Elf with a Gun
brings the original Defenders (Doctor Strange, Hulk, Sub-Mariner,
Silver Surfer) down to a desolate Earth, informing them that this is the mid-24th
century—and that they caused the disaster. Namor demands an explanation, with
violence, so Elf just points out the state of the planet. Silver Surfer panics;
having seen the death of his homeworld, Zenn-La, he is now traumatized at the
devastation to his adopted home. Namor is likewise enraged to see the oceans
turned to dust. Strange wraps the Elf in a Sphere of Sufindum, demanding an
explanation but the Tribunal whisks the heroes into their presence. Namor again
demands but the Tribunal, incensed, causes them all to cease to exist for a
split second before returning them….
At
the Wanda-Vision home, SHIELD has picked up the three Secret Empire baddies
(Cloud, Seraph, Harridan) and taken them away in Null-Fields. Beast relates how
the Secret Empire kidnapped a multitude of mutants and they were rescued by
Captain America. Beast asks Vision if he and Wanda want to join up with the
Defenders for protection but the couple declines, wanting no more to do with
superheroics. Beast is bitterly disappointed; Iceman tells Gargoyle that Beast
is taking seriously the suggestion to turn the Defenders into a real team and
he was really counting on Wanda and Vision to join….
The
Tribunal explains: in the distant future, the Tribunal (a collective mind/soul)
detected the death of Earth and so entered the timestream to see if they could
prevent it. They bred an army of time agents to serve them and a
misunderstanding led them to make the agents Elves, thinking they would blend
in. Other mistakes were made as well: they pinpointed certain individuals as a
threat to the Earth; Elf with a Time-Displacement Gun was dispatched to shoot
these individuals, removing them from the timestream but this had no effect. Three
of the stolen humans were returned to their places in history, their minds
erased of Elves, etc. In their travels, the Elves gathered evidence that the
Defenders were the cause of the catastrophe. Namor accuses them of lying to
them and he is blasted once more. The Tribunal confirmed this evidence by what
was made to look like a government hearing (issue #87). They sent a Time Buoy
in the form of nurse Luann Bloom to infiltrate the Defenders and gather
additional evidence but she ended up falling in love with Kyle Richmond. Luann,
hearing this, repeatedly denies all of this in panic and the Surfer asks if she
can be spared her suffering so she is shut down and sent to the scrap heap….
Doctor
Strange finally demands proof. He is shown a reconstruction of events that will
occur in the near future: Strange sees an alien spaceship crash to Earth.
Invisible, he investigates and finds alien soldiers effecting repairs but the
big problem is that their leader Prince Ch-Kra was gravely ill and he has been
placed in a Resurrectonn, a device that drains the life energies of human
specimens (three of whom were captured by the Elf but returned) and channels them
into Ch-Kra’s healing. Strange plans to become visible in hopes of convincing
the aliens that their Prince can be cured without the use of human prisoners
but he is taken for an enemy and attacked. Knocked out, Strange’s body is
placed in the Resurrectonn; his astral form departs and summons Namor, Silver
Surfer, and Hulk (with Bruce Banner’s brain) to his rescue. The trio invades
the ship, disables it, rescues the humans—and then learns that the aliens have
all died by mass suicide, leaving them wondering why?
The
Elf with a Gun directs us to the next issue, THE NEW DEFENDERS #125.