train, causing a huge wreck that injures most of the passengers and crew. Wanting to be left alone, Hulk slams his fists into the ground, creating a shockwave that knocks Thundra off her feet and causes further damage to the train. The green brute tries again to subdue the Hulk, but their running battle takes them to Madison Square Garden in Hell’s Kitchen, where they interrupt a boxing match. The audience panics and bolts for the exits, creating a human stampede. Just then, Mister Fantastic, the Human Torch, and Medusa arrive on the scene, having returned to the city and tracked the combatants to the arena. Hulk is momentarily distracted by the Human Torch, enabling the green brute to get in a solid punch that knocks him down. His foe then pours on the blows, using all the fighting skill he can muster. After another minute or two of furious battle, Hulk is surprised when Mister Fantastic injects his foe with a powerful tranquilizer. However, as his enemy loses consciousness, Hulk also feels disoriented for a few seconds before passing out. Reverting to Bruce Banner, he soon comes around and confirms Mister Fantastic’s assumptions about what happened—somehow his transformation forced both minds back into their proper bodies. Bruce elects to leave the city before he causes any more destruction. Evidently feeling bad that he’s been too depressed lately to make any headway in finding a cure for the Hulk, Mister Fantastic gives Bruce some warm clothes to wear.
March 1967 – Hulk seeks refuge from his persecutors in northern Quebec, Canada, where he soon becomes infuriated by a disembodied voice that won’t stop bothering him. While trying to locate the source of the annoyance so he can smash it, Hulk comes upon a primitive dwelling made of stone slabs where he finds Marie Cartier and Georges Baptiste, whom he vaguely recognizes as friends of his. Cartier, dressed in the animal skins of a sorceress, is very welcoming and provides Hulk with a delicious meal, which he devours hungrily. However, a large bowl of broth makes the Hulk unexpectedly sleepy, so Cartier leads him to a pair of stone beds and has him lie down. Hulk falls asleep almost immediately. When he wakes up sometime later, Hulk feels groggy and decides to see if there’s any more food. In the outer chamber, he is surprised to find the Wendigo looming over Cartier and Baptiste. Assuming his friends are in danger, Hulk attacks the shaggy creature. Their battle demolishes part of the hovel but then drags on under the light of the moon with neither one able to gain the upper hand. Suddenly, they are interrupted by a snarling little man in a yellow-and-blue costume calling himself the Wolverine. Armed with long metal claws protruding from the backs of his hands, Wolverine forces the Hulk and the Wendigo apart, saying he’s been sent by Canada’s government to deal with the green-skinned invader. However, since the Wendigo is the more immediate threat, Wolverine teams up with the Hulk to take the monster down. After receiving a pummeling from the Hulk, the Wendigo gets slashed to ribbons by Wolverine’s claws and passes out from loss of blood. Hulk is annoyed when Wolverine suddenly turns on him, and the ensuing duel continues until dawn. Finally, they both stagger woozily for a moment, then drop to the ground unconscious.
When Hulk comes to, he finds Cartier trying to drag him across the ground and realizes she must have gassed him and his diminutive foe. Feeling betrayed, he pulls away from her and grows angry when she denies plotting against him. Seeing Wolverine chained up behind Cartier, Hulk pushes past her, yanks him up into the air, and slams him down onto the rocky ground. Surprisingly, Wolverine does not appear to be injured. Instead, he breaks out of his chains and attacks the Hulk yet again, as the distraught Cartier runs back to her hovel. Her blood-curdling scream a moment later distracts Wolverine, allowing the Hulk to finally knock him out with a punch in the head. Turning back toward the hovel, Hulk sees the Wendigo racing off into the forest but decides not to pursue him. Inside, he finds Cartier in shock as a naked man stirs on one of the stone beds. Concerned, Hulk puts his hand on Cartier’s shoulder as she breaks down in grief and despair. Hearing a disturbance outside, Hulk emerges from the hovel to see a large troop-transport helicopter descending on the scene. A voice blares from a loudspeaker, excoriating Wolverine for failing in his mission to capture the Hulk. The little costumed man objects strenuously as he boards the helicopter. A squad of Royal Canadian Air Force commandos then keep the Hulk busy until a gas attack can render him unconscious. He soon wakes up to find himself in a titanium cage suspended beneath the helicopter as it speeds over the forest. Furious, Hulk breaks free, disappears into the woods, and makes his way south into Vermont.
After nightfall, the sound of a harmonica leads Hulk to a small campfire where he finds an old man in tattered clothing who introduces himself in a thick Louisiana accent as “Crackajack” Jackson. Invited to keep the man company, Hulk sits down and gobbles up a plate of baked beans warmed over the fire. Crackajack then plays his harmonica again for a little while before falling asleep. Hulk sits awake all night, watching over his new friend. In the morning, Crackajack leads the Hulk to a nearby lake where they spend a few hours fishing. Crackajack talks incessantly about his life as a musician in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, among other random topics. His constant stream of chatter annoys the Hulk, who believes it’s scaring away the fish. After eating the fish they’ve caught, Hulk and Crackajack continue down a path through the woods. The old man reveals that he’s on his way to visit his son, Leroy, and invites the Hulk to accompany him. With nothing better to do, Hulk agrees, and during their day-long trek, he decides that Crackajack is pleasant company. As night falls again, the unlikely pair makes camp, and Crackajack cooks up more baked beans, teaching Hulk how to eat them with a fork. Discovering that the Hulk is illiterate, Crackajack teaches him the alphabet and how to write his name in the dirt with a stick. Hulk enjoys these lessons and the gentle encouragement of his raggedy teacher. Crackajack stresses the importance of a man’s name, one of his favorite old chestnuts, and declares himself to be the Hulk’s friend. In his own sullen way, Hulk concurs.
Early the next morning, Crackajack leads the Hulk to the state prison where his son is incarcerated after forcing their way past some state troopers cordoning off the area. Crackajack says he was too embarrassed to admit that his son was in jail, but Hulk isn’t bothered by it. He carries Crackajack over the wall into the prison yard, where they find Leroy Jackson and another inmate, their wrists connected by a glowing cable, fighting with the guards. Shocked to see his father after so many years, Leroy yells at Crackajack bitterly, unloading all the pent-up rage from his neglected childhood. Crackajack tries to placate his son but inadvertently touches the strange cable and is instantly electrocuted. As Crackajack falls to the ground dead, Hulk attacks the two convicts, intent on avenging his friend. However, they prove to be super-strong and highly resistant to injury, and their cable makes a formidable weapon. They manage to wrap the cable around the Hulk’s neck and nearly choke him to death before he breaks free. Hulk snaps the cable in half, which causes the two convicts to collapse to the ground, screaming and raving like madmen. Disturbed, Hulk takes Crackajack back into the woods and buries him in a shallow grave. Remembering how important his friend’s name was to him, Hulk does his best to inscribe it on a slab of granite broken off a nearby cliff. After setting up the makeshift tombstone, the sorrowful Hulk wanders off into the forest.
Hulk makes his way to Chicago, Illinois, falls asleep in an alley, and changes back into Bruce Banner. After scavenging some clothes from a garbage can, Bruce secures a job as a janitor at Soul-Star Research, Ltd. While sweeping the floors, he is surprised to find the firm’s three owners—Alexandria Knox, Stan Landers, and Mark Revel—working late. They give him permission to sweep up as long as he stays quiet and keeps out of their way. Nevertheless, Bruce overhears them discussing a problem with their device and figures out the answer. When he offers his solution, Revel is annoyed but Knox realizes he’s correct. The three scientists question their janitor and are startled to discover that he is the noted physicist Bruce Banner. Having studied his work, they invite Bruce to watch the first test of their device, which is designed to collect trace brainwave patterns from the atmosphere so they can be decoded and analyzed. Unfortunately, the device reconstitutes the sizzling energy form of Zzzax before exploding. Knox is knocked out, and Landers runs over to help her, only to be grabbed by Zzzax and incinerated. The stress triggers Bruce’s transformation into the Hulk, and the green behemoth immediately attacks the glowing monster. However, Zzzax stuns the Hulk with a powerful discharge of electricity and, having absorbed Landers’s consciousness, carries Knox out into the rainy streets. Revel pleads with the Hulk to save Knox, so he reluctantly pursues Zzzax to the roof of the Richard J. Daley Center. Once there, though, Hulk finds that his blows have little effect on Zzzax, while Zzzax’s lightning bolts cause him intense pain. While they are fighting, a helicopter piloted by Revel emerges from the thunderstorm. Revel fires a spear gun at Zzzax, the spear connected to the helicopter by a copper cable. Thus, when the helicopter ascends into the storm and is struck by lightning, the current is conducted down into Zzzax’s form, destroying him. The helicopter plummets to the street, but Hulk saves Revel in the nick of time. Satisfied that the battle is over, Hulk stalks off into the rain-slicked city to lick his wounds.
April 1967 – Hulk spends the month wandering around the American Midwest, keeping a low profile.
May 1967 – Hulk is ambling through some woods when he is contacted telepathically by Doctor Strange, who requests his help at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Strange’s astral form then leads the Hulk to a spot outside the caverns where the Valkyrie and Nighthawk are waiting with a man in a wheelchair named Charles Xavier. Back in his physical form, Strange leads the group into the caves, illuminating the way with light from his magic amulet. Within moments, they are ambushed by a seemingly invincible cyclops, but Xavier reveals the monster to be merely an illusion. However, they are all knocked unconscious by a blast of energy, and when they wake up, they find themselves trapped within a field of magnetic force. Flanked by his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants—the Blob, Mastermind, Unus the Untouchable, and Lorelei—the notorious super-villain Magneto rants and raves about a humanoid figure forming in a tank of chemicals behind him. He tells the Defenders a preposterous story of being trapped at the center of the earth by the Avengers until, several months later, a passing comet shifted the planet’s magnetic fields enough that he could make his way to Subterranea, where he translated books left behind by ancient aliens and thus learned the secret of genetically engineering a being powerful enough to enable him to conquer the world. When the villains return to their diabolical scheme, Xavier reveals himself to be a powerful telepath and harnesses the Defenders’ combined psychic energy to disrupt the field imprisoning them. They quickly defeat Magneto’s minions but are unable to prevent him from bringing his new creation to life. Gleefully, Magneto dubs the giant, brutish creature “Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant.”
Doctor Strange attempts to incapacitate Alpha with blasts of mystical energy, but Alpha erects a force field to protect himself, a field potent enough to repel the Hulk as well. Magneto then causes part of the cavern to collapse, trapping everyone underground, only to have Alpha teleport the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants away. Hulk and Valkyrie dig an escape tunnel, and the Defenders slowly make their way to the surface. Once there, Xavier does a telepathic scan to locate their foes, and after a few minutes of intense concentration, he finds them in New York City. Strange conjures up a portal through which the five heroes return to Manhattan. They are astonished to see the United Nations Building floating about half a mile above the city, presumably more of Alpha’s handiwork. Flying up to the building, the Defenders and Xavier fight their way past concrete automatons and confront Magneto and his minions in the general assembly chamber, where they are holding the assembled delegates prisoner. The heroes are surprised to see that Alpha has changed, having developed heightened intelligence and a less brutish appearance. He seems to visibly evolve every time he uses his powers and quickly surpasses mainstream humanity to take on a superior form. Noting Alpha’s reluctance to harm the Defenders, Xavier convinces him to judge for himself which of the two groups acts out of evil intent. Alpha does so, reading everyone’s innermost thoughts and motivations, and then condemns Magneto’s group as being little more than selfish children. The heroes are shocked when Alpha unleashes a beam of psychic energy that reduces Magneto, the Blob, Mastermind, Unus, and Lorelei to the equivalent of nine-month-old babies. Alpha then undoes the damage he caused to the United Nations Building and erases all memory of the traumatic event from the minds of the people affected by it. Continuing to evolve, Alpha bids farewell to the Defenders and Xavier before ascending into the sky, having decided to leave Earth to seek his destiny among the stars. Xavier takes charge of the babies, assuring the Defenders that they will be well cared for at the Mutant Research Centre in Scotland.
Thoroughly confused by what just happened, Hulk stomps off through Midtown Manhattan in search of solitude, only to be harassed by the NYPD and the National Guard. After a destructive fight, Hulk loses the government forces in the labyrinthine alleyways of the city. There, he is met by a cute little girl calling herself Laurie, who leads him to a tenement building on the Lower East Side with a cement stairway that goes down to a weird door with a sinister gargoyle looming over it. Beyond the door are more stairs that take them into the bowels of the earth. Hulk is concerned that the little girl considers this dank and dismal place home. Moving through a series of caverns, the little girl suddenly reveals herself to be a demon named Laurox the Lecherous and conjures up about half a dozen gigantic Bruce Banners to attack the Hulk. Bewildered, Hulk tries to defend himself but is no match for his laughing foes. As the savage beating drags on, Hulk’s rage becomes so overwhelming that his rational mind starts to buckle under the strain. After several hours, a strange man with a golden trident, Daimon Hellstrom, suddenly appears and blasts the giant Banners with mystical flames. He is followed by Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Nighthawk. Seeing his friends, Hulk rallies and smashes the Banners, causing them to crumble into lifeless stone. Without warning, the floor dissolves, sending everyone tumbling into an enormous throne room. Strange recognizes the figure on the throne as Asmodeus, a devil-worshiper who died a few years ago. Asmodeus reveals that he struck a bargain with the arch-demon Satannish to be returned to life in exchange for their five souls. Luckily, Hellstrom proves immune to Asmodeus’s eldritch power, protected by his golden trident, and saves the lives of the Defenders. Asmodeus panics as his time runs out, whereupon Satannish destroys him. The Defenders and Hellstrom abruptly find themselves in a vacant lot on the Lower East Side. Strange thanks Hellstrom on behalf of the entire team before they go their separate ways. He then offers the Hulk refuge in his Sanctum Sanctorum, and the beleaguered brute is glad to accept.
June 1967 – Hulk spends a quiet month with Doctor Strange, the Valkyrie, Clea, and Wong at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Nighthawk drops by several times and annoys everyone talking about the big plans he has for the Defenders.
July 1967 – Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Valkyrie join Nighthawk at the Defenders’ new headquarters, a secluded former riding academy on Long Island that Nighthawk has purchased in his civilian identity as businessman Kyle Richmond. Knowing that her flying horse, Aragorn, will be well looked after there, Valkyrie announces that she’s taking a leave of absence to try to find out more about the life of Barbara Norriss, whose body she inhabits due to the Enchantress’s sorcery. To aid her, Strange casts a spell on the Valkyrie’s sword so it will be invisible when not in use. The spell also enables her to magically switch from civilian clothes to her Asgardian garb when the sword is drawn from its scabbard. Hulk becomes very upset by the Valkyrie’s departure, throws a temper tantrum, and leaps away to be by himself for a while. Back in Manhattan about half an hour later, Hulk is hit by a car driven by the Chameleon, but the spy quickly disguises himself as Rick Jones and convinces the jade giant to break his friend Joe Cord out of prison. Thus, Hulk smashes into the Manhattan House of Detention for Men, commonly known as “the Tombs,” and searches for Cord. Despite interference from Spider-Man, Hulk finds Cord, breaks open his cell, and carries him to a nearby street corner where “Rick” is waiting. Cord is confused at first, until Spider-Man arrives and unmasks the Chameleon. Hulk is furious at having been deceived, but then numerous prison guards, backed up by the police, surround them. Hulk watches in confusion as the Chameleon pushes Cord into his car and drives off, running over a policeman, only to be stopped by Spider-Man’s webbing. Nevertheless, the Chameleon and Cord try to escape on foot and are shot down by the police. Cord dies in the Chameleon’s arms, after which the wounded spy is taken into custody. Spider-Man tries to explain the situation to the Hulk but doesn’t get very far before a radio bulletin reports that Doctor Strange and Nighthawk are fighting the Wrecking Crew at a construction site at W. 29th St. and Broadway. Once Spider-Man points him in the right direction, Hulk sets off to help his friends.
When he arrives, Hulk sees Doctor Strange and Nighthawk alongside Power Man, battling the Wrecker, Thunderball, Bulldozer, and Pilediver on the site of a demolished building. However, the entire area is sealed within a mystic force field, which the Hulk pounds on until it collapses. Doctor Strange falls to the ground unconscious at the same instant, but the jade giant takes little notice. As the Hulk joins the fight, the villains quickly decide to retreat with their loot—an adamantium capsule roughly the size of a football that they’ve dug out of the rubble. However, Thunderball is shocked to discover that the capsule is empty, revealing that it should contain a compact gamma bomb that he created, based on Bruce Banner’s research, when working for Kyle Richmond’s corporation. The crooks take advantage of the heroes’ alarm about the missing bomb, beat them into unconsciousness, and escape. When they come to, Hulk follows Doctor Strange, Nighthawk, and Power Man to Harlem, led there by faint mystic emanations from the Wrecker’s enchanted crowbar. They eventually come across a frightened boy name Joey who reports that the Wrecking Crew has invaded the Harlem Boys Club. Ignoring Strange’s words of caution, Hulk immediately charges in and attacks the villains, followed by Nighthawk and Power Man. Fortunately, the fight moves out into the street before the building is destroyed. The Wrecking Crew is quickly defeated, and Strange then asks the kids in the clubhouse about the bomb. They realize it must be the metal sphere Joey was carrying in his baseball mitt. The Defenders quickly track Joey down, whereupon Strange uses his magic amulet to change the Hulk back into Bruce Banner so he can defuse the bomb. Despite being under enormous stress, Bruce is successful, thanks to a set of tools Strange teleports in from Hulkbuster Base. As everyone breathes a sigh of relief, Bruce changes back into the Hulk, who is none too happy that Strange made him go to sleep. The sorcerer assures him that it was for a good cause. Grumbling, Hulk wanders off, heading north, and soon loses himself in the woods of Connecticut.
In a Connecticut suburb, Hulk spots some children playing in their front yard. Wanting to join in, he approaches them, but their terrified father runs out of the house, yelling in panic. Angered, Hulk lashes out, creating a shockwave that wrecks the house. The little girl who lives there drives the green behemoth away with her screaming and crying. Choking back tears, Hulk leaps away and soon cries himself to sleep in a secluded alley in Greenwich Village. When he wakes up, he has changed back to Bruce Banner. Feeling utterly drained physically and emotionally, Bruce staggers to Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, where he collapses on the threshold. Valkyrie carries him to a guest room upstairs and puts him to bed. Shortly after midnight, Bruce suddenly turns back into the Hulk, caught in the grip of a mystically induced madness, and rampages through the streets alongside many other similarly afflicted rioters. Valkyrie tries to stop the Hulk, but he smacks her down. Fortunately, the spell of madness is short lived, and Hulk is left feeling awful for hitting his friend. Doctor Strange is frustrated that they have no clue as to who was responsible. Nighthawk arrives and reports that he fought with a looter in Midtown who appeared to have the head of a man and the body of a gorilla, theorizing that the two bizarre events could be connected. Strange is baffled.
A couple days later, Nighthawk recruits the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Valkyrie, the Sub-Mariner, and Daredevil to fight for the earth in another elaborate game set up by the Grandmaster, the enigmatic alien who originally gave him his super-powers. The seemingly omnipotent Grandmaster assures them that he has no interest in Earth, so if they win, the world will be left alone. However, if his mysterious opponent should win, the human race shall be enslaved and the planet stripped of its resources. The Grandmaster, whom Nighthawk describes as a “galactic gambling addict,” then splits them into teams of two and teleports them to distant planets to fight to the death against his own hand-picked mercenaries. Hulk and Doctor Strange find themselves in a dilapidated, vaguely medieval city populated by a humanoid race, where they face off against a little yellow alien calling himself Grott the Man-Slayer and a cyborg from the 31st century named Korvac. While Grott attacks the Hulk with his psychokinetic powers, Korvac uses his technology to instantly analyze and counter Strange’s sorcery. Finding his spells useless, Strange defeats Korvac with an unexpected punch in the face. Hulk weathers Grott’s assault, then knocks him out with a flick of his mighty fingers. Having won the match, the two Defenders are teleported back to the Grandmaster’s space station, where he declares himself the game’s winner. However, he then announces that he’s changed his mind, having realized that Earth would be the ideal breeding ground for gladiators to amuse him for generations to come. Enraged, the Defenders attack him, only to be easily repulsed. However, Daredevil challenges the Grandmaster to decide Earth’s fate on a coin toss. When Daredevil wins the toss, the Grandmaster concedes defeat and teleports them all back to Nighthawk’s penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Strange expresses his gratitude to Daredevil, though he has some reservations about risking the future of the human race on the toss of a coin. Enigmatically, Daredevil insists the outcome was never in doubt. He then exits through a window, and the Sub-Mariner, not happy to be among the Defenders again, departs as well. When Strange and the Valkyrie return to the Sanctum Sanctorum, Hulk strikes out on his own.
Hulk slips out of New York by climbing inside a military cargo truck transporting chemicals out west. He dozes fitfully for about 17 hours until the soldiers, hearing strange noises in the storage trailer, pull over to check on the cargo. Hulk gets mad that his slumber has been disturbed and lashes out at the startled soldiers. They open fire on him, but he forces them to scatter as he crushes the truck, puncturing its liquid storage tanks. The strange chemical brew douses the Hulk and soaks into his skin as he storms off into the countryside. Before long, he is attacked by a skull-headed demon on a motorcycle shooting flames out of its hands that cause the jade giant excruciating pain. When the apparition vanishes into thin air, Hulk sets out to track it down and get revenge. He soon finds the demon, called the Ghost Rider, participating in a motorcycle race across the desert and disrupts the event. Ghost Rider tries to keep the Hulk away from the other contestants by shooting fire out of his hands again, though the eldritch flames cause much less pain this time. Finally, Ghost Rider creates a wall of fire around the Hulk that quickly burns up all the oxygen inside it, causing him to pass out. When Hulk regains consciousness, he finds all the motorcyclists have ridden off somewhere. Frustrated, Hulk wanders off, bemoaning how he’s attacked everywhere he goes, and eventually reaches a wide river. There, his own shadow starts beating on him, but the Hulk soon realizes it’s really some kind of creature made of darkness. The shadow creature identifies itself as Warlord Kaa, the leader of a failed alien invasion who’s been marooned in orbit for the last six and a half years. Kaa explains that the chemicals the Hulk spilled on himself have enabled Kaa to siphon the Hulk’s power into his shadowy manifestation. Feeling violated, Hulk retaliates, but since they’re evenly matched, the battle drags on for the next 11 hours. Kaa eventually grows frustrated that the Hulk never seems to tire out. As the sun starts to set, they stumble into an oil field and wreck much of it with their incessant fighting. However, when the installation’s lights come on automatically, Kaa realizes too late that his shadow form is being dissolved by the diffuse lighting. He tries to send his mind back to his physical body inside his orbiting spaceship but is unable to muster the necessary concentration. His foe thus disintegrated, Hulk strides off into the gathering dusk and falls asleep on a bed of prairie grass.
At dawn, Bruce Banner wakes up and wanders across the prairie until coming upon Interstate 40, where he manages to hitch a ride in an 18-wheeler heading west. About six hours later, Bruce hops out of the truck at a rest area outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, and hitchhikes out to Hulkbuster Base, where he is reunited with General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, his daughter Betty Talbot, and her husband Major Glenn Talbot, who survived his brush with death last year. Another soldier, Air Force Colonel John D. Armbruster, immediately shoots Bruce with a tranquilizer gun, knocking him out. Bruce comes to the next morning and finds himself wearing oversized shackles and locked in a steel cell. Bruce learns from General Ross and Colonel Armbruster that the President of the United States is due to visit the base that very day, so they couldn’t take any chances with the Hulk being on the loose. Bruce ignores them, feeling betrayed. When the two men depart, Betty peers at Bruce through the heavy bars on the door. Tearfully, she expresses her regret about hurting him, abandoning him to marry Glenn Talbot, saying she couldn’t wait for him any longer and couldn’t share him with the Hulk. Bruce reacts bitterly, complaining that the Hulk ruined his career, destroyed his life, and has left him in chains, and still all anybody talks about is the Hulk, as though no one gives a damn about Bruce Banner anymore. Betty insists that she still cares for him, but Bruce rejects her pity, coldly calling her “Mrs. Talbot.” He then barks at her that he doesn’t have any friends. Upset and angry, Betty walks away. Bruce tries to call her back, overcome with anguish, but it’s too late.
Later, the ceiling of the cell retracts, revealing some gawkers up on a walkway. General Ross introduces Bruce to President William E. Miller as Betty and Glenn Talbot look on. Bruce mistakenly thinks Miller is still the vice president and is insolent toward him. Just as Talbot moves up close behind the President, Armbruster comes charging in and tackles Talbot. They fall over the railing, but before they hit the ground, a bomb in Talbot’s chest explodes, killing both men. As the charred corpses land in the cell, Bruce feels his transformation coming on. He yells at Ross to get Betty to safety. Ross hesitates, though, choosing to first order that the ceiling of the cell be closed. However, Hulk breaks out of his chains and leaps up through the closing metal shutters. He lands on the walkway just as Ross hustles the President into an elevator. Hulk is enraged to see that General Ross is still persecuting him, but he’s distracted when he notices Betty sobbing on the floor. Hulk tries to comfort Betty, but then soldiers enter with guns drawn. Hulk swats the soldiers away, then grabs Betty and smashes his way up the elevator shaft to the surface. There, he is confronted by Ross in a kind of ‘Hulkbuster’ armor, the HS-1000. Despite the suit’s fearsome armaments, Hulk topples it and starts tearing it apart, determined to get at Ross. Betty begs him to stop, distracting the Hulk long enough for Ross to knock him out with a “gamma blaster” ray.
August 1967 – Hulk comes to several days later to find himself in the shattered remains of a tank of extremely cold fluid. He rips the oxygen mask off his face, realizing he’s been held prisoner since his fight with General Ross. Breaking out of the complex, Hulk discovers that Hulkbuster Base is being completely wrecked by a man in glowing armor who calls himself the Devastator. Keeping out of the Hulk’s reach, the Devastator blasts him with searing energy bolts from his gauntlets. Hulk is able to withstand the barrage long enough to grab his overconfident foe’s gauntlets and crush them. When the Devastator then tries to continue using his damaged weapons, he is incinerated. Hulk stumbles away across the tarmac before collapsing into unconsciousness, whereupon he changes back into Bruce Banner. When he wakes up a few minutes later, Bruce is shocked to learn from General Ross and Betty that the autopsy conducted on Glenn Talbot revealed him to be an impostor. They have hope that the real Talbot is still alive, a prisoner of the Soviet Union.
The next day, Bruce and General Ross are taken to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s west-coast headquarters near Las Vegas, where they meet with Nick Fury and several high-ranking agents. Fury introduces them to Clay Quartermain, who he has assigned to act as liaison officer to the Air Force’s Hulkbuster unit. They then review satellite photos of a secret Soviet installation in Siberia known as Bitterfrost. The agency’s intelligence reports indicate that, if Glenn Talbot is still alive, he would most likely be found there. Given Colonel Armbruster’s botched incursion into the Soviet Union last year, Fury is determined to get the rescue operation right this time, despite the fragile geopolitical situation. When the top-secret mission is ready to depart 36 hours later, Bruce stows away aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft, feeling the least he can do to make up to Betty all the grief he’s caused her over the last five years is to help reunite her with her husband. The plane comes under attack after entering Soviet airspace, and the weapons pod Bruce is hiding in is ejected. As it plummets to the ground, Bruce turns into the Hulk, bursts out of the pod, and lands on his feet not far from the Bitterfrost installation. He heads over there, hoping to learn where he is, only to be fired upon by the guards in the citadel’s towers. Enraged, Hulk hurls a boulder at them, then smashes through the wall and enters the facility. He is immediately intercepted by eight soldiers in bulky suits of armor. As they fight, Hulk hears them chattering to each other in Russian, but he can’t understand them. He spots the Gremlin, the deformed scientist he met last year, yelling orders to his troops. They manage to outmaneuver the Hulk and stun him with their energy rifles.
When he regains his senses, Hulk finds himself being released from one of the Gremlin’s sinister devices. General Ross, Clay Quartermain, and a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are holding the Gremlin, his technicians, and, oddly enough, Glenn Talbot at gunpoint. They march their prisoners toward their extraction point, convincing the Hulk to follow by telling him they need to rescue Betty. However, the Gremlin summons a monstrous creature he’s created through genetic engineering, a sort of cross between a large dog and a triceratops that speaks in rhyming Russian. Recognizing it as the kind of threat only he can deal with, Hulk immediately attacks the creature, which the Gremlin calls Droog. The Gremlin then shoots Talbot with a ray gun, causing him to collapse, and gets away. Hulk insists that Ross and the others go save Betty while he smashes the monster, so they leave with Talbot’s body. For the next 20 minutes, Hulk and the talkative Droog engage in a savage, destructive battle that rages through the installation’s lowest levels. Finally, a tremendous explosion overhead buries the two combatants in pulverized rubble.
Hulk finally digs himself free and finds he is in the crater left behind by the explosion that vaporized the entire Bitterfrost installation. Droog is nowhere to be found, so Hulk wanders off across the frozen tundra, making his way south. After several days of trekking across Siberia, Hulk comes to a lake surrounded by pine trees, where a little girl is singing while she plays. Captivated by the sweet music, Hulk tries to keep hidden but accidentally steps on a branch, alerting her to his presence. To the Hulk’s surprise, the girl turns out to be blind. Despite the language barrier, they establish that his name is Hulk and her name is Katrina. Suddenly, Hulk is shot in the back by Katrina’s frightened father, though the bullets can’t penetrate his thick, green skin. An older man named Palkov prevents the situation from escalating and convinces the others to bring the Hulk back to their village. There, Palkov makes Hulk understand that he’s trying to cure Katrina’s blindness in his makeshift laboratory, but the village is under some kind of threat. Hulk is sympathetic, especially after Palkov gives him dinner. After watching Palkov putter around his lab for a few hours, Hulk falls asleep. He is awakened in the middle of the night by a horde of Subterraneans and drives them off, though they manage to steal Palkov’s research. Hulk chases them to a cave in the woods where he is taken prisoner by their master, the Mole Man, who wants Palkov’s blindness cure for himself. Hulk breaks free, seizes a syringe full of the medicine, and fights his way through thousands of Subterraneans to get back to the surface. To cut off his pursuers, Hulk causes a massive cave-in. He then returns to the village, where Palkov injects Katrina with the drug. After many hours, her vision begins to return. Seeing the Hulk for the first time, Katrina smiles and speaks softly to him, then gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Astonished that she’s not terrified of him, Hulk is overcome with emotion and retreats into the wilderness, tears streaming down his cheeks.
September 1967 – Hulk makes his way westward across Russia, getting into occasional skirmishes with both the Soviet military and the local wildlife. One day, he comes upon a golden man in a toga who introduces himself as Glorian and offers to take the Hulk across his rainbow bridge to the land of his dreams. Though suspicious, Hulk consents, and Glorian’s rainbow transports them to a small planetoid with an Earth-like environment but unspoiled by human civilization. After Glorian has departed, Hulk finds both Crackajack Jackson and Jarella waiting for him and is overjoyed to be reunited with his dear friends. However, their idyll is destroyed when Tribbitite slavers descend on them, take them prisoner, and transport them to the Tribbitite imperial throneworld. There, Emperor Torkon II gloats about having captured the Hulk, who foiled his plan to invade Earth five-and-a-half years ago. Torkon at first decides to force the Hulk to walk the treadmills that keep their society running until he dies of exhaustion but then changes his mind when his scientists discover that the Hulk’s paradise planet was created by the Shaper of Worlds. Wanting the Shaper of Worlds to alter reality in his empire’s favor, Torkon threatens to kill Jarella and Crackajack unless the Hulk hunts down the enigmatic alien for him. Grumbling, Hulk agrees to do so. With a nulltron bomb strapped to his back, Hulk is returned to the planetoid in an automated spacecraft. No sooner has Hulk located the Shaper of Worlds than the nulltron bomb explodes, knocking them both unconscious.
Hulk wakes up to find he’s been left behind on the now barren world. Luckily, Glorian turns up and asks him what’s going on. Learning that the Shaper of Worlds has been abducted, Glorian creates another rainbow to take them to Emperor Torkon’s palace. There, Glorian tries to convince Torkon to release the Shaper, only to be shot in the back by one of the palace guards. Believing Glorian dead, the Shaper is overcome with grief and loses control over the illusions he’d been maintaining, revealing both Jarella and Crackajack to be slug-like aliens. Realizing he’d been duped, Hulk goes berserk and starts tearing up the palace. Neither Torkon nor his guards can contain the Hulk’s rampage, but the Shaper intervenes and offers to return him to his little paradise with his friends restored to him. Hulk rejects the offer, saying paradise is no good if it’s just an illusion. Torkon interjects, begging the Shaper to bestow his gifts on the Tribbitite Empire instead. The Shaper flatly refuses and, seeing that the Hulk isn’t going to change his mind, teleports him back to Earth. Hulk rematerializes in Russia, some ways south of the Arctic Circle, and continues on his westward journey.
October 1967 – While swimming across a lake in Scotland, Hulk gets tangled in a fishing net, which leads to him meeting local fisherman Angus MacTavish and his wife Sarah. MacTavish recruits the Hulk to help him hunt down the legendary monster of Loch Fear, which has plagued the area for generations. However, after a delicious meal, Hulk falls asleep in the MacTavishes’ guest room and changes back into Bruce Banner. Harsh voices in the house soon wake Bruce, and he is confused to find the MacTavishes being held at gunpoint. The gunmen then march both men across the dark moors to the bleak castle inhabited by the local laird, Black Jamie Macawber, who is intent on preventing MacTavish from killing the lake monster, as the local economy has become dependent on the tourism associated with it. Imprisoned with MacTavish in the castle’s tower, Bruce eventually turns back into the Hulk and breaks free. MacTavish immediately embarks on his monster hunt, and the Hulk insists on joining him. With a homemade harpoon launcher affixed to his fishing boat, MacTavish pilots them out into the middle of Loch Fear. Before long, the monster surfaces, breaking the fishing boat in two and revealing itself to be some kind of gigantic mutant plesiosaur. Even so, MacTavish manages to fire his harpoon, which is wrapped in dynamite, into the creature’s shoulder. Macawber arrives in a speedboat, determined to subdue the plesiosaur with a powerful sedative so he can turn it into the world’s greatest tourist attraction. At MacTavish’s urging, Hulk grabs Macawber just as the dynamite explodes. Macawber’s chemical tanks rupture, and the sedative gas triggers the Hulk’s transformation. Bruce falls into the water as Macawber and the Loch Fear monster are somehow instantly petrified, which Bruce and MacTavish discover as they are washed up on the shore of the lake. In a celebratory mood, MacTavish invites Bruce to stay on in their community, but Bruce decides it would be better for everyone if he moved on. MacTavish gives Bruce some of his clothes and helps him book passage on a ship, the HMS Black Watch, bound for America.
During the ocean crossing, Bruce discovers the ship’s crew dumping drums of radioactive waste in contravention of international law. Caught red-handed, the sailors gang up on Bruce, intending to throw him overboard. However, they merely succeed in causing him to change into the Hulk and go on a rampage that sinks the ship. As the panicked sailors clamber into their lifeboats, Hulk swims away into the darkness and eventually arrives in the New York City harbor. Climbing onto a pier on Manhattan’s lower west side, Hulk startles some longshoremen, who summon the police. After a brief confrontation, Hulk loses himself in the back alleys of one of the city’s grimier neighborhoods. Several hours later, a S.H.I.E.L.D. drone aircraft flies overhead, with a voice blaring from a loudspeaker ordering the Hulk to surrender. Annoyed, Hulk throws a trash dumpster at the drone, destroying it. He is then tackled by Doc Samson, who has regained his super-strength. Samson says they need Bruce’s help at the Air Force’s Project Greenskin, but this merely enrages the Hulk, who considers Banner to be his greatest enemy. Reveling in his gamma-spawned power, Samson presses his attack, confident that he is a match for the Hulk. Their destructive battle leads them to the top of the New York Telephone Company Building, where the Hulk hands Samson a decisive defeat. Roaring in victory, Hulk leaps away, leaving the city far behind.
November 1967 – Hulk slowly makes his way across the middle of the United States, causing occasional chaos and destruction while evading the Hulkbusters’ attempts to capture him. Late in the month, he wanders into San Francisco, California, where he finds refuge in an abandoned tenement.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Hulk finds himself trapped within a magical force-field bubble in downtown San Francisco. Try as he might, he is unable to escape. Finally, the force field vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. Unnerved by the experience, Hulk leaves the city and makes his way back towards the east coast.
Feeling himself summoned by Doctor Strange, Hulk heads to Roosevelt Hospital in Midtown Manhattan, where he meets up with the Valkyrie. She informs him that Nighthawk was injured in an explosion and has just come out of surgery. Hulk is determined to visit his sick friend, but the Valkyrie restrains him until Doctor Strange enters with the surgeon who saved Nighthawk’s life. Strange assures the Hulk that his friend will recover but insists he needs uninterrupted rest. Hulk relents and accompanies Strange and the Valkyrie back to the Sanctum Sanctorum for the rest of the night. In the morning, the trio returns to the hospital, but Hulk’s friends convince him to remain outside with Aragorn so as not to disturb the other patients. Shortly, Strange and Valkyrie return and lead the Hulk to the remote Crayton Observatory in search of the Squadron Sinister, whom Nighthawk believes may have caused the explosion. There, they discover that Hyperion, Doctor Spectrum, and the Whizzer did indeed survive the battle with Nebulon last year. Though the Defenders have the element of surprise, the Squadron Sinister quickly turns the tables by using a new weapon that forces the Hulk to change back into Bruce Banner. Bruce is disoriented for a moment before lapsing into unconsciousness.
Sometime later, Bruce is shocked awake by a jolt of searing agony and immediately turns into the Hulk again. Breaking out of some shackles, Hulk finds that the former Avenger known as Yellowjacket has come to free the Defenders from their imprisonment in the observatory’s basement. His cellular-disruptor gun has enabled the Hulk to shatter his own bonds, but he needs the green goliath’s strength to release Doctor Strange and the Valkyrie from theirs. Once the Hulk has done so, Yellowjacket informs them that the Squadron Sinister had nothing to do with the explosion that injured Nighthawk—it was actually set off by his old arch-enemy Egghead, who was targeting Nighthawk’s girlfriend. Nevertheless, the four heroes race back to Roosevelt Hospital to stop the Squadron Sinister from taking revenge on Nighthawk for betraying them. There, Strange and Valkyrie rescue Nighthawk from Doctor Spectrum while Yellowjacket defeats the Whizzer. Hulk knocks Hyperion out by creating a powerful shockwave that also shatters Doctor Spectrum’s power prism. Strange then casts a spell that causes the Squadron Sinister to lose all memory of their villainous identities, ensuring they will pose no further threat to Nighthawk.
Doctor Strange and Valkyrie convince the Hulk to spend some more time with them at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Clea and Wong are delighted to host their brutish friend again, though two of Strange’s acolytes, Lord Phyffe and Rama Kaliph, need to be reassured that they’re not in danger. Once the Hulk accepts them as friends, the two adepts become very curious about him. Nighthawk makes a rapid recovery due to his super-powers and resumes his crime-fighting crusade, though he’s depressed that his girlfriend has dumped him. For his part, Hulk enjoys the holiday season in New York, as his friends enable him to take a break from all his troubles.
Notes:
January 1967 – The Hulk’s adventures continue in Hulk #179 and following. Lucifer Falls is established as being in West Virginia in Rom, Spaceknight #29. In fact, the nearby city where Bruce buys his Geiger counter is most likely Clairton, which Rom will make his base of operations in just a couple of years.
February 1967 – For their fourth battle royal, the Hulk and the Thing switch it up in Giant-Size Super-Stars #1.
March 1967 – The man in the hovel is Marie Cartier’s brother Paul. He’s been saved from the curse of the Wendigo by Georges Baptiste, who’s taken it upon himself out of love for Marie. It was her disembodied voice that led the Hulk to her hovel, where she planned to use a magic spell to transfer the curse from Paul to the Hulk. However, Georges found he couldn’t allow such a horror to be inflicted on an innocent pawn. Convicts Leroy “Hammer” Jackson and Johnny Anvil, who received their glowing cable from an alien visitor, will recover and become minor super-villains known as Hammer & Anvil until being murdered by the Scourge of the Underworld.
May 1967 – Hulk is reunited with his Defenders teammates to take on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants at the behest of Professor X in Defenders #15–16. Xavier seeks outside help because the X-Men are off on their mission to Krakoa, as seen in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Magneto’s odyssey through the bowels of the earth is a delusion; following his defeat at the hands of the Avengers (in Avengers #111), he was held in a telepathically induced coma in the basement of the X-Men’s headquarters. However, his deranged mind rejects this humiliating reality in favor of a nonsensical sci-fi fantasy. See my Magneto chronology for further discussion. The Defenders then team up with Daimon Hellstrom, the so-called “Son of Satan,” in Giant-Size Defenders #2.
July 1967 – Hulk appears at the beginning of Defenders #17 before moving into Marvel Team-Up #27. The Defenders’ battle with the Wrecking Crew then spans Defenders #18–19. Hulk catches up with his teammates again in Defenders #21. The temporary spell of madness and the apelike looter are indeed connected, as both are part of a scheme by the freakish small-time crooks known as the Headmen—Arthur Nagan, Jerry Morgan, and Chondu the Mystic. Daredevil helps the Defenders defeat the Grandmaster and his mystery opponent (Doctor Doom’s Prime Mover robot) in Giant-Size Defenders #3. Hulk is then drawn into conflict with Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider #11. A demon called Inferno ambushes the Hulk with an illusory Ghost Rider to get him mad and then leads him to the real one, hoping Johnny Blaze will be killed in the ensuing fight. Warlord Kaa first appeared during Marvel’s “Atlas” era in Strange Tales #79, which (based on the cover date) falls on my OMU timeline in December 1960.
October 1967 – Hulk’s battle with Doc Samson brings us up to Hulk #193. In the story, the fight concludes atop the World Trade Center, but in 1967 it hadn’t been built yet, so I swapped it for the New York Telephone Company Building, an older skyscraper on an adjacent lot.
December 1967 – Hulk is among the various superheroes seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233. While Earth’s champions are thus imprisoned, Loki leads an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army. The Defenders team up with Yellowjacket against the Squadron Sinister in Giant-Size Defenders #4.
Jump Back: The Hulk – Year Five
Next Issue: Power Man – Year Three
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Continuing on with… The True History of the Incredible Hulk!
January 1967 – The Hulk’s voyage home from Counter-Earth comes to a violent conclusion as he smashes out of his space rocket soon after it enters the original Earth’s atmosphere over North America. Having detected the unauthorized craft, the United States Air Force blows it out of the sky seconds later with a pair of interceptor missiles. The shockwave from the explosion alters the Hulk’s downward trajectory, causing him to crash-land in the hills outside the small mining town of Lucifer Falls, West Virginia. Knocked unconscious, Hulk changes back into Bruce Banner and is soon taken in by a local family, Clay and Belinda Brickford and their children Clay-Boy, Allison, and Jimmy-Jack. During a simple yet hearty supper, Bruce is astonished when the Hulk’s old foe, the Missing Link, enters the house dressed as a coal miner. Though Bruce doesn’t remember their previous encounter, something about the deformed brute makes him very uneasy. He tries to suppress his misgivings when he sees that the Brickfords are happy to see the Missing Link, whom they call “Lincoln.”
The next morning, Bruce accompanies Clay and Lincoln to the coal mines to earn his keep and is surprised to find that Lincoln actually enjoys the work. The other miners do not share his enthusiasm, though, and are anxious about losing their jobs when the mine is inevitably tapped out. Bruce works alongside them for the next two weeks, and although it is a far cry from the research laboratories he’s used to, life in an Appalachian coal mine proves not to be quite the hellish existence he’d always imagined it would be. He is cheered by Lincoln’s good-natured outlook and comes to see the weird-looking fellow as a kindly soul. They spend their weekends hiking in the hills and fishing, genuinely enjoying each other’s company.
After church on Sunday, Bruce grows concerned when Jimmy-Jack suddenly becomes deathly ill while playing with Lincoln. Recognizing the boy’s symptoms as consistent with radiation poisoning, Bruce borrows Clay’s truck and drives to the nearest city to purchase a Geiger counter. That night, he checks the areas where the children tend to play but finds nothing out of the ordinary. Next, he surreptitiously scans all the members of the Brickford family while they’re sleeping, again with no results. Filled with dread, he checks Lincoln and discovers that his new friend is dangerously radioactive. Returning to his own bedroom, Bruce becomes depressed about having to destroy Lincoln’s idyllic life.
In the morning, Bruce takes Lincoln aside before they go down into the mine and informs him that he’s the source of Jimmy-Jack’s radiation sickness. If he doesn’t leave Lucifer Falls and seek treatment, Bruce warns, Lincoln could end up poisoning the entire town. Not really comprehending what he’s being told, Lincoln shoves Bruce away, his superhuman strength sending Bruce crashing through the boarded-up entrance to a mine shaft. Plunging into the blackness, Bruce turns into the Hulk and smashes his way back to the surface. Only vaguely remembering each other, Hulk and the Missing Link get into a fight that wrecks the entire mining operation. They inadvertently trigger an explosion that causes a huge cave-in, sending the combatants deep underground. There, Lincoln finally realizes that Bruce was right—the radiation in his body is rapidly approaching critical mass. Before Hulk realizes what’s happening, the Missing Link explodes with the force of a small nuclear bomb. However, as Hulk slowly digs his way out of the rubble, the Missing Link’s body reforms again, his deadly radiation completely spent, and he joins his co-workers in fleeing the devastation. Confused, Hulk wanders off into the Appalachian countryside.
February 1967 – Hulk makes his way back to New York City, despite his antipathy for the place, and falls asleep in an alley. He wakes up as Bruce Banner and, worried about freezing to death, decides to seek refuge with the Fantastic Four, whose Baxter Building headquarters is only a few blocks away. When he arrives, the building’s doorman at first assumes he’s a vagrant but then remembers that he’s visited the world-famous heroes before. Thus, he calls up to the team’s headquarters and receives permission to put Bruce on their private express elevator. In the tower, Bruce is greeted by the Thing, who offers him some coffee. Bruce explains that he’s come hoping Mister Fantastic has made some progress on finding a way to cure him of being the Hulk. The Thing is clearly somewhat bitter about his teammate’s repeated failures to cure him of his own monstrous form but mentions that Mister Fantastic developed something called a “psi-amplifier” last week. Bruce is excited, having been thinking along the same lines, and asks to see it. Though Mister Fantastic is out of town with the Human Torch and Medusa, the Thing nevertheless escorts him to the lab. A cursory examination convinces Bruce that he may be able to modify the psi-amplifier to cure both of them by harnessing the different forms of radiation in their bodies (cosmic rays versus gamma rays) to cancel each other out. Thus, the Thing allows him to work on it all night without interruption. Eight hours later, Bruce is ready to test his modifications and calls the Thing to the lab. Once they’re both wired up to the machine, Bruce activates it, but the initial jolt of energy causes the Thing to cry out in pain. Panicking, the exhausted, stressed-out Bruce suddenly changes into the Hulk.
Assuming he’s been captured again, Hulk goes berserk and destroys the psi-amplifier machine, but something goes terribly wrong, and when the smoke clears, he finds that his mind has somehow been transferred into the Thing’s body—and vice-versa. Hulk doesn’t really understand what’s happening, though, and while he is aware that he seems to be covered in orange crusty stuff, he’s too enraged to think much about it. He’s also distracted by the ugly, green brute who keeps talking about Banner while trying to restrain him. After wrecking the lab, Hulk throws his unknown enemy off the building. Then, seeing a tall, muscular figure apparently helping his foe, Hulk races down into the alley and punches the stranger in the face. It is only then Hulk realizes that the interloper is not a man, as he had first assumed, but a woman—Thundra. Blaming the green monster for making him hit a woman, Hulk renews his attack. The brawl between the two behemoths continues for several minutes, until they crash through the sidewalk and land in the path of an oncoming subway train. Hulk is unconcerned, still focused on his stunned enemy. At the last moment, Thundra leaps down through the hole and stops the train, causing a huge wreck that injures most of the passengers and crew. Wanting to be left alone, Hulk slams his fists into the ground, creating a shockwave that knocks Thundra off her feet and causes further damage to the train. The green brute tries again to subdue the Hulk, but their running battle takes them to Madison Square Garden in Hell’s Kitchen, where they interrupt a boxing match. The audience panics and bolts for the exits, creating a human stampede. Just then, Mister Fantastic, the Human Torch, and Medusa arrive on the scene, having returned to the city and tracked the combatants to the arena. Hulk is momentarily distracted by the Human Torch, enabling the green brute to get in a solid punch that knocks him down. His foe then pours on the blows, using all the fighting skill he can muster. After another minute or two of furious battle, Hulk is surprised when Mister Fantastic injects his foe with a powerful tranquilizer. However, as his enemy loses consciousness, Hulk also feels disoriented for a few seconds before passing out. Reverting to Bruce Banner, he soon comes around and confirms Mister Fantastic’s assumptions about what happened—somehow his transformation forced both minds back into their proper bodies. Bruce elects to leave the city before he causes any more destruction. Evidently feeling bad that he’s been too depressed lately to make any headway in finding a cure for the Hulk, Mister Fantastic gives Bruce some warm clothes to wear.
March 1967 – Hulk seeks refuge from his persecutors in northern Quebec, Canada, where he soon becomes infuriated by a disembodied voice that won’t stop bothering him. While trying to locate the source of the annoyance so he can smash it, Hulk comes upon a primitive dwelling made of stone slabs where he finds Marie Cartier and Georges Baptiste, whom he vaguely recognizes as friends of his. Cartier, dressed in the animal skins of a sorceress, is very welcoming and provides Hulk with a delicious meal, which he devours hungrily. However, a large bowl of broth makes the Hulk unexpectedly sleepy, so Cartier leads him to a pair of stone beds and has him lie down. Hulk falls asleep almost immediately. When he wakes up sometime later, Hulk feels groggy and decides to see if there’s any more food. In the outer chamber, he is surprised to find the Wendigo looming over Cartier and Baptiste. Assuming his friends are in danger, Hulk attacks the shaggy creature. Their battle demolishes part of the hovel but then drags on under the light of the moon with neither one able to gain the upper hand. Suddenly, they are interrupted by a snarling little man in a yellow-and-blue costume calling himself the Wolverine. Armed with long metal claws protruding from the backs of his hands, Wolverine forces the Hulk and the Wendigo apart, saying he’s been sent by Canada’s government to deal with the green-skinned invader. However, since the Wendigo is the more immediate threat, Wolverine teams up with the Hulk to take the monster down. After receiving a pummeling from the Hulk, the Wendigo gets slashed to ribbons by Wolverine’s claws and passes out from loss of blood. Hulk is annoyed when Wolverine suddenly turns on him, and the ensuing duel continues until dawn. Finally, they both stagger woozily for a moment, then drop to the ground unconscious.
When Hulk comes to, he finds Cartier trying to drag him across the ground and realizes she must have gassed him and his diminutive foe. Feeling betrayed, he pulls away from her and grows angry when she denies plotting against him. Seeing Wolverine chained up behind Cartier, Hulk pushes past her, yanks him up into the air, and slams him down onto the rocky ground. Surprisingly, Wolverine does not appear to be injured. Instead, he breaks out of his chains and attacks the Hulk yet again, as the distraught Cartier runs back to her hovel. Her blood-curdling scream a moment later distracts Wolverine, allowing the Hulk to finally knock him out with a punch in the head. Turning back toward the hovel, Hulk sees the Wendigo racing off into the forest but decides not to pursue him. Inside, he finds Cartier in shock as a naked man stirs on one of the stone beds. Concerned, Hulk puts his hand on Cartier’s shoulder as she breaks down in grief and despair. Hearing a disturbance outside, Hulk emerges from the hovel to see a large troop-transport helicopter descending on the scene. A voice blares from a loudspeaker, excoriating Wolverine for failing in his mission to capture the Hulk. The little costumed man objects strenuously as he boards the helicopter. A squad of Royal Canadian Air Force commandos then keep the Hulk busy until a gas attack can render him unconscious. He soon wakes up to find himself in a titanium cage suspended beneath the helicopter as it speeds over the forest. Furious, Hulk breaks free, disappears into the woods, and makes his way south into Vermont.
After nightfall, the sound of a harmonica leads Hulk to a small campfire where he finds an old man in tattered clothing who introduces himself in a thick Louisiana accent as “Crackajack” Jackson. Invited to keep the man company, Hulk sits down and gobbles up a plate of baked beans warmed over the fire. Crackajack then plays his harmonica again for a little while before falling asleep. Hulk sits awake all night, watching over his new friend. In the morning, Crackajack leads the Hulk to a nearby lake where they spend a few hours fishing. Crackajack talks incessantly about his life as a musician in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, among other random topics. His constant stream of chatter annoys the Hulk, who believes it’s scaring away the fish. After eating the fish they’ve caught, Hulk and Crackajack continue down a path through the woods. The old man reveals that he’s on his way to visit his son, Leroy, and invites the Hulk to accompany him. With nothing better to do, Hulk agrees, and during their day-long trek, he decides that Crackajack is pleasant company. As night falls again, the unlikely pair makes camp, and Crackajack cooks up more baked beans, teaching Hulk how to eat them with a fork. Discovering that the Hulk is illiterate, Crackajack teaches him the alphabet and how to write his name in the dirt with a stick. Hulk enjoys these lessons and the gentle encouragement of his raggedy teacher. Crackajack stresses the importance of a man’s name, one of his favorite old chestnuts, and declares himself to be the Hulk’s friend. In his own sullen way, Hulk concurs.
Early the next morning, Crackajack leads the Hulk to the state prison where his son is incarcerated after forcing their way past some state troopers cordoning off the area. Crackajack says he was too embarrassed to admit that his son was in jail, but Hulk isn’t bothered by it. He carries Crackajack over the wall into the prison yard, where they find Leroy Jackson and another inmate, their wrists connected by a glowing cable, fighting with the guards. Shocked to see his father after so many years, Leroy yells at Crackajack bitterly, unloading all the pent-up rage from his neglected childhood. Crackajack tries to placate his son but inadvertently touches the strange cable and is instantly electrocuted. As Crackajack falls to the ground dead, Hulk attacks the two convicts, intent on avenging his friend. However, they prove to be super-strong and highly resistant to injury, and their cable makes a formidable weapon. They manage to wrap the cable around the Hulk’s neck and nearly choke him to death before he breaks free. Hulk snaps the cable in half, which causes the two convicts to collapse to the ground, screaming and raving like madmen. Disturbed, Hulk takes Crackajack back into the woods and buries him in a shallow grave. Remembering how important his friend’s name was to him, Hulk does his best to inscribe it on a slab of granite broken off a nearby cliff. After setting up the makeshift tombstone, the sorrowful Hulk wanders off into the forest.
Hulk makes his way to Chicago, Illinois, falls asleep in an alley, and changes back into Bruce Banner. After scavenging some clothes from a garbage can, Bruce secures a job as a janitor at Soul-Star Research, Ltd. While sweeping the floors, he is surprised to find the firm’s three owners—Alexandria Knox, Stan Landers, and Mark Revel—working late. They give him permission to sweep up as long as he stays quiet and keeps out of their way. Nevertheless, Bruce overhears them discussing a problem with their device and figures out the answer. When he offers his solution, Revel is annoyed but Knox realizes he’s correct. The three scientists question their janitor and are startled to discover that he is the noted physicist Bruce Banner. Having studied his work, they invite Bruce to watch the first test of their device, which is designed to collect trace brainwave patterns from the atmosphere so they can be decoded and analyzed. Unfortunately, the device reconstitutes the sizzling energy form of Zzzax before exploding. Knox is knocked out, and Landers runs over to help her, only to be grabbed by Zzzax and incinerated. The stress triggers Bruce’s transformation into the Hulk, and the green behemoth immediately attacks the glowing monster. However, Zzzax stuns the Hulk with a powerful discharge of electricity and, having absorbed Landers’s consciousness, carries Knox out into the rainy streets. Revel pleads with the Hulk to save Knox, so he reluctantly pursues Zzzax to the roof of the Richard J. Daley Center. Once there, though, Hulk finds that his blows have little effect on Zzzax, while Zzzax’s lightning bolts cause him intense pain. While they are fighting, a helicopter piloted by Revel emerges from the thunderstorm. Revel fires a spear gun at Zzzax, the spear connected to the helicopter by a copper cable. Thus, when the helicopter ascends into the storm and is struck by lightning, the current is conducted down into Zzzax’s form, destroying him. The helicopter plummets to the street, but Hulk saves Revel in the nick of time. Satisfied that the battle is over, Hulk stalks off into the rain-slicked city to lick his wounds.
April 1967 – Hulk spends the month wandering around the American Midwest, keeping a low profile.
May 1967 – Hulk is ambling through some woods when he is contacted telepathically by Doctor Strange, who requests his help at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Strange’s astral form then leads the Hulk to a spot outside the caverns where the Valkyrie and Nighthawk are waiting with a man in a wheelchair named Charles Xavier. Back in his physical form, Strange leads the group into the caves, illuminating the way with light from his magic amulet. Within moments, they are ambushed by a seemingly invincible cyclops, but Xavier reveals the monster to be merely an illusion. However, they are all knocked unconscious by a blast of energy, and when they wake up, they find themselves trapped within a field of magnetic force. Flanked by his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants—the Blob, Mastermind, Unus the Untouchable, and Lorelei—the notorious super-villain Magneto rants and raves about a humanoid figure forming in a tank of chemicals behind him. He tells the Defenders a preposterous story of being trapped at the center of the earth by the Avengers until, several months later, a passing comet shifted the planet’s magnetic fields enough that he could make his way to Subterranea, where he translated books left behind by ancient aliens and thus learned the secret of genetically engineering a being powerful enough to enable him to conquer the world. When the villains return to their diabolical scheme, Xavier reveals himself to be a powerful telepath and harnesses the Defenders’ combined psychic energy to disrupt the field imprisoning them. They quickly defeat Magneto’s minions but are unable to prevent him from bringing his new creation to life. Gleefully, Magneto dubs the giant, brutish creature “Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant.”
Doctor Strange attempts to incapacitate Alpha with blasts of mystical energy, but Alpha erects a force field to protect himself, a field potent enough to repel the Hulk as well. Magneto then causes part of the cavern to collapse, trapping everyone underground, only to have Alpha teleport the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants away. Hulk and Valkyrie dig an escape tunnel, and the Defenders slowly make their way to the surface. Once there, Xavier does a telepathic scan to locate their foes, and after a few minutes of intense concentration, he finds them in New York City. Strange conjures up a portal through which the five heroes return to Manhattan. They are astonished to see the United Nations Building floating about half a mile above the city, presumably more of Alpha’s handiwork. Flying up to the building, the Defenders and Xavier fight their way past concrete automatons and confront Magneto and his minions in the general assembly chamber, where they are holding the assembled delegates prisoner. The heroes are surprised to see that Alpha has changed, having developed heightened intelligence and a less brutish appearance. He seems to visibly evolve every time he uses his powers and quickly surpasses mainstream humanity to take on a superior form. Noting Alpha’s reluctance to harm the Defenders, Xavier convinces him to judge for himself which of the two groups acts out of evil intent. Alpha does so, reading everyone’s innermost thoughts and motivations, and then condemns Magneto’s group as being little more than selfish children. The heroes are shocked when Alpha unleashes a beam of psychic energy that reduces Magneto, the Blob, Mastermind, Unus, and Lorelei to the equivalent of nine-month-old babies. Alpha then undoes the damage he caused to the United Nations Building and erases all memory of the traumatic event from the minds of the people affected by it. Continuing to evolve, Alpha bids farewell to the Defenders and Xavier before ascending into the sky, having decided to leave Earth to seek his destiny among the stars. Xavier takes charge of the babies, assuring the Defenders that they will be well cared for at the Mutant Research Centre in Scotland.
Thoroughly confused by what just happened, Hulk stomps off through Midtown Manhattan in search of solitude, only to be harassed by the NYPD and the National Guard. After a destructive fight, Hulk loses the government forces in the labyrinthine alleyways of the city. There, he is met by a cute little girl calling herself Laurie, who leads him to a tenement building on the Lower East Side with a cement stairway that goes down to a weird door with a sinister gargoyle looming over it. Beyond the door are more stairs that take them into the bowels of the earth. Hulk is concerned that the little girl considers this dank and dismal place home. Moving through a series of caverns, the little girl suddenly reveals herself to be a demon named Laurox the Lecherous and conjures up about half a dozen gigantic Bruce Banners to attack the Hulk. Bewildered, Hulk tries to defend himself but is no match for his laughing foes. As the savage beating drags on, Hulk’s rage becomes so overwhelming that his rational mind starts to buckle under the strain. After several hours, a strange man with a golden trident, Daimon Hellstrom, suddenly appears and blasts the giant Banners with mystical flames. He is followed by Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Nighthawk. Seeing his friends, Hulk rallies and smashes the Banners, causing them to crumble into lifeless stone. Without warning, the floor dissolves, sending everyone tumbling into an enormous throne room. Strange recognizes the figure on the throne as Asmodeus, a devil-worshiper who died a few years ago. Asmodeus reveals that he struck a bargain with the arch-demon Satannish to be returned to life in exchange for their five souls. Luckily, Hellstrom proves immune to Asmodeus’s eldritch power, protected by his golden trident, and saves the lives of the Defenders. Asmodeus panics as his time runs out, whereupon Satannish destroys him. The Defenders and Hellstrom abruptly find themselves in a vacant lot on the Lower East Side. Strange thanks Hellstrom on behalf of the entire team before they go their separate ways. He then offers the Hulk refuge in his Sanctum Sanctorum, and the beleaguered brute is glad to accept.
June 1967 – Hulk spends a quiet month with Doctor Strange, the Valkyrie, Clea, and Wong at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Nighthawk drops by several times and annoys everyone talking about the big plans he has for the Defenders.
July 1967 – Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Valkyrie join Nighthawk at the Defenders’ new headquarters, a secluded former riding academy on Long Island that Nighthawk has purchased in his civilian identity as businessman Kyle Richmond. Knowing that her flying horse, Aragorn, will be well looked after there, Valkyrie announces that she’s taking a leave of absence to try to find out more about the life of Barbara Norriss, whose body she inhabits due to the Enchantress’s sorcery. To aid her, Strange casts a spell on the Valkyrie’s sword so it will be invisible when not in use. The spell also enables her to magically switch from civilian clothes to her Asgardian garb when the sword is drawn from its scabbard. Hulk becomes very upset by the Valkyrie’s departure, throws a temper tantrum, and leaps away to be by himself for a while. Back in Manhattan about half an hour later, Hulk is hit by a car driven by the Chameleon, but the spy quickly disguises himself as Rick Jones and convinces the jade giant to break his friend Joe Cord out of prison. Thus, Hulk smashes into the Manhattan House of Detention for Men, commonly known as “the Tombs,” and searches for Cord. Despite interference from Spider-Man, Hulk finds Cord, breaks open his cell, and carries him to a nearby street corner where “Rick” is waiting. Cord is confused at first, until Spider-Man arrives and unmasks the Chameleon. Hulk is furious at having been deceived, but then numerous prison guards, backed up by the police, surround them. Hulk watches in confusion as the Chameleon pushes Cord into his car and drives off, running over a policeman, only to be stopped by Spider-Man’s webbing. Nevertheless, the Chameleon and Cord try to escape on foot and are shot down by the police. Cord dies in the Chameleon’s arms, after which the wounded spy is taken into custody. Spider-Man tries to explain the situation to the Hulk but doesn’t get very far before a radio bulletin reports that Doctor Strange and Nighthawk are fighting the Wrecking Crew at a construction site at W. 29th St. and Broadway. Once Spider-Man points him in the right direction, Hulk sets off to help his friends.
When he arrives, Hulk sees Doctor Strange and Nighthawk alongside Power Man, battling the Wrecker, Thunderball, Bulldozer, and Pilediver on the site of a demolished building. However, the entire area is sealed within a mystic force field, which the Hulk pounds on until it collapses. Doctor Strange falls to the ground unconscious at the same instant, but the jade giant takes little notice. As the Hulk joins the fight, the villains quickly decide to retreat with their loot—an adamantium capsule roughly the size of a football that they’ve dug out of the rubble. However, Thunderball is shocked to discover that the capsule is empty, revealing that it should contain a compact gamma bomb that he created, based on Bruce Banner’s research, when working for Kyle Richmond’s corporation. The crooks take advantage of the heroes’ alarm about the missing bomb, beat them into unconsciousness, and escape. When they come to, Hulk follows Doctor Strange, Nighthawk, and Power Man to Harlem, led there by faint mystic emanations from the Wrecker’s enchanted crowbar. They eventually come across a frightened boy name Joey who reports that the Wrecking Crew has invaded the Harlem Boys Club. Ignoring Strange’s words of caution, Hulk immediately charges in and attacks the villains, followed by Nighthawk and Power Man. Fortunately, the fight moves out into the street before the building is destroyed. The Wrecking Crew is quickly defeated, and Strange then asks the kids in the clubhouse about the bomb. They realize it must be the metal sphere Joey was carrying in his baseball mitt. The Defenders quickly track Joey down, whereupon Strange uses his magic amulet to change the Hulk back into Bruce Banner so he can defuse the bomb. Despite being under enormous stress, Bruce is successful, thanks to a set of tools Strange teleports in from Hulkbuster Base. As everyone breathes a sigh of relief, Bruce changes back into the Hulk, who is none too happy that Strange made him go to sleep. The sorcerer assures him that it was for a good cause. Grumbling, Hulk wanders off, heading north, and soon loses himself in the woods of Connecticut.
In a Connecticut suburb, Hulk spots some children playing in their front yard. Wanting to join in, he approaches them, but their terrified father runs out of the house, yelling in panic. Angered, Hulk lashes out, creating a shockwave that wrecks the house. The little girl who lives there drives the green behemoth away with her screaming and crying. Choking back tears, Hulk leaps away and soon cries himself to sleep in a secluded alley in Greenwich Village. When he wakes up, he has changed back to Bruce Banner. Feeling utterly drained physically and emotionally, Bruce staggers to Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, where he collapses on the threshold. Valkyrie carries him to a guest room upstairs and puts him to bed. Shortly after midnight, Bruce suddenly turns back into the Hulk, caught in the grip of a mystically induced madness, and rampages through the streets alongside many other similarly afflicted rioters. Valkyrie tries to stop the Hulk, but he smacks her down. Fortunately, the spell of madness is short lived, and Hulk is left feeling awful for hitting his friend. Doctor Strange is frustrated that they have no clue as to who was responsible. Nighthawk arrives and reports that he fought with a looter in Midtown who appeared to have the head of a man and the body of a gorilla, theorizing that the two bizarre events could be connected. Strange is baffled.
A couple days later, Nighthawk recruits the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Valkyrie, the Sub-Mariner, and Daredevil to fight for the earth in another elaborate game set up by the Grandmaster, the enigmatic alien who originally gave him his super-powers. The seemingly omnipotent Grandmaster assures them that he has no interest in Earth, so if they win, the world will be left alone. However, if his mysterious opponent should win, the human race shall be enslaved and the planet stripped of its resources. The Grandmaster, whom Nighthawk describes as a “galactic gambling addict,” then splits them into teams of two and teleports them to distant planets to fight to the death against his own hand-picked mercenaries. Hulk and Doctor Strange find themselves in a dilapidated, vaguely medieval city populated by a humanoid race, where they face off against a little yellow alien calling himself Grott the Man-Slayer and a cyborg from the 31st century named Korvac. While Grott attacks the Hulk with his psychokinetic powers, Korvac uses his technology to instantly analyze and counter Strange’s sorcery. Finding his spells useless, Strange defeats Korvac with an unexpected punch in the face. Hulk weathers Grott’s assault, then knocks him out with a flick of his mighty fingers. Having won the match, the two Defenders are teleported back to the Grandmaster’s space station, where he declares himself the game’s winner. However, he then announces that he’s changed his mind, having realized that Earth would be the ideal breeding ground for gladiators to amuse him for generations to come. Enraged, the Defenders attack him, only to be easily repulsed. However, Daredevil challenges the Grandmaster to decide Earth’s fate on a coin toss. When Daredevil wins the toss, the Grandmaster concedes defeat and teleports them all back to Nighthawk’s penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Strange expresses his gratitude to Daredevil, though he has some reservations about risking the future of the human race on the toss of a coin. Enigmatically, Daredevil insists the outcome was never in doubt. He then exits through a window, and the Sub-Mariner, not happy to be among the Defenders again, departs as well. When Strange and the Valkyrie return to the Sanctum Sanctorum, Hulk strikes out on his own.
Hulk slips out of New York by climbing inside a military cargo truck transporting chemicals out west. He dozes fitfully for about 17 hours until the soldiers, hearing strange noises in the storage trailer, pull over to check on the cargo. Hulk gets mad that his slumber has been disturbed and lashes out at the startled soldiers. They open fire on him, but he forces them to scatter as he crushes the truck, puncturing its liquid storage tanks. The strange chemical brew douses the Hulk and soaks into his skin as he storms off into the countryside. Before long, he is attacked by a skull-headed demon on a motorcycle shooting flames out of its hands that cause the jade giant excruciating pain. When the apparition vanishes into thin air, Hulk sets out to track it down and get revenge. He soon finds the demon, called the Ghost Rider, participating in a motorcycle race across the desert and disrupts the event. Ghost Rider tries to keep the Hulk away from the other contestants by shooting fire out of his hands again, though the eldritch flames cause much less pain this time. Finally, Ghost Rider creates a wall of fire around the Hulk that quickly burns up all the oxygen inside it, causing him to pass out. When Hulk regains consciousness, he finds all the motorcyclists have ridden off somewhere. Frustrated, Hulk wanders off, bemoaning how he’s attacked everywhere he goes, and eventually reaches a wide river. There, his own shadow starts beating on him, but the Hulk soon realizes it’s really some kind of creature made of darkness. The shadow creature identifies itself as Warlord Kaa, the leader of a failed alien invasion who’s been marooned in orbit for the last six and a half years. Kaa explains that the chemicals the Hulk spilled on himself have enabled Kaa to siphon the Hulk’s power into his shadowy manifestation. Feeling violated, Hulk retaliates, but since they’re evenly matched, the battle drags on for the next 11 hours. Kaa eventually grows frustrated that the Hulk never seems to tire out. As the sun starts to set, they stumble into an oil field and wreck much of it with their incessant fighting. However, when the installation’s lights come on automatically, Kaa realizes too late that his shadow form is being dissolved by the diffuse lighting. He tries to send his mind back to his physical body inside his orbiting spaceship but is unable to muster the necessary concentration. His foe thus disintegrated, Hulk strides off into the gathering dusk and falls asleep on a bed of prairie grass.
At dawn, Bruce Banner wakes up and wanders across the prairie until coming upon Interstate 40, where he manages to hitch a ride in an 18-wheeler heading west. About six hours later, Bruce hops out of the truck at a rest area outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, and hitchhikes out to Hulkbuster Base, where he is reunited with General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, his daughter Betty Talbot, and her husband Major Glenn Talbot, who survived his brush with death last year. Another soldier, Air Force Colonel John D. Armbruster, immediately shoots Bruce with a tranquilizer gun, knocking him out. Bruce comes to the next morning and finds himself wearing oversized shackles and locked in a steel cell. Bruce learns from General Ross and Colonel Armbruster that the President of the United States is due to visit the base that very day, so they couldn’t take any chances with the Hulk being on the loose. Bruce ignores them, feeling betrayed. When the two men depart, Betty peers at Bruce through the heavy bars on the door. Tearfully, she expresses her regret about hurting him, abandoning him to marry Glenn Talbot, saying she couldn’t wait for him any longer and couldn’t share him with the Hulk. Bruce reacts bitterly, complaining that the Hulk ruined his career, destroyed his life, and has left him in chains, and still all anybody talks about is the Hulk, as though no one gives a damn about Bruce Banner anymore. Betty insists that she still cares for him, but Bruce rejects her pity, coldly calling her “Mrs. Talbot.” He then barks at her that he doesn’t have any friends. Upset and angry, Betty walks away. Bruce tries to call her back, overcome with anguish, but it’s too late.
Later, the ceiling of the cell retracts, revealing some gawkers up on a walkway. General Ross introduces Bruce to President William E. Miller as Betty and Glenn Talbot look on. Bruce mistakenly thinks Miller is still the vice president and is insolent toward him. Just as Talbot moves up close behind the President, Armbruster comes charging in and tackles Talbot. They fall over the railing, but before they hit the ground, a bomb in Talbot’s chest explodes, killing both men. As the charred corpses land in the cell, Bruce feels his transformation coming on. He yells at Ross to get Betty to safety. Ross hesitates, though, choosing to first order that the ceiling of the cell be closed. However, Hulk breaks out of his chains and leaps up through the closing metal shutters. He lands on the walkway just as Ross hustles the President into an elevator. Hulk is enraged to see that General Ross is still persecuting him, but he’s distracted when he notices Betty sobbing on the floor. Hulk tries to comfort Betty, but then soldiers enter with guns drawn. Hulk swats the soldiers away, then grabs Betty and smashes his way up the elevator shaft to the surface. There, he is confronted by Ross in a kind of ‘Hulkbuster’ armor, the HS-1000. Despite the suit’s fearsome armaments, Hulk topples it and starts tearing it apart, determined to get at Ross. Betty begs him to stop, distracting the Hulk long enough for Ross to knock him out with a “gamma blaster” ray.
August 1967 – Hulk comes to several days later to find himself in the shattered remains of a tank of extremely cold fluid. He rips the oxygen mask off his face, realizing he’s been held prisoner since his fight with General Ross. Breaking out of the complex, Hulk discovers that Hulkbuster Base is being completely wrecked by a man in glowing armor who calls himself the Devastator. Keeping out of the Hulk’s reach, the Devastator blasts him with searing energy bolts from his gauntlets. Hulk is able to withstand the barrage long enough to grab his overconfident foe’s gauntlets and crush them. When the Devastator then tries to continue using his damaged weapons, he is incinerated. Hulk stumbles away across the tarmac before collapsing into unconsciousness, whereupon he changes back into Bruce Banner. When he wakes up a few minutes later, Bruce is shocked to learn from General Ross and Betty that the autopsy conducted on Glenn Talbot revealed him to be an impostor. They have hope that the real Talbot is still alive, a prisoner of the Soviet Union.
The next day, Bruce and General Ross are taken to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s west-coast headquarters near Las Vegas, where they meet with Nick Fury and several high-ranking agents. Fury introduces them to Clay Quartermain, who he has assigned to act as liaison officer to the Air Force’s Hulkbuster unit. They then review satellite photos of a secret Soviet installation in Siberia known as Bitterfrost. The agency’s intelligence reports indicate that, if Glenn Talbot is still alive, he would most likely be found there. Given Colonel Armbruster’s botched incursion into the Soviet Union last year, Fury is determined to get the rescue operation right this time, despite the fragile geopolitical situation. When the top-secret mission is ready to depart 36 hours later, Bruce stows away aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft, feeling the least he can do to make up to Betty all the grief he’s caused her over the last five years is to help reunite her with her husband. The plane comes under attack after entering Soviet airspace, and the weapons pod Bruce is hiding in is ejected. As it plummets to the ground, Bruce turns into the Hulk, bursts out of the pod, and lands on his feet not far from the Bitterfrost installation. He heads over there, hoping to learn where he is, only to be fired upon by the guards in the citadel’s towers. Enraged, Hulk hurls a boulder at them, then smashes through the wall and enters the facility. He is immediately intercepted by eight soldiers in bulky suits of armor. As they fight, Hulk hears them chattering to each other in Russian, but he can’t understand them. He spots the Gremlin, the deformed scientist he met last year, yelling orders to his troops. They manage to outmaneuver the Hulk and stun him with their energy rifles.
When he regains his senses, Hulk finds himself being released from one of the Gremlin’s sinister devices. General Ross, Clay Quartermain, and a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are holding the Gremlin, his technicians, and, oddly enough, Glenn Talbot at gunpoint. They march their prisoners toward their extraction point, convincing the Hulk to follow by telling him they need to rescue Betty. However, the Gremlin summons a monstrous creature he’s created through genetic engineering, a sort of cross between a large dog and a triceratops that speaks in rhyming Russian. Recognizing it as the kind of threat only he can deal with, Hulk immediately attacks the creature, which the Gremlin calls Droog. The Gremlin then shoots Talbot with a ray gun, causing him to collapse, and gets away. Hulk insists that Ross and the others go save Betty while he smashes the monster, so they leave with Talbot’s body. For the next 20 minutes, Hulk and the talkative Droog engage in a savage, destructive battle that rages through the installation’s lowest levels. Finally, a tremendous explosion overhead buries the two combatants in pulverized rubble.
Hulk finally digs himself free and finds he is in the crater left behind by the explosion that vaporized the entire Bitterfrost installation. Droog is nowhere to be found, so Hulk wanders off across the frozen tundra, making his way south. After several days of trekking across Siberia, Hulk comes to a lake surrounded by pine trees, where a little girl is singing while she plays. Captivated by the sweet music, Hulk tries to keep hidden but accidentally steps on a branch, alerting her to his presence. To the Hulk’s surprise, the girl turns out to be blind. Despite the language barrier, they establish that his name is Hulk and her name is Katrina. Suddenly, Hulk is shot in the back by Katrina’s frightened father, though the bullets can’t penetrate his thick, green skin. An older man named Palkov prevents the situation from escalating and convinces the others to bring the Hulk back to their village. There, Palkov makes Hulk understand that he’s trying to cure Katrina’s blindness in his makeshift laboratory, but the village is under some kind of threat. Hulk is sympathetic, especially after Palkov gives him dinner. After watching Palkov putter around his lab for a few hours, Hulk falls asleep. He is awakened in the middle of the night by a horde of Subterraneans and drives them off, though they manage to steal Palkov’s research. Hulk chases them to a cave in the woods where he is taken prisoner by their master, the Mole Man, who wants Palkov’s blindness cure for himself. Hulk breaks free, seizes a syringe full of the medicine, and fights his way through thousands of Subterraneans to get back to the surface. To cut off his pursuers, Hulk causes a massive cave-in. He then returns to the village, where Palkov injects Katrina with the drug. After many hours, her vision begins to return. Seeing the Hulk for the first time, Katrina smiles and speaks softly to him, then gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Astonished that she’s not terrified of him, Hulk is overcome with emotion and retreats into the wilderness, tears streaming down his cheeks.
September 1967 – Hulk makes his way westward across Russia, getting into occasional skirmishes with both the Soviet military and the local wildlife. One day, he comes upon a golden man in a toga who introduces himself as Glorian and offers to take the Hulk across his rainbow bridge to the land of his dreams. Though suspicious, Hulk consents, and Glorian’s rainbow transports them to a small planetoid with an Earth-like environment but unspoiled by human civilization. After Glorian has departed, Hulk finds both Crackajack Jackson and Jarella waiting for him and is overjoyed to be reunited with his dear friends. However, their idyll is destroyed when Tribbitite slavers descend on them, take them prisoner, and transport them to the Tribbitite imperial throneworld. There, Emperor Torkon II gloats about having captured the Hulk, who foiled his plan to invade Earth five-and-a-half years ago. Torkon at first decides to force the Hulk to walk the treadmills that keep their society running until he dies of exhaustion but then changes his mind when his scientists discover that the Hulk’s paradise planet was created by the Shaper of Worlds. Wanting the Shaper of Worlds to alter reality in his empire’s favor, Torkon threatens to kill Jarella and Crackajack unless the Hulk hunts down the enigmatic alien for him. Grumbling, Hulk agrees to do so. With a nulltron bomb strapped to his back, Hulk is returned to the planetoid in an automated spacecraft. No sooner has Hulk located the Shaper of Worlds than the nulltron bomb explodes, knocking them both unconscious.
Hulk wakes up to find he’s been left behind on the now barren world. Luckily, Glorian turns up and asks him what’s going on. Learning that the Shaper of Worlds has been abducted, Glorian creates another rainbow to take them to Emperor Torkon’s palace. There, Glorian tries to convince Torkon to release the Shaper, only to be shot in the back by one of the palace guards. Believing Glorian dead, the Shaper is overcome with grief and loses control over the illusions he’d been maintaining, revealing both Jarella and Crackajack to be slug-like aliens. Realizing he’d been duped, Hulk goes berserk and starts tearing up the palace. Neither Torkon nor his guards can contain the Hulk’s rampage, but the Shaper intervenes and offers to return him to his little paradise with his friends restored to him. Hulk rejects the offer, saying paradise is no good if it’s just an illusion. Torkon interjects, begging the Shaper to bestow his gifts on the Tribbitite Empire instead. The Shaper flatly refuses and, seeing that the Hulk isn’t going to change his mind, teleports him back to Earth. Hulk rematerializes in Russia, some ways south of the Arctic Circle, and continues on his westward journey.
October 1967 – While swimming across a lake in Scotland, Hulk gets tangled in a fishing net, which leads to him meeting local fisherman Angus MacTavish and his wife Sarah. MacTavish recruits the Hulk to help him hunt down the legendary monster of Loch Fear, which has plagued the area for generations. However, after a delicious meal, Hulk falls asleep in the MacTavishes’ guest room and changes back into Bruce Banner. Harsh voices in the house soon wake Bruce, and he is confused to find the MacTavishes being held at gunpoint. The gunmen then march both men across the dark moors to the bleak castle inhabited by the local laird, Black Jamie Macawber, who is intent on preventing MacTavish from killing the lake monster, as the local economy has become dependent on the tourism associated with it. Imprisoned with MacTavish in the castle’s tower, Bruce eventually turns back into the Hulk and breaks free. MacTavish immediately embarks on his monster hunt, and the Hulk insists on joining him. With a homemade harpoon launcher affixed to his fishing boat, MacTavish pilots them out into the middle of Loch Fear. Before long, the monster surfaces, breaking the fishing boat in two and revealing itself to be some kind of gigantic mutant plesiosaur. Even so, MacTavish manages to fire his harpoon, which is wrapped in dynamite, into the creature’s shoulder. Macawber arrives in a speedboat, determined to subdue the plesiosaur with a powerful sedative so he can turn it into the world’s greatest tourist attraction. At MacTavish’s urging, Hulk grabs Macawber just as the dynamite explodes. Macawber’s chemical tanks rupture, and the sedative gas triggers the Hulk’s transformation. Bruce falls into the water as Macawber and the Loch Fear monster are somehow instantly petrified, which Bruce and MacTavish discover as they are washed up on the shore of the lake. In a celebratory mood, MacTavish invites Bruce to stay on in their community, but Bruce decides it would be better for everyone if he moved on. MacTavish gives Bruce some of his clothes and helps him book passage on a ship, the HMS Black Watch, bound for America.
During the ocean crossing, Bruce discovers the ship’s crew dumping drums of radioactive waste in contravention of international law. Caught red-handed, the sailors gang up on Bruce, intending to throw him overboard. However, they merely succeed in causing him to change into the Hulk and go on a rampage that sinks the ship. As the panicked sailors clamber into their lifeboats, Hulk swims away into the darkness and eventually arrives in the New York City harbor. Climbing onto a pier on Manhattan’s lower west side, Hulk startles some longshoremen, who summon the police. After a brief confrontation, Hulk loses himself in the back alleys of one of the city’s grimier neighborhoods. Several hours later, a S.H.I.E.L.D. drone aircraft flies overhead, with a voice blaring from a loudspeaker ordering the Hulk to surrender. Annoyed, Hulk throws a trash dumpster at the drone, destroying it. He is then tackled by Doc Samson, who has regained his super-strength. Samson says they need Bruce’s help at the Air Force’s Project Greenskin, but this merely enrages the Hulk, who considers Banner to be his greatest enemy. Reveling in his gamma-spawned power, Samson presses his attack, confident that he is a match for the Hulk. Their destructive battle leads them to the top of the New York Telephone Company Building, where the Hulk hands Samson a decisive defeat. Roaring in victory, Hulk leaps away, leaving the city far behind.
November 1967 – Hulk slowly makes his way across the middle of the United States, causing occasional chaos and destruction while evading the Hulkbusters’ attempts to capture him. Late in the month, he wanders into San Francisco, California, where he finds refuge in an abandoned tenement.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Hulk finds himself trapped within a magical force-field bubble in downtown San Francisco. Try as he might, he is unable to escape. Finally, the force field vanishes as mysteriously as it appeared. Unnerved by the experience, Hulk leaves the city and makes his way back towards the east coast.
Feeling himself summoned by Doctor Strange, Hulk heads to Roosevelt Hospital in Midtown Manhattan, where he meets up with the Valkyrie. She informs him that Nighthawk was injured in an explosion and has just come out of surgery. Hulk is determined to visit his sick friend, but the Valkyrie restrains him until Doctor Strange enters with the surgeon who saved Nighthawk’s life. Strange assures the Hulk that his friend will recover but insists he needs uninterrupted rest. Hulk relents and accompanies Strange and the Valkyrie back to the Sanctum Sanctorum for the rest of the night. In the morning, the trio returns to the hospital, but Hulk’s friends convince him to remain outside with Aragorn so as not to disturb the other patients. Shortly, Strange and Valkyrie return and lead the Hulk to the remote Crayton Observatory in search of the Squadron Sinister, whom Nighthawk believes may have caused the explosion. There, they discover that Hyperion, Doctor Spectrum, and the Whizzer did indeed survive the battle with Nebulon last year. Though the Defenders have the element of surprise, the Squadron Sinister quickly turns the tables by using a new weapon that forces the Hulk to change back into Bruce Banner. Bruce is disoriented for a moment before lapsing into unconsciousness.
Sometime later, Bruce is shocked awake by a jolt of searing agony and immediately turns into the Hulk again. Breaking out of some shackles, Hulk finds that the former Avenger known as Yellowjacket has come to free the Defenders from their imprisonment in the observatory’s basement. His cellular-disruptor gun has enabled the Hulk to shatter his own bonds, but he needs the green goliath’s strength to release Doctor Strange and the Valkyrie from theirs. Once the Hulk has done so, Yellowjacket informs them that the Squadron Sinister had nothing to do with the explosion that injured Nighthawk—it was actually set off by his old arch-enemy Egghead, who was targeting Nighthawk’s girlfriend. Nevertheless, the four heroes race back to Roosevelt Hospital to stop the Squadron Sinister from taking revenge on Nighthawk for betraying them. There, Strange and Valkyrie rescue Nighthawk from Doctor Spectrum while Yellowjacket defeats the Whizzer. Hulk knocks Hyperion out by creating a powerful shockwave that also shatters Doctor Spectrum’s power prism. Strange then casts a spell that causes the Squadron Sinister to lose all memory of their villainous identities, ensuring they will pose no further threat to Nighthawk.
Doctor Strange and Valkyrie convince the Hulk to spend some more time with them at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Clea and Wong are delighted to host their brutish friend again, though two of Strange’s acolytes, Lord Phyffe and Rama Kaliph, need to be reassured that they’re not in danger. Once the Hulk accepts them as friends, the two adepts become very curious about him. Nighthawk makes a rapid recovery due to his super-powers and resumes his crime-fighting crusade, though he’s depressed that his girlfriend has dumped him. For his part, Hulk enjoys the holiday season in New York, as his friends enable him to take a break from all his troubles.
Notes:
January 1967 – The Hulk’s adventures continue in Hulk #179 and following. Lucifer Falls is established as being in West Virginia in Rom, Spaceknight #29. In fact, the nearby city where Bruce buys his Geiger counter is most likely Clairton, which Rom will make his base of operations in just a couple of years.
February 1967 – For their fourth battle royal, the Hulk and the Thing switch it up in Giant-Size Super-Stars #1.
March 1967 – The man in the hovel is Marie Cartier’s brother Paul. He’s been saved from the curse of the Wendigo by Georges Baptiste, who’s taken it upon himself out of love for Marie. It was her disembodied voice that led the Hulk to her hovel, where she planned to use a magic spell to transfer the curse from Paul to the Hulk. However, Georges found he couldn’t allow such a horror to be inflicted on an innocent pawn. Convicts Leroy “Hammer” Jackson and Johnny Anvil, who received their glowing cable from an alien visitor, will recover and become minor super-villains known as Hammer & Anvil until being murdered by the Scourge of the Underworld.
May 1967 – Hulk is reunited with his Defenders teammates to take on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants at the behest of Professor X in Defenders #15–16. Xavier seeks outside help because the X-Men are off on their mission to Krakoa, as seen in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Magneto’s odyssey through the bowels of the earth is a delusion; following his defeat at the hands of the Avengers (in Avengers #111), he was held in a telepathically induced coma in the basement of the X-Men’s headquarters. However, his deranged mind rejects this humiliating reality in favor of a nonsensical sci-fi fantasy. See my Magneto chronology for further discussion. The Defenders then team up with Daimon Hellstrom, the so-called “Son of Satan,” in Giant-Size Defenders #2.
July 1967 – Hulk appears at the beginning of Defenders #17 before moving into Marvel Team-Up #27. The Defenders’ battle with the Wrecking Crew then spans Defenders #18–19. Hulk catches up with his teammates again in Defenders #21. The temporary spell of madness and the apelike looter are indeed connected, as both are part of a scheme by the freakish small-time crooks known as the Headmen—Arthur Nagan, Jerry Morgan, and Chondu the Mystic. Daredevil helps the Defenders defeat the Grandmaster and his mystery opponent (Doctor Doom’s Prime Mover robot) in Giant-Size Defenders #3. Hulk is then drawn into conflict with Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider #11. A demon called Inferno ambushes the Hulk with an illusory Ghost Rider to get him mad and then leads him to the real one, hoping Johnny Blaze will be killed in the ensuing fight. Warlord Kaa first appeared during Marvel’s “Atlas” era in Strange Tales #79, which (based on the cover date) falls on my OMU timeline in December 1960.
October 1967 – Hulk’s battle with Doc Samson brings us up to Hulk #193. In the story, the fight concludes atop the World Trade Center, but in 1967 it hadn’t been built yet, so I swapped it for the New York Telephone Company Building, an older skyscraper on an adjacent lot.
December 1967 – Hulk is among the various superheroes seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233. While Earth’s champions are thus imprisoned, Loki leads an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army. The Defenders team up with Yellowjacket against the Squadron Sinister in Giant-Size Defenders #4.
Jump Back: The Hulk – Year Five
Next Issue: Power Man – Year Three
Saturday
OMU: Doctor Strange -- Year Six
After a successful try-out run, Doctor Strange was granted a new solo series written by Steve Englehart with art by Frank Brunner on the first story arc and Gene Colan on the second. These early issues focus on Strange’s deepening relationship with the extradimensional pixie Clea and see them acting as full partners for the first time in mystical odysseys that resemble the psychedelic acid trips they were no doubt based on. Concurrently, Strange had more standard superhero adventures in The Defenders and the quarterly Giant-Size Defenders as well as both of Marvel’s team-up books, with writing chores shared between Len Wein and Steve Gerber. These overstuffed punch-ups drew the new Sorcerer Supreme out of his usual ambit but added little to his characterization. It was in his own book that Doctor Strange dealt with philosophical issues of identity, religion, life, death, and resurrection, leaving a legacy of landmark issues still celebrated decades later.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
We now continue... The True History of Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme!
January 1967 – Following their encounter with the 31st-century sorcerer Sise-Neg, Doctor Strange takes the utterly stupefied Baron Mordo back to the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York’s Greenwich Village. There, Strange’s disciple and lover, Clea, his faithful manservant, Wong, and his semi-permanent houseguest and Defenders teammate, the Valkyrie, are glad to see he has returned safely. In one of the mansion’s guest rooms, Strange tries to revive Mordo but is unable to bring him out of his catatonic state. Realizing the experience with Sise-Neg was too much for Mordo to bear, Strange decides to focus on just keeping his old rival alive until his mind can heal itself.
Doctor Strange’s studies are interrupted one night by Spider-Man, who appears to have gone mad. Catching the sorcerer off-guard, Spider-Man manages to knock him unconscious. When he comes to, Strange discovers that the web-slinger has stolen a magical artifact, the Crystal of Kadavus. Tracking the crystal’s mystical emanations to a dilapidated brownstone on the city’s west side, Strange finds Spider-Man there with the wizard Xandu, whom they battled together some three and a half years ago. Using the Wand of Watoomb, Xandu whisks them off to another dimension, where he demonstrates his might by turning his prisoners into living marionettes. However, when Xandu boasts of his spell that prevents the two heroes from using their powers against him while in that dimension, Strange sees an opportunity. He weaves a counter-spell that enables them to use each other’s powers instead. Thus, while Spider-Man, now back in his right mind, staggers Xandu with bolts of eldritch energy, Doctor Strange covers the villain in webbing and punches him in the face. Strange leaves the Wand of Watoomb adrift in that nameless dimension as he teleports everyone back to Earth, materializing in their foe’s shabby lair. Xandu is distraught over losing the Wand of Watoomb since he mainly wanted it to rouse his fiancée, Melinda, from a deathlike sleep he accidentally placed her in while practicing spells many years ago. Sympathetic, Strange offers to help, but his mystical analysis of Melinda reveals her to be truly dead—Xandu’s spell has merely preserved her body. When he learns that he actually killed his lover all those years ago, Xandu suffers a complete emotional breakdown. Having retrieved the Crystal of Kadavus, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man make a discreet exit.
Feeling playful, Clea proposes to report on her progress in the mystic arts one evening but merely conjures a white rabbit from a top hat while saying “abracadabra.” Doctor Strange is amused and suggests the Vishanti are notorious for their card tricks. After they’ve spent some time having sex, Strange decides to get some sleep and, leaving Clea to play with her rabbit, retires to his bedroom, where he levitates in the lotus position within the magical Mists of Morpheus. Suddenly, he is stabbed in the back with an enchanted dagger and collapses to the floor in agony. About an hour later, Wong enters and finds him barely conscious. Wong reports that the assassin kidnapped Clea and stole the Amulet of Agamotto. Distressed, Strange has Wong bring in his large crystal ball, the Orb of Agamotto, whereupon he is able to cast a spell that stops him from immediately bleeding to death, though he has still suffered a mortal wound. He then tries to locate Clea in the crystal ball and learns that she is chained up in a basement with the assassin demanding that she renounce sorcery. Realizing they are being observed, the assassin attacks Strange through the Orb of Agamotto. Tentacles erupt from the crystal and grab Strange, and he instantly recognizes the spell as a work of necromancy. Despite his efforts to resist, Strange is pulled through the crystal into another dimension.
Finding himself in a bizarre landscape, Strange comes upon a giant caterpillar smoking a hookah atop an oversized mushroom. The caterpillar informs Strange, in its own elliptical way, that the assassin, known as Silver Dagger, has trapped him within the Orb for all time. Strange refuses to accept this, declaring that he is the Sorcerer Supreme and nothing will stop him from rescuing Clea. Impressed by the sorcerer’s resolve, the caterpillar suggests he try to find his way to the center of the Orb, where there may be a means to return to Earth. However, the enigmatic being warns, he would then find himself right back where he started—moments away from an agonizing death. Undaunted, Strange soars off, carried by his Cloak of Levitation, only to quickly become hopelessly lost. Along the way, Strange encounters horrific monsters as well as twisted doppelgängers of his friends and associates, such as the Valkyrie, the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner, the Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, and others, and thereby learns that everything he is experiencing within the Orb is shaped by his own subconscious mind. The true foe he must face at the center of the Orb, he realizes, is Death itself. A duplicate of the Valkyrie’s winged horse, Aragorn, then takes him where he needs to go, allowing Strange to focus on overcoming Death’s attempts to demoralize him. When they finally encounter Death’s immense, skull-like visage, the pseudo-Aragorn is destroyed instantly. Strange, however, rejects the very notion that Death holds sway over the Sorcerer Supreme. Death shrugs off Strange’s magical attacks, saying he can’t fight a universal law—everything dies. Strange decides to retreat and soon comes across a void in the distinctive shape of Eternity. He takes refuge within the void, remembering that not every lifeform in the universe is mortal. Though Death tries again to dishearten Strange, the sorcerer declares that they’ve reached a stalemate so long as he remains within Eternity’s void. Soon, though, Strange realizes he’s running out of options—his strength is finite while Death can generate no end of perils. If he cannot attack or escape, he reasons, his only other choice would seem to be to surrender. Recalling everything the Ancient One taught him about death and dying, he works through his fear in the face of the inevitable, slowly filling the void as he does so. When he’s ready for the end, he emerges from the void and opens himself to Death’s touch. At that instant, Doctor Stephen Strange dies.
There is a sudden rushing sensation as the universe seems to fall away, leaving Strange floating in the resultant nothingness. The face of the Ancient One then materializes and congratulates him on passing the first of a series of trials that he must undergo as Sorcerer Supreme. By overcoming the deep-seated fear of death, Strange will be reborn on the physical plane in a form “touched by eternity”—manifested by a mystical ankh that will appear from time to time on his forehead. Though he may never die of natural causes, the Ancient One warns, Strange could still be killed in battle, and so he must remain ever vigilant. The Ancient One then tells Strange that, if he passes his remaining trials and lives well, he will eventually follow him in becoming one with all there is. Barely able to process what has just happened to him, Strange admits to feeling a bit different as it dawns on him that he will never get any older than his current age of 54. As the beatific image of the Ancient One fades away, Strange suddenly finds himself transported back to Earth.
Still attuned to the higher dimensions of the universe, Strange is disoriented as his astral form emerges from the Amulet of Agamotto in the abandoned subway station that Silver Dagger has made into his lair. He searches frantically for his physical body, but his distorted perceptions cause him to briefly animate a headless mannequin dressed in his sorcerer’s garb. The figure collapses into a heap, but Strange senses Clea’s presence and takes refuge within her mind, where he is able to reconstruct a coherent conception of reality. At the same time, he perceives how Silver Dagger invaded the Sanctum Sanctorum a few days ago by causing Clea’s rabbit to grow to gigantic proportions and crash through the window to escape the building. Taking Clea by surprise, Silver Dagger mesmerized her, beat up Wong, and then stabbed Strange in the back. He then kidnapped Clea and, revealing that he was formerly a cardinal at the Vatican, has been trying to “deprogram” her in order to save her soul from eternal damnation. When Silver Dagger enters the room, Clea uses Strange’s knowledge of sorcery to escape and, finding herself in Chelsea, runs the several blocks to the Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village. Once there, Wong leads her to Strange’s physical body, which emerged from the Orb of Agamotto healed of its mortal wound, and Strange then reunites his corporeal and noncorporeal selves.
Moments later, Silver Dagger again invades the building and tries to defeat Strange using the Amulet of Agamotto. Together, Strange and Clea cast a spell that turns the amulet’s power back upon Silver Dagger, forcing him to face the truth that his understanding of magic is too limited and his murderous crusade is therefore misguided. In despair, Silver Dagger is sucked into the Orb to take Strange’s place as companion to the hookah-smoking caterpillar. Strange assures Clea that Silver Dagger lacks the skill to escape such a predicament. Returning to his meditations, Strange contemplates his realization that the caterpillar was in fact a manifestation of Agamotto, one of the “holy trinity” of the eternal Vishanti.
February–April 1967 – Doctor Strange and Clea focus on building her mastery of the mystic arts, as they discover that her merger with his consciousness has made it easier for her to wield the magical energies of Earth’s dimension.
May 1967 – Nighthawk returns to the Sanctum Sanctorum, sporting a new-and-improved costume, and announces that he is at last ready to take his place among the Defenders. Doctor Strange and Valkyrie give him a tour of their residence, but they are interrupted by the astral form of Charles Xavier, whom Strange met four years ago at the wedding of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Girl. Strange uses the Amulet of Agamotto to make Xavier’s astral form visible to his teammates so they can join in the conversation. Xavier explains that he is seeking help against the mutant super-villain Magneto, as those who would normally aid him with such matters are off on a secret mission. The Defenders are happy to assist, so Strange sends out a psychic projection to locate the Hulk before transporting the team to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, where Xavier is waiting. Hulk arrives a few minutes later, whereupon they all enter the caverns. Within moments, they are ambushed by a seemingly invincible cyclops, but Xavier reveals the monster to be merely an illusion. However, they are all knocked unconscious by a blast of energy, and when they wake up, they find themselves trapped within a field of magnetic force. Flanked by his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants—the Blob, Mastermind, Unus the Untouchable, and Lorelei—Magneto rants and raves about a humanoid figure forming in a tank of chemicals behind him. He tells the Defenders a preposterous story of being trapped at the center of the earth by the Avengers until, several months later, a passing comet shifted the planet’s magnetic fields enough that he could make his way to Subterranea, where he translated books left behind by ancient aliens and thus learned the secret of genetically engineering a being powerful enough to enable him to conquer the world. When the villains return to their diabolical scheme, Xavier reveals himself to be a powerful telepath and harnesses the Defenders’ combined psychic energy to disrupt the field imprisoning them. They quickly defeat Magneto’s minions but are unable to prevent him from bringing his new creation to life. Gleefully, Magneto dubs the giant, brutish creature “Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant.”
Doctor Strange attempts to incapacitate Alpha with blasts of mystical energy, but Alpha erects a force field to protect himself, a field potent enough to repel the Hulk as well. Magneto then causes part of the cavern to collapse, trapping everyone underground, only to have Alpha teleport the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants away. Hulk and Valkyrie dig an escape tunnel, and the Defenders slowly make their way to the surface. Once there, Xavier does a telepathic scan to locate their foes, and after a few minutes of intense concentration, he finds them in New York City. Strange conjures up a portal through which the five heroes return to Manhattan. They are astonished to see the United Nations Building floating about half a mile above the city, presumably more of Alpha’s handiwork. Flying up to the building, the Defenders and Xavier fight their way past concrete automatons and confront Magneto and his minions in the general assembly chamber, where they are holding the assembled delegates prisoner. The heroes are surprised to see that Alpha has changed, having developed heightened intelligence and a less brutish appearance. He seems to visibly evolve every time he uses his powers and quickly surpasses mainstream humanity to take on a superior form. Noting Alpha’s reluctance to harm the Defenders, Xavier convinces him to judge for himself which of the two groups acts out of evil intent. Alpha does so, reading everyone’s innermost thoughts and motivations, and then condemns Magneto’s group as being little more than selfish children. The heroes are shocked when Alpha unleashes a beam of psychic energy that reduces Magneto, the Blob, Mastermind, Unus, and Lorelei to the equivalent of nine-month-old babies. Alpha then undoes the damage he caused to the United Nations Building and erases all memory of the traumatic event from the minds of the people affected by it. Continuing to evolve, Alpha bids farewell to the Defenders and Xavier before ascending into the sky, having decided to leave Earth to seek his destiny among the stars. Xavier takes charge of the babies, assuring the Defenders that they will be well cared for at the Mutant Research Centre in Scotland.
After the Hulk has gone off on his own, Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Nighthawk leave the United Nations Building and return to the Sanctum Sanctorum. A little while later, a hooded apparition appears and conjures up images of the Hulk in one of Strange’s crystal balls, revealing how the green behemoth was tricked by a demon posing as a little girl and led to an unearthly cavern deep beneath the city where he is being tormented with illusions of his alter-ego, Bruce Banner. Unless the Defenders agree to serve its evil master, the specter warns, the Hulk will be driven insane. Unwilling to surrender without a fight, the Defenders split up and search the city for their hapless teammate, without success. Back at the Sanctum Sanctorum, Strange decides to contact Daimon Hellstrom, a demonologist who has made a name for himself recently. With no time to lose, Strange sends his astral form to Hellstrom’s office at Gateway University, where he finds the occult expert working late. Knowing Doctor Strange by reputation, Hellstrom agrees to assist the Defenders and makes an arcane gesture that transforms him from a mild-mannered academic into the weirdly costumed “Son of Satan.” Strange immediately teleports Hellstrom to the Sanctum Sanctorum, where he reunites his astral form with his physical body. Hellstrom then uses his psycho-sensitive trident to track the Hulk to a vacant lot that Nighthawk had searched earlier. However, Strange and Hellstrom sense something is amiss and quickly disrupt a spell concealing a sinister-looking mansion. Entering the building, the heroes split up to follow four staircases down into the shadowy depths.
Descending the seemingly endless flight of stairs, Strange’s apprehension grows. He is suddenly accosted by hundreds of moldering corpses, specters of all the people whom he failed to save during his career as a surgeon. Though initially overwhelmed with guilt, Strange manages to overcome his self-loathing and free himself from this personal hell. He soon liberates the Valkyrie and Nighthawk from similar situations and leads them to a chamber where the Hulk and Hellstrom are battling the ersatz Banners. Seeing his friends, Hulk rallies and finally defeats his illusory foes. Without warning, the floor dissolves, sending everyone tumbling into an enormous throne room. Strange is shocked to recognize the figure on the throne as his former colleague Dr. Charles Benton, also known as Asmodeus of the Sons of Satannish, who died about three years ago. Asmodeus reveals that he struck a bargain with Satannish to be returned to life in exchange for their five souls. However, Hellstrom proves immune to Asmodeus’s eldritch power, protected by his golden trident, and saves the lives of the Defenders. Asmodeus panics as his time runs out, whereupon Satannish destroys him. The Defenders and Hellstrom then find themselves back in the vacant lot, which retains no trace of its former enchantment. Strange thanks Hellstrom on behalf of the entire team before they go their separate ways.
June 1967 – Strange spends a quiet month with Clea, Wong, the Valkyrie, and the Hulk at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Nighthawk drops by several times and annoys everyone talking about the big plans he has for the Defenders.
July 1967 – Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Hulk join Nighthawk at the Defenders’ new headquarters, a secluded former riding academy on Long Island that Nighthawk has purchased in his civilian identity as businessman Kyle Richmond. Knowing that Aragorn will be well looked after there, Valkyrie announces that she’s taking a leave of absence to try to find out more about the life of the woman named Barbara whose body she inhabits due to the Enchantress’s sorcery. To aid her, Strange casts a spell of concealment on the Valkyrie’s sword, Dragonfang, so it will be invisible when not in use. The spell also enables her to magically switch from civilian clothes to her Asgardian garb when the sword is drawn from its scabbard. Hulk becomes very upset by the Valkyrie’s departure, throws a temper tantrum, and leaps away in search of solitude. Nighthawk then shows Strange the state-of-the-art conference room he’s had installed, where he receives a phone call from Richmond Enterprises’ Chief Operations Officer J.C. Pennysworth informing him that the company’s newest skyscrapers in Manhattan are being demolished by a gang of costumed super-villains calling themselves the Wrecking Crew. With only one building left, still under construction at W. 29th St. and Broadway, Nighthawk speeds to the city to investigate, accompanied by Doctor Strange.
When they arrive, they find that Pennysworth has engaged the services of the superhero-for-hire known as Power Man, but he mistakes them for the saboteurs and is very aggressive. During the confrontation, Power Man punches Strange in the face and knocks him out. Coming to a few minutes later, Strange conjures the Shield of the Seraphim to break up the fight between Power Man and Nighthawk. Almost immediately, the skeletal structure of the building collapses, prompting Strange to expand his mystic force field to protect all three of them as they plunge 20 stories to the ground. Emerging from the rubble, the trio comes face to face with the Wrecking Crew—the Wrecker, Thunderball, Bulldozer, and Piledriver. Erecting a mystical barrier to prevent the villains from escaping, Strange senses that their super-powers derive from Asgardian magic. Unaccustomed to fighting such purely physical foes, though, Strange gets slammed into the debris during the brawl and is left a bit dazed. To make matters worse, Hulk shows up and starts pounding on the barrier, determined to join the battle. His blows create a kind of psychic feedback that disrupts Strange’s attempt to siphon away the villains’ powers. Both spells fail, giving the Wrecking Crew the chance to get away with their loot—an adamantium capsule roughly the size of a football that they’ve dug out of the wreckage. However, Thunderball is shocked to discover that the capsule is empty, revealing that it should contain a compact gamma bomb that he created when working as a research scientist for Richmond Enterprises. Strange is alarmed that such a destructive weapon has gone missing, but the crooks take the heroes by surprise, beat them into unconsciousness, and escape.
Following faint mystic emanations from the Wrecker’s enchanted crowbar, Doctor Strange, Hulk, Nighthawk, and Power Man make their way uptown to Harlem, where they eventually come across a frightened boy named Joey who reports that the Wrecking Crew has invaded the Harlem Boys Club. Ignoring Strange’s words of caution, Hulk immediately charges in and attacks the villains, followed by Nighthawk and Power Man. Fortunately, the fight moves out into the street before the building is destroyed. Grappling with the Wrecker, Strange is able to force the eldritch energies within the crowbar into the villain’s body with a devastating jolt that knocks him out. Then, finding he is unable to disintegrate the crowbar, Strange casts it into a limbo dimension where it will at least be out of the Wrecker’s reach. The rest of the Wrecking Crew is quickly defeated as well. Strange then asks the kids in the clubhouse about the bomb, and they realize it must be the metal sphere Joey was carrying in his baseball mitt. The Defenders quickly track Joey down, whereupon Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to change the Hulk back into Bruce Banner so he can defuse the bomb. Banner is successful, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. The Wrecking Crew is taken into police custody, but Power Man still worries that he won’t be paid for his night’s work since he failed to prevent the destruction of the skyscraper. Nighthawk returns the deactivated gamma bomb to Richmond Enterprises, since it is company property.
After an evening out at the theater, Doctor Strange and Clea have a weird encounter in a subway station on the Lower East Side. As another well-dressed couple looks on, two hooligans harass a girl playing the blues on her harmonica. One of the louts grabs the harmonica and shoves the girl onto the tracks just as the train pulls in. Strange lunges toward her, but she begs him to retrieve the harmonica instead. As he does so, the train slams into the girl, causing her to explode into a shower of multicolored sparks that drift onto all the startled bystanders. The hooligans flee the scene, and the young couple boards the train in a panic. The terrified driver of the train pulls out of the station as quickly as possible, leaving Strange and Clea on the platform. Noting that the harmonica is inscribed with the word “Celestia,” Strange hails a taxi to take him and Clea back to the Sanctum Sanctorum to consult the ancient tomes in his library. There, he uses the Eye of Agamotto to conjure up the face of the girl in a swirling miasma, and she reveals herself to be a manifestation of destiny that assumed human form to play the harmonica. She warns Strange that each person affected by the drifting sparks will find their destiny made manifest that very night in a most dramatic fashion. Concerned, Strange sets out to track them all down, leaving Clea and Wong to guard the harmonica.
Strange’s amulet leads him to the apartment of the young couple, Sheldon and Renee Goldenberg, in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, where he discretely convinces Sheldon to change his destiny by quitting his anonymous corporate job to pursue his dream of being a novelist. Strange then moves on to a tenement on Yancy Street, back on the Lower East Side, where he finds the two hooligans, Duff Coogan and Nick Cromer. To his surprise, Strange sees the Thing loitering outside the building and learns that they are in fact investigating the same phenomenon. Coogan, it turns out, is the grandson of a woman who was the Thing’s neighbor when he was growing up. Suddenly, a gigantic rat scrambles up the side of the building and drags Coogan out of his bedroom window. The Thing attacks the rat, but his most powerful blows have little effect on the creature. It is only when Strange convinces Coogan to stop thinking of himself as a victim of poverty that the rat is overcome. The Thing is ready to call it a night until Strange mentions there is one more person to be located: a drunken bum barely noticed in the shadows of the subway station. Unwilling to leave the sorcerer in the lurch, the Thing insists on accompanying him back to the Sanctum Sanctorum.
When they arrive, Clea reports that the Valkyrie just left with the harmonica, claiming that Strange had sent her to fetch it. Confused, Strange uses the Orb of Agamotto to locate the Valkyrie and finds her sleeping under a tree in Cobbler’s Roost, Vermont. He is further confounded when the Orb can find no trace of the drunken bum. The Thing agrees to meet up with the Valkyrie to ask her about the harmonica and sets off in his aero-car. A little while later, the Orb suddenly reveals the bum to be in a forest clearing upstate, next to the unconscious Thing. The renegade Asgardians known as the Enchantress and the Executioner are teleporting away, and Strange realizes they must have been shielding the bum from his mystic scans. Presumably, the Enchantress had once again disguised herself as the Valkyrie in order to steal the harmonica, and they then ambushed the Thing on his way to Vermont. When the Thing comes to a few minutes later, Strange sends out his astral form to advise the Thing to return to the city, thinking him no match for Asgardian sorcery. However, the Thing decides to take the bum, Alvin Denton, to Vermont to help him with a family crisis. Strange contacts the Thing again, only to be told to quit spying on them in his crystal ball. Concerned about how Denton’s destiny will manifest, Strange ignores the Thing’s objections and continues to monitor the situation. Strange’s hunch that Denton’s destiny is entwined with the Valkyrie’s is confirmed when they meet outside Cobbler’s Roost and Denton reveals that he is Barbara’s father. However, the Enchantress and the Executioner rematerialize, and the sorceress immediately banishes the Valkyrie from Barbara’s body, leaving her shrieking in insane terror. Denton is horrified, and obviously desperate to cure his daughter of her madness, he snatches the magic harmonica from the Enchantress’s grasp and blows into it. Unfortunately, it destroys the planet instead. Doctor Strange, Clea, and Wong are killed instantly.
A split-second later, the world is restored as if nothing had happened. Strange sees in the Orb that the Thing is now holding the harmonica and the Valkyrie is fighting the Executioner, indicating some time has passed for them. When the Thing punches out the Executioner, Valkyrie runs over to Denton, who has died, and breaks down crying. The Executioner tries to continue the fight, but the Enchantress decides to retreat, teleporting herself and her lackey away. Strange realizes that the end of the world was the manifestation of Denton’s destiny, since he’d lost everyone he’d ever loved. He sends out his astral form again to ask the Thing to remain in Cobbler’s Roost until he and Nighthawk can join them there. The Thing is annoyed but agrees to hang around. When Strange and Nighthawk arrive in Vermont a little while later, they find the Thing sleeping under a tree and wake him up. He reports that the Valkyrie has carried her father’s body into town, but Strange has detected a sinister presence in the area and wants to investigate. His amulet leads them to a grand house on the outskirts of town, where a trap door suddenly sends Nighthawk and the Thing tumbling into an underground chamber. Unable to penetrate the trap’s magic shields, Strange enters the house instead. He is startled to see a large oil painting above the mantle depicting a middle-aged woman who bears a striking resemblance to the Valkyrie. A nameplate on the frame identifies the woman as Celestia Denton—obviously Barbara’s mother. Before Strange can discover the connection between the woman in the painting and the harmonica that bears her name, he is knocked out by a sorcerous attack from behind.
When he regains consciousness, Strange finds himself and the Valkyrie at the site of some obscene ritual in the house’s basement, having just been rescued by the Thing. Nighthawk is brawling with a number of cultists in hooded robes, so Strange casts a spell that puts the cultists into a trance. He then marches them outside. Nighthawk and the Thing report that the cultists were trying to drain the life-force from both Strange and the Valkyrie to open a dimensional portal to their demonic master. There had also been a hideous old high priestess, they reveal, who disintegrated when the Thing crushed the harmonica. That also seemed to collapse the dimensional portal before the devil could cross over to Earth. From their description, Strange realizes the devil must have been the Nameless One, meaning they’re dealing with the same cult of which Barbara had been a member. The cult leader confirms this under hypnosis, explaining that the high priestess was, in fact, Celestia Denton. She had not died in a car crash years ago as was commonly believed, but she had been badly disfigured and served the Nameless One on the promise of having her youth and beauty restored after the Undying Ones conquered the world. These revelations send a chill down Strange’s spine due to his own history with that race of demons. The nature of the magical harmonica remains a mystery, but he hopes that their efforts have at least rebalanced the cosmic scales of destiny.
After the Thing has left for New York, Strange and Nighthawk join the Valkyrie inside the house, which turns out to be the Dentons’ old summer home. Uncharacteristically silent and withdrawn, she is looking through the family’s photo albums, learning what she can about the life of Barbara Denton. She is particularly upset to have discovered that Barbara was married and that her husband, Jack Norriss, is living there in Cobbler’s Roost. Nighthawk, who is clearly very attracted to the Valkyrie, takes the news badly and storms out, returning to New York on his own. Strange accompanies the Valkyrie to the boarding house where Norriss lives, but the landlady assumes that Barbara ran off to have an affair with Strange, whom she mistakes for an artist of some kind, and castigates her as a gold-digging slut. In tears, Valkyrie asks Strange to take her home immediately, so he teleports them both back to the Sanctum Sanctorum. There, Strange and Clea spend the afternoon trying to comfort the distraught Valkyrie, wondering why she’s being so unusually emotional. In the evening, Bruce Banner collapses on the doorstep, suffering from acute exhaustion, so the Valkyrie carries him to a guest room and puts him to bed. Shortly after midnight, though, Banner changes into the Hulk and goes on a rampage, under the same malefic influence that has caused most New Yorkers to run riot in the streets. Strange detects an odd sort of “static” in the air that prevents any of his spells from taking effect. Fortunately, the madness passes quickly, though Strange is frustrated to have no clue who was responsible. Nighthawk arrives and reports having fought with a looter who appeared to have the head of a man and the body of a gorilla, theorizing that the two bizarre events could be connected. Doctor Strange is baffled.
A couple days later, Nighthawk recruits Doctor Strange, the Hulk, the Valkyrie, the Sub-Mariner, and Daredevil to fight for the earth in another elaborate game set up by the Grandmaster, the enigmatic alien who originally gave him his super-powers. The seemingly omnipotent Grandmaster assures them that he has no interest in Earth, so if they win, the world will be left alone. However, if his mysterious opponent should win, the human race shall be enslaved and the planet stripped of its resources. The Grandmaster, whom Nighthawk describes as a “galactic gambling addict,” then splits them into teams of two and teleports them to distant planets to fight to the death against his own hand-picked mercenaries. Doctor Strange and the Hulk find themselves in a dilapidated, vaguely medieval city populated by a humanoid race, where they face off against a little yellow alien calling himself Grott the Man-Slayer and a cyborg from the 31st century named Korvac. While Grott attacks the Hulk with his psychokinetic powers, Korvac uses his technology to instantly analyze and counter Strange’s sorcery. Finding his spells useless, Strange defeats Korvac with an unexpected punch in the face. Hulk weathers Grott’s assault, then knocks him out with a flick of his mighty fingers. Having won the match, the two Defenders are teleported back to the Grandmaster’s space station, where he declares himself the game’s winner. However, he then announces that he’s changed his mind, having realized that Earth would be the ideal breeding ground for gladiators to amuse him for generations to come. Enraged, the Defenders attack him, only to be easily repulsed. However, Daredevil challenges the Grandmaster to decide Earth’s fate on a coin toss. When Daredevil wins the toss, the Grandmaster concedes defeat and teleports them all back to Nighthawk’s penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Strange expresses his gratitude to Daredevil, though he has some reservations about risking the future of the human race on the toss of a coin. Enigmatically, Daredevil insists the outcome was never in doubt. He then exits through a window, and the Sub-Mariner, not happy to be among the Defenders again, departs as well. Strange and the Valkyrie return to the Sanctum Sanctorum.
Doctor Strange takes Clea to the Central Park Zoo, having decided that her sorcerous ability is now up to the task of counteracting Silver Dagger’s spell that turned her pet rabbit into a giant. The enormous rabbit has been held in the zoo since being captured in Greenwich Village back in January. Clea succeeds in returning the rabbit to normal, though Strange is annoyed that she draws undue attention to herself in the process. They are then accosted by a panhandling heroin addict who takes exception to Strange’s condemnation of hard drugs. As the young man storms off, Clea wonders aloud if some magic spell could help him. Strange notes that such problems are beyond even the Sorcerer Supreme. When they arrive at the Sanctum Sanctorum about an hour later, though, they are ambushed by Umar, the sister of Dormammu, who laughingly informs them that the junkie is one of her disciples. Working together, Strange and Clea overcome Umar’s attacks and drive her back into the Dark Dimension. Strange worries that Umar’s reappearance heralds Dormammu’s return to corporeal form, recalling the Watcher’s warning after Dormammu’s disastrous alliance with Loki last year. He tries to spy on Umar using the Orb of Agamotto, but she senses the intrusion and blocks him. Frustrated, Strange decides he must physically enter the Dark Dimension to ascertain the situation there, though that may be just what Umar wants. Clea refuses to accompany him, growing highly agitated. Not wanting to press the point, Strange advises her to remain on guard while he’s away, kisses her goodbye, and ventures forth into her native realm alone.
Almost immediately, Strange is attacked by Umar, leading to a fierce magical battle that is cut short when Strange is struck down from behind by his foe’s minion Orini. When he regains consciousness sometime later, Strange finds himself bathed in the deadly light from the cyclopean eye of the G’uranthic Guardian and instinctively saves himself by unleashing the Eye of Agamotto from his amulet. When his mind clears, he attempts to cross the dimensional boundary back to Earth, only to suddenly realizes he has forgotten how. Orini reappears, accompanied by a horde of demons, and explains that the G’uranthic Guardian has drained all knowledge of sorcery from Strange’s mind, leaving him helpless. Luckily, Clea comes to the rescue at that moment but is unwilling to fight Orini, as he is her father. Instead, she causes the Cloak of Levitation to carry them away from Orini, and they soon take refuge in a place where she used to hide out as a child. There, Clea confirms Strange’s suspicion that Umar lured him into the Dark Dimension so he wouldn’t sense that Dormammu was reforming himself deep within the Earth. Finding an old toy, she finally opens up about her lonely childhood as the daughter of Dormammu’s chief disciple, effectively a princess among slaves. After suddenly receiving a vision of the Elder Goddess Gaea, Clea explains that it was Gaea who first warned her of Dormammu’s scheme. She then heads off to appeal to her father for help, leaving Strange to meditate.
When Clea returns, she reports that Orini refused to aid them against Dormammu, as expected. Thus, they decide to seek assistance from Gaea herself using basic earth magic that Clea has learned. She sets up a ritual that imbues Strange with enough power to penetrate the mystical barrier surrounding the rampaging Mindless Ones. He is then able to use the violent creatures as conduits to send the Gaean energy into the G’uranthic Guardian, inverting the properties of its eye-beams. As a result, when the Guardian tries to siphon off Clea’s sorcerous knowledge, it instead pours all of Strange’s stolen power into her. Strange races to her side, arriving just as Orini and his horde of demons descend upon her. Clea unleashes a devastating barrage of eldritch energy on their foes, surprised by the amount of raw power she is wielding. She nearly goes too far, though, when she realizes how deeply her father hates her. Strange talks his pupil down, then absorbs all his power and knowledge back into himself. Shielded by the Flames of the Faltine, the couple flees through the dimensional boundary back to the safety of the Sanctum Sanctorum.
No sooner have they materialized than Strange and Clea receive a vision of Gaea warning them that Dormammu is on the loose at the Grand Canyon. Wong brings in four mystics from around the world who have come to New York in answer to Clea’s summons—Lord Phyffe, Rama Kaliph, Turhan Barim, and Count Carezzi—but they lack the skill to go up against Dormammu. Thanking them for their show of support, Strange teleports himself and Clea to Arizona, where they find Umar instead, grown to 100 feet tall. She has brought Orini to Earth with her and orders him to attack the couple. Orini does so without hesitation but is unable to penetrate Strange’s defenses. He then crumbles under Strange’s counterattack, but Umar props him up with her own power, making him little more than a puppet. Following a daring strategy Clea has come up with, Strange traps Orini within the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, then transfers the bulk of his power back to Clea. While Strange distracts Umar, Clea phases into the ground and frees Gaea from imprisonment. Sensing what’s just happened, Umar focuses her attacks on Clea, but Clea forms a mind link with Strange that allows them to share the power equally between them. Umar is thus overcome and collapses to the ground, reverting to her normal size. However, Dormammu, standing several thousand feet tall, materializes in the canyon, having reclaimed the power his treacherous sister had stolen from him. Strange demands that Dormammu return to the Dark Dimension immediately, insisting that he’s indebted to them for saving him from Umar. Dormammu scoffs at Strange’s presumption, but Gaea intercedes and grants the two sorcerers the power to drive the arch-demon back to his own realm. Orini is allowed to take the unconscious Umar home as well, since Strange knows they lack the power to imprison her. Before disappearing, Gaea repairs the environmental damage the battle caused and acknowledges her champions, Doctor Strange and Clea, as her son and adopted daughter.
August–November 1967 – Doctor Strange is happy to have Lord Phyffe and Rama Kaliph stay at the Sanctum Sanctorum for the next several months, as they are eager to study under the new Sorcerer Supreme. Turhan Barim and Count Carezzi are content to enjoy his hospitality for a couple of weeks before returning home. The adepts are all fascinated by the Valkyrie, who also continues to live there, though she spends much of her time with Aragorn at Nighthawk’s facility on Long Island. For his part, Nighthawk is frustrated that none of his teammates are interested in having regular meetings, leaving him to act as a solo crime-fighter. Clea finds that her recent mind-melds with Strange have had a lasting benefit, allowing her to advance her studies at a much more rapid pace. As a couple, they also deepen their emotional bond in the light of their recent experiences. Throughout, Strange continues trying to bring Baron Mordo out of his catatonic state, to no avail.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Doctor Strange, Clea, and Valkyrie find themselves trapped within force-field bubbles that they recognize as Asgardian sorcery. Try as they might, they are unable to escape. Finally, the force fields vanish as mysteriously as they appeared. Strange quickly determines that while they were trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army.
On a snowy evening, Strange and Valkyrie rush to a midtown hospital after Kyle Richmond and his girlfriend, Trish Starr, are badly injured in a car-bomb explosion. In the lobby, Strange runs into an old friend, Dr. James Wynter, whom he hasn’t seen in 20 years. Wynter recruits Strange to serve as a surgical consultant as he operates on Richmond. Strange is reluctant, feeling his time would be better spent tracking down the bomber, but he nevertheless soon finds himself among the doctors and nurses in the operating room. The familiar sensations of the O.R. sweep over Strange, taking him back to his days as one of the city’s top surgeons, though his nostalgia is tinged with the new perspectives on the cosmos he has gained as Sorcerer Supreme. During the hours-long procedure, Strange makes numerous invaluable contributions, though his mind occasionally wanders to his other Defenders teammates. Finally, in the middle of the night, the surgical team completes its efforts and Richmond is taken to the recovery room. Wynter assures Strange that Richmond’s prognosis is excellent, marveling at the patient’s seemingly superhuman constitution. Changing the subject, Strange inquires about Trish Starr, but Wynter has no information on her condition. Their conversation is interrupted by the Hulk, who is causing a commotion in the corridor. Valkyrie is trying to deal with the green behemoth as he demands to see Richmond, and before the situation can get out of hand, Strange convinces the Hulk to accompany them back to the Sanctum Sanctorum. Although Strange wants to start investigating the bombing immediately, he realizes he is utterly exhausted and elects to get a few hours’ sleep first.
The following morning, Strange, Hulk, and Valkyrie return to the hospital for visiting hours, though the Hulk agrees to remain outside with Aragorn. Richmond has been moved to a private room, where he speculates that the car-bomb must have been set by his former associates, the Squadron Sinister, even though they are believed to have been killed during the battle with Nebulon last year. Strange is dubious but agrees to check out the villains’ former hideout at the Crayton Observatory. Collecting the Hulk and Aragorn, Strange and Valkyrie head to the remote upstate observatory, where they discover that Hyperion, Doctor Spectrum, and the Whizzer are indeed still alive. Despite having the element of surprise, the Defenders lose the battle and find themselves imprisoned in the observatory’s basement. Luckily, they are rescued by the former Avenger called Yellowjacket, who is also investigating the car-bombing as a friend of Trish Starr’s. Yellowjacket reveals that the Squadron Sinister had nothing to do with the bombing; it was carried out by his old arch-enemy Egghead, who happens to be Starr’s uncle. She was the target, he explains, not Richmond. Even so, Strange realizes the Squadron Sinister may take advantage of Richmond’s weakened state to get revenge on him. Thus, the Defenders race back to Manhattan, accompanied by Yellowjacket, and stop the Squadron Sinister from kidnapping Richmond from the hospital. When the hard-fought battle is won, Strange casts a spell that strips their foes of all memory of their powers and villainous identities, ensuring they will pose no further threat to Richmond.
Doctor Strange and Valkyrie convince the Hulk to spend some more time with them at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Clea and Wong are delighted to host their brutish friend again, though Lord Phyffe and Rama Kaliph need to be reassured that he won’t kill them. The two adepts become very curious about the Hulk once he accepts them as friends. Richmond makes a rapid recovery due to his super-powers and resumes his activities as Nighthawk, though he is depressed that Starr, whose left arm had to be amputated, has broken up with him. Stephen Strange, feeling a deep sense of harmony and joy, relishes the camaraderie that fills his home throughout the holiday season.
Notes:
January 1967 – Doctor Strange and Spider-Man have their rematch with Xandu in Marvel Team-Up #21. Strange then appears in his new solo series, Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts #1 and following. For brevity’s sake, the 81-issue series is usually referred to here as Doctor Strange v.2. Baron Mordo remains behind the scenes throughout the year.
May 1967 – The Defenders take on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants at the behest of Professor X in Defenders #15–16. Xavier seeks outside help because the X-Men are off on their mission to Krakoa, as seen in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Magneto’s odyssey through the bowels of the earth is a delusion; following his defeat at the hands of the Avengers (in Avengers #111), he was held in a telepathically induced coma in the basement of the X-Men’s headquarters. However, his deranged mind rejects this humiliating reality in favor of a nonsensical sci-fi fantasy. See my Magneto chronology for further discussion. The Defenders then team up with Daimon Hellstrom, the so-called “Son of Satan,” in Giant-Size Defenders #2.
July 1967 – The Defenders battle the Wrecking Crew in Defenders #17–19. They then join forces with the Thing to once again foil the sinister plans of the Undying Ones in Marvel Two-in-One #6–7 and Defenders #20–21. The temporary spell of madness and the apelike looter are indeed connected, as both are part of a scheme by the freakish small-time crooks known as the Headmen—Arthur Nagan, Jerry Morgan, and Chondu the Mystic. Daredevil helps the Defenders defeat the Grandmaster and his mystery opponent (Doctor Doom’s Prime Mover robot) in Giant-Size Defenders #3. While talking to the junkie—who, like his drug of choice, is nicknamed Horse—in Doctor Strange v.2 #6, Strange admits to using psychoactive drugs himself while studying under the Ancient One in Tibet—a detail omitted in most recountings of the sorcerer’s origin story. Dormammu’s scheme also involves the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness, as seen in Giant-Size Avengers #4, but Doctor Strange seems unaware of this fact. While Gaea is held prisoner by Dormammu, the world’s weather patterns are severely disrupted. This brings us up to Doctor Strange v.2 #9.
December 1967 – Doctor Strange is among the various superheroes seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233. The Defenders team up with Yellowjacket against the Squadron Sinister in Giant-Size Defenders #4. The criminal Whizzer of the Squadron Sinister should not be confused with the WWII-era hero of the same name.
Jump Back: Doctor Strange – Year Five
Next Issue: The Hulk – Year Six
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
We now continue... The True History of Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme!
January 1967 – Following their encounter with the 31st-century sorcerer Sise-Neg, Doctor Strange takes the utterly stupefied Baron Mordo back to the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York’s Greenwich Village. There, Strange’s disciple and lover, Clea, his faithful manservant, Wong, and his semi-permanent houseguest and Defenders teammate, the Valkyrie, are glad to see he has returned safely. In one of the mansion’s guest rooms, Strange tries to revive Mordo but is unable to bring him out of his catatonic state. Realizing the experience with Sise-Neg was too much for Mordo to bear, Strange decides to focus on just keeping his old rival alive until his mind can heal itself.
Doctor Strange’s studies are interrupted one night by Spider-Man, who appears to have gone mad. Catching the sorcerer off-guard, Spider-Man manages to knock him unconscious. When he comes to, Strange discovers that the web-slinger has stolen a magical artifact, the Crystal of Kadavus. Tracking the crystal’s mystical emanations to a dilapidated brownstone on the city’s west side, Strange finds Spider-Man there with the wizard Xandu, whom they battled together some three and a half years ago. Using the Wand of Watoomb, Xandu whisks them off to another dimension, where he demonstrates his might by turning his prisoners into living marionettes. However, when Xandu boasts of his spell that prevents the two heroes from using their powers against him while in that dimension, Strange sees an opportunity. He weaves a counter-spell that enables them to use each other’s powers instead. Thus, while Spider-Man, now back in his right mind, staggers Xandu with bolts of eldritch energy, Doctor Strange covers the villain in webbing and punches him in the face. Strange leaves the Wand of Watoomb adrift in that nameless dimension as he teleports everyone back to Earth, materializing in their foe’s shabby lair. Xandu is distraught over losing the Wand of Watoomb since he mainly wanted it to rouse his fiancée, Melinda, from a deathlike sleep he accidentally placed her in while practicing spells many years ago. Sympathetic, Strange offers to help, but his mystical analysis of Melinda reveals her to be truly dead—Xandu’s spell has merely preserved her body. When he learns that he actually killed his lover all those years ago, Xandu suffers a complete emotional breakdown. Having retrieved the Crystal of Kadavus, Doctor Strange and Spider-Man make a discreet exit.
Feeling playful, Clea proposes to report on her progress in the mystic arts one evening but merely conjures a white rabbit from a top hat while saying “abracadabra.” Doctor Strange is amused and suggests the Vishanti are notorious for their card tricks. After they’ve spent some time having sex, Strange decides to get some sleep and, leaving Clea to play with her rabbit, retires to his bedroom, where he levitates in the lotus position within the magical Mists of Morpheus. Suddenly, he is stabbed in the back with an enchanted dagger and collapses to the floor in agony. About an hour later, Wong enters and finds him barely conscious. Wong reports that the assassin kidnapped Clea and stole the Amulet of Agamotto. Distressed, Strange has Wong bring in his large crystal ball, the Orb of Agamotto, whereupon he is able to cast a spell that stops him from immediately bleeding to death, though he has still suffered a mortal wound. He then tries to locate Clea in the crystal ball and learns that she is chained up in a basement with the assassin demanding that she renounce sorcery. Realizing they are being observed, the assassin attacks Strange through the Orb of Agamotto. Tentacles erupt from the crystal and grab Strange, and he instantly recognizes the spell as a work of necromancy. Despite his efforts to resist, Strange is pulled through the crystal into another dimension.
Finding himself in a bizarre landscape, Strange comes upon a giant caterpillar smoking a hookah atop an oversized mushroom. The caterpillar informs Strange, in its own elliptical way, that the assassin, known as Silver Dagger, has trapped him within the Orb for all time. Strange refuses to accept this, declaring that he is the Sorcerer Supreme and nothing will stop him from rescuing Clea. Impressed by the sorcerer’s resolve, the caterpillar suggests he try to find his way to the center of the Orb, where there may be a means to return to Earth. However, the enigmatic being warns, he would then find himself right back where he started—moments away from an agonizing death. Undaunted, Strange soars off, carried by his Cloak of Levitation, only to quickly become hopelessly lost. Along the way, Strange encounters horrific monsters as well as twisted doppelgängers of his friends and associates, such as the Valkyrie, the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner, the Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, and others, and thereby learns that everything he is experiencing within the Orb is shaped by his own subconscious mind. The true foe he must face at the center of the Orb, he realizes, is Death itself. A duplicate of the Valkyrie’s winged horse, Aragorn, then takes him where he needs to go, allowing Strange to focus on overcoming Death’s attempts to demoralize him. When they finally encounter Death’s immense, skull-like visage, the pseudo-Aragorn is destroyed instantly. Strange, however, rejects the very notion that Death holds sway over the Sorcerer Supreme. Death shrugs off Strange’s magical attacks, saying he can’t fight a universal law—everything dies. Strange decides to retreat and soon comes across a void in the distinctive shape of Eternity. He takes refuge within the void, remembering that not every lifeform in the universe is mortal. Though Death tries again to dishearten Strange, the sorcerer declares that they’ve reached a stalemate so long as he remains within Eternity’s void. Soon, though, Strange realizes he’s running out of options—his strength is finite while Death can generate no end of perils. If he cannot attack or escape, he reasons, his only other choice would seem to be to surrender. Recalling everything the Ancient One taught him about death and dying, he works through his fear in the face of the inevitable, slowly filling the void as he does so. When he’s ready for the end, he emerges from the void and opens himself to Death’s touch. At that instant, Doctor Stephen Strange dies.
There is a sudden rushing sensation as the universe seems to fall away, leaving Strange floating in the resultant nothingness. The face of the Ancient One then materializes and congratulates him on passing the first of a series of trials that he must undergo as Sorcerer Supreme. By overcoming the deep-seated fear of death, Strange will be reborn on the physical plane in a form “touched by eternity”—manifested by a mystical ankh that will appear from time to time on his forehead. Though he may never die of natural causes, the Ancient One warns, Strange could still be killed in battle, and so he must remain ever vigilant. The Ancient One then tells Strange that, if he passes his remaining trials and lives well, he will eventually follow him in becoming one with all there is. Barely able to process what has just happened to him, Strange admits to feeling a bit different as it dawns on him that he will never get any older than his current age of 54. As the beatific image of the Ancient One fades away, Strange suddenly finds himself transported back to Earth.
Still attuned to the higher dimensions of the universe, Strange is disoriented as his astral form emerges from the Amulet of Agamotto in the abandoned subway station that Silver Dagger has made into his lair. He searches frantically for his physical body, but his distorted perceptions cause him to briefly animate a headless mannequin dressed in his sorcerer’s garb. The figure collapses into a heap, but Strange senses Clea’s presence and takes refuge within her mind, where he is able to reconstruct a coherent conception of reality. At the same time, he perceives how Silver Dagger invaded the Sanctum Sanctorum a few days ago by causing Clea’s rabbit to grow to gigantic proportions and crash through the window to escape the building. Taking Clea by surprise, Silver Dagger mesmerized her, beat up Wong, and then stabbed Strange in the back. He then kidnapped Clea and, revealing that he was formerly a cardinal at the Vatican, has been trying to “deprogram” her in order to save her soul from eternal damnation. When Silver Dagger enters the room, Clea uses Strange’s knowledge of sorcery to escape and, finding herself in Chelsea, runs the several blocks to the Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village. Once there, Wong leads her to Strange’s physical body, which emerged from the Orb of Agamotto healed of its mortal wound, and Strange then reunites his corporeal and noncorporeal selves.
Moments later, Silver Dagger again invades the building and tries to defeat Strange using the Amulet of Agamotto. Together, Strange and Clea cast a spell that turns the amulet’s power back upon Silver Dagger, forcing him to face the truth that his understanding of magic is too limited and his murderous crusade is therefore misguided. In despair, Silver Dagger is sucked into the Orb to take Strange’s place as companion to the hookah-smoking caterpillar. Strange assures Clea that Silver Dagger lacks the skill to escape such a predicament. Returning to his meditations, Strange contemplates his realization that the caterpillar was in fact a manifestation of Agamotto, one of the “holy trinity” of the eternal Vishanti.
February–April 1967 – Doctor Strange and Clea focus on building her mastery of the mystic arts, as they discover that her merger with his consciousness has made it easier for her to wield the magical energies of Earth’s dimension.
May 1967 – Nighthawk returns to the Sanctum Sanctorum, sporting a new-and-improved costume, and announces that he is at last ready to take his place among the Defenders. Doctor Strange and Valkyrie give him a tour of their residence, but they are interrupted by the astral form of Charles Xavier, whom Strange met four years ago at the wedding of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Girl. Strange uses the Amulet of Agamotto to make Xavier’s astral form visible to his teammates so they can join in the conversation. Xavier explains that he is seeking help against the mutant super-villain Magneto, as those who would normally aid him with such matters are off on a secret mission. The Defenders are happy to assist, so Strange sends out a psychic projection to locate the Hulk before transporting the team to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, where Xavier is waiting. Hulk arrives a few minutes later, whereupon they all enter the caverns. Within moments, they are ambushed by a seemingly invincible cyclops, but Xavier reveals the monster to be merely an illusion. However, they are all knocked unconscious by a blast of energy, and when they wake up, they find themselves trapped within a field of magnetic force. Flanked by his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants—the Blob, Mastermind, Unus the Untouchable, and Lorelei—Magneto rants and raves about a humanoid figure forming in a tank of chemicals behind him. He tells the Defenders a preposterous story of being trapped at the center of the earth by the Avengers until, several months later, a passing comet shifted the planet’s magnetic fields enough that he could make his way to Subterranea, where he translated books left behind by ancient aliens and thus learned the secret of genetically engineering a being powerful enough to enable him to conquer the world. When the villains return to their diabolical scheme, Xavier reveals himself to be a powerful telepath and harnesses the Defenders’ combined psychic energy to disrupt the field imprisoning them. They quickly defeat Magneto’s minions but are unable to prevent him from bringing his new creation to life. Gleefully, Magneto dubs the giant, brutish creature “Alpha, the Ultimate Mutant.”
Doctor Strange attempts to incapacitate Alpha with blasts of mystical energy, but Alpha erects a force field to protect himself, a field potent enough to repel the Hulk as well. Magneto then causes part of the cavern to collapse, trapping everyone underground, only to have Alpha teleport the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants away. Hulk and Valkyrie dig an escape tunnel, and the Defenders slowly make their way to the surface. Once there, Xavier does a telepathic scan to locate their foes, and after a few minutes of intense concentration, he finds them in New York City. Strange conjures up a portal through which the five heroes return to Manhattan. They are astonished to see the United Nations Building floating about half a mile above the city, presumably more of Alpha’s handiwork. Flying up to the building, the Defenders and Xavier fight their way past concrete automatons and confront Magneto and his minions in the general assembly chamber, where they are holding the assembled delegates prisoner. The heroes are surprised to see that Alpha has changed, having developed heightened intelligence and a less brutish appearance. He seems to visibly evolve every time he uses his powers and quickly surpasses mainstream humanity to take on a superior form. Noting Alpha’s reluctance to harm the Defenders, Xavier convinces him to judge for himself which of the two groups acts out of evil intent. Alpha does so, reading everyone’s innermost thoughts and motivations, and then condemns Magneto’s group as being little more than selfish children. The heroes are shocked when Alpha unleashes a beam of psychic energy that reduces Magneto, the Blob, Mastermind, Unus, and Lorelei to the equivalent of nine-month-old babies. Alpha then undoes the damage he caused to the United Nations Building and erases all memory of the traumatic event from the minds of the people affected by it. Continuing to evolve, Alpha bids farewell to the Defenders and Xavier before ascending into the sky, having decided to leave Earth to seek his destiny among the stars. Xavier takes charge of the babies, assuring the Defenders that they will be well cared for at the Mutant Research Centre in Scotland.
After the Hulk has gone off on his own, Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Nighthawk leave the United Nations Building and return to the Sanctum Sanctorum. A little while later, a hooded apparition appears and conjures up images of the Hulk in one of Strange’s crystal balls, revealing how the green behemoth was tricked by a demon posing as a little girl and led to an unearthly cavern deep beneath the city where he is being tormented with illusions of his alter-ego, Bruce Banner. Unless the Defenders agree to serve its evil master, the specter warns, the Hulk will be driven insane. Unwilling to surrender without a fight, the Defenders split up and search the city for their hapless teammate, without success. Back at the Sanctum Sanctorum, Strange decides to contact Daimon Hellstrom, a demonologist who has made a name for himself recently. With no time to lose, Strange sends his astral form to Hellstrom’s office at Gateway University, where he finds the occult expert working late. Knowing Doctor Strange by reputation, Hellstrom agrees to assist the Defenders and makes an arcane gesture that transforms him from a mild-mannered academic into the weirdly costumed “Son of Satan.” Strange immediately teleports Hellstrom to the Sanctum Sanctorum, where he reunites his astral form with his physical body. Hellstrom then uses his psycho-sensitive trident to track the Hulk to a vacant lot that Nighthawk had searched earlier. However, Strange and Hellstrom sense something is amiss and quickly disrupt a spell concealing a sinister-looking mansion. Entering the building, the heroes split up to follow four staircases down into the shadowy depths.
Descending the seemingly endless flight of stairs, Strange’s apprehension grows. He is suddenly accosted by hundreds of moldering corpses, specters of all the people whom he failed to save during his career as a surgeon. Though initially overwhelmed with guilt, Strange manages to overcome his self-loathing and free himself from this personal hell. He soon liberates the Valkyrie and Nighthawk from similar situations and leads them to a chamber where the Hulk and Hellstrom are battling the ersatz Banners. Seeing his friends, Hulk rallies and finally defeats his illusory foes. Without warning, the floor dissolves, sending everyone tumbling into an enormous throne room. Strange is shocked to recognize the figure on the throne as his former colleague Dr. Charles Benton, also known as Asmodeus of the Sons of Satannish, who died about three years ago. Asmodeus reveals that he struck a bargain with Satannish to be returned to life in exchange for their five souls. However, Hellstrom proves immune to Asmodeus’s eldritch power, protected by his golden trident, and saves the lives of the Defenders. Asmodeus panics as his time runs out, whereupon Satannish destroys him. The Defenders and Hellstrom then find themselves back in the vacant lot, which retains no trace of its former enchantment. Strange thanks Hellstrom on behalf of the entire team before they go their separate ways.
June 1967 – Strange spends a quiet month with Clea, Wong, the Valkyrie, and the Hulk at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Nighthawk drops by several times and annoys everyone talking about the big plans he has for the Defenders.
July 1967 – Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and Hulk join Nighthawk at the Defenders’ new headquarters, a secluded former riding academy on Long Island that Nighthawk has purchased in his civilian identity as businessman Kyle Richmond. Knowing that Aragorn will be well looked after there, Valkyrie announces that she’s taking a leave of absence to try to find out more about the life of the woman named Barbara whose body she inhabits due to the Enchantress’s sorcery. To aid her, Strange casts a spell of concealment on the Valkyrie’s sword, Dragonfang, so it will be invisible when not in use. The spell also enables her to magically switch from civilian clothes to her Asgardian garb when the sword is drawn from its scabbard. Hulk becomes very upset by the Valkyrie’s departure, throws a temper tantrum, and leaps away in search of solitude. Nighthawk then shows Strange the state-of-the-art conference room he’s had installed, where he receives a phone call from Richmond Enterprises’ Chief Operations Officer J.C. Pennysworth informing him that the company’s newest skyscrapers in Manhattan are being demolished by a gang of costumed super-villains calling themselves the Wrecking Crew. With only one building left, still under construction at W. 29th St. and Broadway, Nighthawk speeds to the city to investigate, accompanied by Doctor Strange.
When they arrive, they find that Pennysworth has engaged the services of the superhero-for-hire known as Power Man, but he mistakes them for the saboteurs and is very aggressive. During the confrontation, Power Man punches Strange in the face and knocks him out. Coming to a few minutes later, Strange conjures the Shield of the Seraphim to break up the fight between Power Man and Nighthawk. Almost immediately, the skeletal structure of the building collapses, prompting Strange to expand his mystic force field to protect all three of them as they plunge 20 stories to the ground. Emerging from the rubble, the trio comes face to face with the Wrecking Crew—the Wrecker, Thunderball, Bulldozer, and Piledriver. Erecting a mystical barrier to prevent the villains from escaping, Strange senses that their super-powers derive from Asgardian magic. Unaccustomed to fighting such purely physical foes, though, Strange gets slammed into the debris during the brawl and is left a bit dazed. To make matters worse, Hulk shows up and starts pounding on the barrier, determined to join the battle. His blows create a kind of psychic feedback that disrupts Strange’s attempt to siphon away the villains’ powers. Both spells fail, giving the Wrecking Crew the chance to get away with their loot—an adamantium capsule roughly the size of a football that they’ve dug out of the wreckage. However, Thunderball is shocked to discover that the capsule is empty, revealing that it should contain a compact gamma bomb that he created when working as a research scientist for Richmond Enterprises. Strange is alarmed that such a destructive weapon has gone missing, but the crooks take the heroes by surprise, beat them into unconsciousness, and escape.
Following faint mystic emanations from the Wrecker’s enchanted crowbar, Doctor Strange, Hulk, Nighthawk, and Power Man make their way uptown to Harlem, where they eventually come across a frightened boy named Joey who reports that the Wrecking Crew has invaded the Harlem Boys Club. Ignoring Strange’s words of caution, Hulk immediately charges in and attacks the villains, followed by Nighthawk and Power Man. Fortunately, the fight moves out into the street before the building is destroyed. Grappling with the Wrecker, Strange is able to force the eldritch energies within the crowbar into the villain’s body with a devastating jolt that knocks him out. Then, finding he is unable to disintegrate the crowbar, Strange casts it into a limbo dimension where it will at least be out of the Wrecker’s reach. The rest of the Wrecking Crew is quickly defeated as well. Strange then asks the kids in the clubhouse about the bomb, and they realize it must be the metal sphere Joey was carrying in his baseball mitt. The Defenders quickly track Joey down, whereupon Strange uses the Eye of Agamotto to change the Hulk back into Bruce Banner so he can defuse the bomb. Banner is successful, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. The Wrecking Crew is taken into police custody, but Power Man still worries that he won’t be paid for his night’s work since he failed to prevent the destruction of the skyscraper. Nighthawk returns the deactivated gamma bomb to Richmond Enterprises, since it is company property.
After an evening out at the theater, Doctor Strange and Clea have a weird encounter in a subway station on the Lower East Side. As another well-dressed couple looks on, two hooligans harass a girl playing the blues on her harmonica. One of the louts grabs the harmonica and shoves the girl onto the tracks just as the train pulls in. Strange lunges toward her, but she begs him to retrieve the harmonica instead. As he does so, the train slams into the girl, causing her to explode into a shower of multicolored sparks that drift onto all the startled bystanders. The hooligans flee the scene, and the young couple boards the train in a panic. The terrified driver of the train pulls out of the station as quickly as possible, leaving Strange and Clea on the platform. Noting that the harmonica is inscribed with the word “Celestia,” Strange hails a taxi to take him and Clea back to the Sanctum Sanctorum to consult the ancient tomes in his library. There, he uses the Eye of Agamotto to conjure up the face of the girl in a swirling miasma, and she reveals herself to be a manifestation of destiny that assumed human form to play the harmonica. She warns Strange that each person affected by the drifting sparks will find their destiny made manifest that very night in a most dramatic fashion. Concerned, Strange sets out to track them all down, leaving Clea and Wong to guard the harmonica.
Strange’s amulet leads him to the apartment of the young couple, Sheldon and Renee Goldenberg, in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, where he discretely convinces Sheldon to change his destiny by quitting his anonymous corporate job to pursue his dream of being a novelist. Strange then moves on to a tenement on Yancy Street, back on the Lower East Side, where he finds the two hooligans, Duff Coogan and Nick Cromer. To his surprise, Strange sees the Thing loitering outside the building and learns that they are in fact investigating the same phenomenon. Coogan, it turns out, is the grandson of a woman who was the Thing’s neighbor when he was growing up. Suddenly, a gigantic rat scrambles up the side of the building and drags Coogan out of his bedroom window. The Thing attacks the rat, but his most powerful blows have little effect on the creature. It is only when Strange convinces Coogan to stop thinking of himself as a victim of poverty that the rat is overcome. The Thing is ready to call it a night until Strange mentions there is one more person to be located: a drunken bum barely noticed in the shadows of the subway station. Unwilling to leave the sorcerer in the lurch, the Thing insists on accompanying him back to the Sanctum Sanctorum.
When they arrive, Clea reports that the Valkyrie just left with the harmonica, claiming that Strange had sent her to fetch it. Confused, Strange uses the Orb of Agamotto to locate the Valkyrie and finds her sleeping under a tree in Cobbler’s Roost, Vermont. He is further confounded when the Orb can find no trace of the drunken bum. The Thing agrees to meet up with the Valkyrie to ask her about the harmonica and sets off in his aero-car. A little while later, the Orb suddenly reveals the bum to be in a forest clearing upstate, next to the unconscious Thing. The renegade Asgardians known as the Enchantress and the Executioner are teleporting away, and Strange realizes they must have been shielding the bum from his mystic scans. Presumably, the Enchantress had once again disguised herself as the Valkyrie in order to steal the harmonica, and they then ambushed the Thing on his way to Vermont. When the Thing comes to a few minutes later, Strange sends out his astral form to advise the Thing to return to the city, thinking him no match for Asgardian sorcery. However, the Thing decides to take the bum, Alvin Denton, to Vermont to help him with a family crisis. Strange contacts the Thing again, only to be told to quit spying on them in his crystal ball. Concerned about how Denton’s destiny will manifest, Strange ignores the Thing’s objections and continues to monitor the situation. Strange’s hunch that Denton’s destiny is entwined with the Valkyrie’s is confirmed when they meet outside Cobbler’s Roost and Denton reveals that he is Barbara’s father. However, the Enchantress and the Executioner rematerialize, and the sorceress immediately banishes the Valkyrie from Barbara’s body, leaving her shrieking in insane terror. Denton is horrified, and obviously desperate to cure his daughter of her madness, he snatches the magic harmonica from the Enchantress’s grasp and blows into it. Unfortunately, it destroys the planet instead. Doctor Strange, Clea, and Wong are killed instantly.
A split-second later, the world is restored as if nothing had happened. Strange sees in the Orb that the Thing is now holding the harmonica and the Valkyrie is fighting the Executioner, indicating some time has passed for them. When the Thing punches out the Executioner, Valkyrie runs over to Denton, who has died, and breaks down crying. The Executioner tries to continue the fight, but the Enchantress decides to retreat, teleporting herself and her lackey away. Strange realizes that the end of the world was the manifestation of Denton’s destiny, since he’d lost everyone he’d ever loved. He sends out his astral form again to ask the Thing to remain in Cobbler’s Roost until he and Nighthawk can join them there. The Thing is annoyed but agrees to hang around. When Strange and Nighthawk arrive in Vermont a little while later, they find the Thing sleeping under a tree and wake him up. He reports that the Valkyrie has carried her father’s body into town, but Strange has detected a sinister presence in the area and wants to investigate. His amulet leads them to a grand house on the outskirts of town, where a trap door suddenly sends Nighthawk and the Thing tumbling into an underground chamber. Unable to penetrate the trap’s magic shields, Strange enters the house instead. He is startled to see a large oil painting above the mantle depicting a middle-aged woman who bears a striking resemblance to the Valkyrie. A nameplate on the frame identifies the woman as Celestia Denton—obviously Barbara’s mother. Before Strange can discover the connection between the woman in the painting and the harmonica that bears her name, he is knocked out by a sorcerous attack from behind.
When he regains consciousness, Strange finds himself and the Valkyrie at the site of some obscene ritual in the house’s basement, having just been rescued by the Thing. Nighthawk is brawling with a number of cultists in hooded robes, so Strange casts a spell that puts the cultists into a trance. He then marches them outside. Nighthawk and the Thing report that the cultists were trying to drain the life-force from both Strange and the Valkyrie to open a dimensional portal to their demonic master. There had also been a hideous old high priestess, they reveal, who disintegrated when the Thing crushed the harmonica. That also seemed to collapse the dimensional portal before the devil could cross over to Earth. From their description, Strange realizes the devil must have been the Nameless One, meaning they’re dealing with the same cult of which Barbara had been a member. The cult leader confirms this under hypnosis, explaining that the high priestess was, in fact, Celestia Denton. She had not died in a car crash years ago as was commonly believed, but she had been badly disfigured and served the Nameless One on the promise of having her youth and beauty restored after the Undying Ones conquered the world. These revelations send a chill down Strange’s spine due to his own history with that race of demons. The nature of the magical harmonica remains a mystery, but he hopes that their efforts have at least rebalanced the cosmic scales of destiny.
After the Thing has left for New York, Strange and Nighthawk join the Valkyrie inside the house, which turns out to be the Dentons’ old summer home. Uncharacteristically silent and withdrawn, she is looking through the family’s photo albums, learning what she can about the life of Barbara Denton. She is particularly upset to have discovered that Barbara was married and that her husband, Jack Norriss, is living there in Cobbler’s Roost. Nighthawk, who is clearly very attracted to the Valkyrie, takes the news badly and storms out, returning to New York on his own. Strange accompanies the Valkyrie to the boarding house where Norriss lives, but the landlady assumes that Barbara ran off to have an affair with Strange, whom she mistakes for an artist of some kind, and castigates her as a gold-digging slut. In tears, Valkyrie asks Strange to take her home immediately, so he teleports them both back to the Sanctum Sanctorum. There, Strange and Clea spend the afternoon trying to comfort the distraught Valkyrie, wondering why she’s being so unusually emotional. In the evening, Bruce Banner collapses on the doorstep, suffering from acute exhaustion, so the Valkyrie carries him to a guest room and puts him to bed. Shortly after midnight, though, Banner changes into the Hulk and goes on a rampage, under the same malefic influence that has caused most New Yorkers to run riot in the streets. Strange detects an odd sort of “static” in the air that prevents any of his spells from taking effect. Fortunately, the madness passes quickly, though Strange is frustrated to have no clue who was responsible. Nighthawk arrives and reports having fought with a looter who appeared to have the head of a man and the body of a gorilla, theorizing that the two bizarre events could be connected. Doctor Strange is baffled.
A couple days later, Nighthawk recruits Doctor Strange, the Hulk, the Valkyrie, the Sub-Mariner, and Daredevil to fight for the earth in another elaborate game set up by the Grandmaster, the enigmatic alien who originally gave him his super-powers. The seemingly omnipotent Grandmaster assures them that he has no interest in Earth, so if they win, the world will be left alone. However, if his mysterious opponent should win, the human race shall be enslaved and the planet stripped of its resources. The Grandmaster, whom Nighthawk describes as a “galactic gambling addict,” then splits them into teams of two and teleports them to distant planets to fight to the death against his own hand-picked mercenaries. Doctor Strange and the Hulk find themselves in a dilapidated, vaguely medieval city populated by a humanoid race, where they face off against a little yellow alien calling himself Grott the Man-Slayer and a cyborg from the 31st century named Korvac. While Grott attacks the Hulk with his psychokinetic powers, Korvac uses his technology to instantly analyze and counter Strange’s sorcery. Finding his spells useless, Strange defeats Korvac with an unexpected punch in the face. Hulk weathers Grott’s assault, then knocks him out with a flick of his mighty fingers. Having won the match, the two Defenders are teleported back to the Grandmaster’s space station, where he declares himself the game’s winner. However, he then announces that he’s changed his mind, having realized that Earth would be the ideal breeding ground for gladiators to amuse him for generations to come. Enraged, the Defenders attack him, only to be easily repulsed. However, Daredevil challenges the Grandmaster to decide Earth’s fate on a coin toss. When Daredevil wins the toss, the Grandmaster concedes defeat and teleports them all back to Nighthawk’s penthouse apartment in Manhattan. Strange expresses his gratitude to Daredevil, though he has some reservations about risking the future of the human race on the toss of a coin. Enigmatically, Daredevil insists the outcome was never in doubt. He then exits through a window, and the Sub-Mariner, not happy to be among the Defenders again, departs as well. Strange and the Valkyrie return to the Sanctum Sanctorum.
Doctor Strange takes Clea to the Central Park Zoo, having decided that her sorcerous ability is now up to the task of counteracting Silver Dagger’s spell that turned her pet rabbit into a giant. The enormous rabbit has been held in the zoo since being captured in Greenwich Village back in January. Clea succeeds in returning the rabbit to normal, though Strange is annoyed that she draws undue attention to herself in the process. They are then accosted by a panhandling heroin addict who takes exception to Strange’s condemnation of hard drugs. As the young man storms off, Clea wonders aloud if some magic spell could help him. Strange notes that such problems are beyond even the Sorcerer Supreme. When they arrive at the Sanctum Sanctorum about an hour later, though, they are ambushed by Umar, the sister of Dormammu, who laughingly informs them that the junkie is one of her disciples. Working together, Strange and Clea overcome Umar’s attacks and drive her back into the Dark Dimension. Strange worries that Umar’s reappearance heralds Dormammu’s return to corporeal form, recalling the Watcher’s warning after Dormammu’s disastrous alliance with Loki last year. He tries to spy on Umar using the Orb of Agamotto, but she senses the intrusion and blocks him. Frustrated, Strange decides he must physically enter the Dark Dimension to ascertain the situation there, though that may be just what Umar wants. Clea refuses to accompany him, growing highly agitated. Not wanting to press the point, Strange advises her to remain on guard while he’s away, kisses her goodbye, and ventures forth into her native realm alone.
Almost immediately, Strange is attacked by Umar, leading to a fierce magical battle that is cut short when Strange is struck down from behind by his foe’s minion Orini. When he regains consciousness sometime later, Strange finds himself bathed in the deadly light from the cyclopean eye of the G’uranthic Guardian and instinctively saves himself by unleashing the Eye of Agamotto from his amulet. When his mind clears, he attempts to cross the dimensional boundary back to Earth, only to suddenly realizes he has forgotten how. Orini reappears, accompanied by a horde of demons, and explains that the G’uranthic Guardian has drained all knowledge of sorcery from Strange’s mind, leaving him helpless. Luckily, Clea comes to the rescue at that moment but is unwilling to fight Orini, as he is her father. Instead, she causes the Cloak of Levitation to carry them away from Orini, and they soon take refuge in a place where she used to hide out as a child. There, Clea confirms Strange’s suspicion that Umar lured him into the Dark Dimension so he wouldn’t sense that Dormammu was reforming himself deep within the Earth. Finding an old toy, she finally opens up about her lonely childhood as the daughter of Dormammu’s chief disciple, effectively a princess among slaves. After suddenly receiving a vision of the Elder Goddess Gaea, Clea explains that it was Gaea who first warned her of Dormammu’s scheme. She then heads off to appeal to her father for help, leaving Strange to meditate.
When Clea returns, she reports that Orini refused to aid them against Dormammu, as expected. Thus, they decide to seek assistance from Gaea herself using basic earth magic that Clea has learned. She sets up a ritual that imbues Strange with enough power to penetrate the mystical barrier surrounding the rampaging Mindless Ones. He is then able to use the violent creatures as conduits to send the Gaean energy into the G’uranthic Guardian, inverting the properties of its eye-beams. As a result, when the Guardian tries to siphon off Clea’s sorcerous knowledge, it instead pours all of Strange’s stolen power into her. Strange races to her side, arriving just as Orini and his horde of demons descend upon her. Clea unleashes a devastating barrage of eldritch energy on their foes, surprised by the amount of raw power she is wielding. She nearly goes too far, though, when she realizes how deeply her father hates her. Strange talks his pupil down, then absorbs all his power and knowledge back into himself. Shielded by the Flames of the Faltine, the couple flees through the dimensional boundary back to the safety of the Sanctum Sanctorum.
No sooner have they materialized than Strange and Clea receive a vision of Gaea warning them that Dormammu is on the loose at the Grand Canyon. Wong brings in four mystics from around the world who have come to New York in answer to Clea’s summons—Lord Phyffe, Rama Kaliph, Turhan Barim, and Count Carezzi—but they lack the skill to go up against Dormammu. Thanking them for their show of support, Strange teleports himself and Clea to Arizona, where they find Umar instead, grown to 100 feet tall. She has brought Orini to Earth with her and orders him to attack the couple. Orini does so without hesitation but is unable to penetrate Strange’s defenses. He then crumbles under Strange’s counterattack, but Umar props him up with her own power, making him little more than a puppet. Following a daring strategy Clea has come up with, Strange traps Orini within the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, then transfers the bulk of his power back to Clea. While Strange distracts Umar, Clea phases into the ground and frees Gaea from imprisonment. Sensing what’s just happened, Umar focuses her attacks on Clea, but Clea forms a mind link with Strange that allows them to share the power equally between them. Umar is thus overcome and collapses to the ground, reverting to her normal size. However, Dormammu, standing several thousand feet tall, materializes in the canyon, having reclaimed the power his treacherous sister had stolen from him. Strange demands that Dormammu return to the Dark Dimension immediately, insisting that he’s indebted to them for saving him from Umar. Dormammu scoffs at Strange’s presumption, but Gaea intercedes and grants the two sorcerers the power to drive the arch-demon back to his own realm. Orini is allowed to take the unconscious Umar home as well, since Strange knows they lack the power to imprison her. Before disappearing, Gaea repairs the environmental damage the battle caused and acknowledges her champions, Doctor Strange and Clea, as her son and adopted daughter.
August–November 1967 – Doctor Strange is happy to have Lord Phyffe and Rama Kaliph stay at the Sanctum Sanctorum for the next several months, as they are eager to study under the new Sorcerer Supreme. Turhan Barim and Count Carezzi are content to enjoy his hospitality for a couple of weeks before returning home. The adepts are all fascinated by the Valkyrie, who also continues to live there, though she spends much of her time with Aragorn at Nighthawk’s facility on Long Island. For his part, Nighthawk is frustrated that none of his teammates are interested in having regular meetings, leaving him to act as a solo crime-fighter. Clea finds that her recent mind-melds with Strange have had a lasting benefit, allowing her to advance her studies at a much more rapid pace. As a couple, they also deepen their emotional bond in the light of their recent experiences. Throughout, Strange continues trying to bring Baron Mordo out of his catatonic state, to no avail.
December 1967 – For about 18 hours, Doctor Strange, Clea, and Valkyrie find themselves trapped within force-field bubbles that they recognize as Asgardian sorcery. Try as they might, they are unable to escape. Finally, the force fields vanish as mysteriously as they appeared. Strange quickly determines that while they were trapped, Loki led an invasion force of Asgardian warriors against Washington, D.C., only to be repelled by Thor and the U.S. Army.
On a snowy evening, Strange and Valkyrie rush to a midtown hospital after Kyle Richmond and his girlfriend, Trish Starr, are badly injured in a car-bomb explosion. In the lobby, Strange runs into an old friend, Dr. James Wynter, whom he hasn’t seen in 20 years. Wynter recruits Strange to serve as a surgical consultant as he operates on Richmond. Strange is reluctant, feeling his time would be better spent tracking down the bomber, but he nevertheless soon finds himself among the doctors and nurses in the operating room. The familiar sensations of the O.R. sweep over Strange, taking him back to his days as one of the city’s top surgeons, though his nostalgia is tinged with the new perspectives on the cosmos he has gained as Sorcerer Supreme. During the hours-long procedure, Strange makes numerous invaluable contributions, though his mind occasionally wanders to his other Defenders teammates. Finally, in the middle of the night, the surgical team completes its efforts and Richmond is taken to the recovery room. Wynter assures Strange that Richmond’s prognosis is excellent, marveling at the patient’s seemingly superhuman constitution. Changing the subject, Strange inquires about Trish Starr, but Wynter has no information on her condition. Their conversation is interrupted by the Hulk, who is causing a commotion in the corridor. Valkyrie is trying to deal with the green behemoth as he demands to see Richmond, and before the situation can get out of hand, Strange convinces the Hulk to accompany them back to the Sanctum Sanctorum. Although Strange wants to start investigating the bombing immediately, he realizes he is utterly exhausted and elects to get a few hours’ sleep first.
The following morning, Strange, Hulk, and Valkyrie return to the hospital for visiting hours, though the Hulk agrees to remain outside with Aragorn. Richmond has been moved to a private room, where he speculates that the car-bomb must have been set by his former associates, the Squadron Sinister, even though they are believed to have been killed during the battle with Nebulon last year. Strange is dubious but agrees to check out the villains’ former hideout at the Crayton Observatory. Collecting the Hulk and Aragorn, Strange and Valkyrie head to the remote upstate observatory, where they discover that Hyperion, Doctor Spectrum, and the Whizzer are indeed still alive. Despite having the element of surprise, the Defenders lose the battle and find themselves imprisoned in the observatory’s basement. Luckily, they are rescued by the former Avenger called Yellowjacket, who is also investigating the car-bombing as a friend of Trish Starr’s. Yellowjacket reveals that the Squadron Sinister had nothing to do with the bombing; it was carried out by his old arch-enemy Egghead, who happens to be Starr’s uncle. She was the target, he explains, not Richmond. Even so, Strange realizes the Squadron Sinister may take advantage of Richmond’s weakened state to get revenge on him. Thus, the Defenders race back to Manhattan, accompanied by Yellowjacket, and stop the Squadron Sinister from kidnapping Richmond from the hospital. When the hard-fought battle is won, Strange casts a spell that strips their foes of all memory of their powers and villainous identities, ensuring they will pose no further threat to Richmond.
Doctor Strange and Valkyrie convince the Hulk to spend some more time with them at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Clea and Wong are delighted to host their brutish friend again, though Lord Phyffe and Rama Kaliph need to be reassured that he won’t kill them. The two adepts become very curious about the Hulk once he accepts them as friends. Richmond makes a rapid recovery due to his super-powers and resumes his activities as Nighthawk, though he is depressed that Starr, whose left arm had to be amputated, has broken up with him. Stephen Strange, feeling a deep sense of harmony and joy, relishes the camaraderie that fills his home throughout the holiday season.
Notes:
January 1967 – Doctor Strange and Spider-Man have their rematch with Xandu in Marvel Team-Up #21. Strange then appears in his new solo series, Doctor Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts #1 and following. For brevity’s sake, the 81-issue series is usually referred to here as Doctor Strange v.2. Baron Mordo remains behind the scenes throughout the year.
May 1967 – The Defenders take on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants at the behest of Professor X in Defenders #15–16. Xavier seeks outside help because the X-Men are off on their mission to Krakoa, as seen in Giant-Size X-Men #1. Magneto’s odyssey through the bowels of the earth is a delusion; following his defeat at the hands of the Avengers (in Avengers #111), he was held in a telepathically induced coma in the basement of the X-Men’s headquarters. However, his deranged mind rejects this humiliating reality in favor of a nonsensical sci-fi fantasy. See my Magneto chronology for further discussion. The Defenders then team up with Daimon Hellstrom, the so-called “Son of Satan,” in Giant-Size Defenders #2.
July 1967 – The Defenders battle the Wrecking Crew in Defenders #17–19. They then join forces with the Thing to once again foil the sinister plans of the Undying Ones in Marvel Two-in-One #6–7 and Defenders #20–21. The temporary spell of madness and the apelike looter are indeed connected, as both are part of a scheme by the freakish small-time crooks known as the Headmen—Arthur Nagan, Jerry Morgan, and Chondu the Mystic. Daredevil helps the Defenders defeat the Grandmaster and his mystery opponent (Doctor Doom’s Prime Mover robot) in Giant-Size Defenders #3. While talking to the junkie—who, like his drug of choice, is nicknamed Horse—in Doctor Strange v.2 #6, Strange admits to using psychoactive drugs himself while studying under the Ancient One in Tibet—a detail omitted in most recountings of the sorcerer’s origin story. Dormammu’s scheme also involves the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness, as seen in Giant-Size Avengers #4, but Doctor Strange seems unaware of this fact. While Gaea is held prisoner by Dormammu, the world’s weather patterns are severely disrupted. This brings us up to Doctor Strange v.2 #9.
December 1967 – Doctor Strange is among the various superheroes seen trapped within Loki’s magical spheres in Thor #233. The Defenders team up with Yellowjacket against the Squadron Sinister in Giant-Size Defenders #4. The criminal Whizzer of the Squadron Sinister should not be confused with the WWII-era hero of the same name.
Jump Back: Doctor Strange – Year Five
Next Issue: The Hulk – Year Six
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