Story
continued from MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #7.
In
Cobbler’s Roost, Vermont, Valkyrie mourns the late Alvin Denton, the father of
her alter ego Barbara and the only person who could explain her previous life.
Executioner attacks Thing, wanting to finish their battle, but Enchantress,
giving up on the magic harmonica scheme, whisks him away to find a new way to
conquer Asgard. Val, in her disguised form, insists on bearing Alvin’s body
home and Doctor Strange in his astral form appears to Ben, asking him to keep
an eye on Val because the mystery of the magic harmonica is not yet solved and
she may be in danger….
Val
takes the body to the sheriff’s office where she is recognized as the
long-missing Barbara. Trying to hide her ignorance of Barbara’s past, Val is
shocked when the Sheriff mentions her husband Jack. Afterward, Val is taken to
the family home where she tries to get her thoughts together….
Doctor Strange and Nighthawk arrive and meet up with Thing and they head off to find
Val, who has been captured by the cult; Strange narrowly avoids a trap that
catches Thing and Nighthawk, trapping them in a cellar with electrified walls.
Strange explores Barbara’s house and learns from a painting that Celestia, the
name on the magic harmonica, was Barbara’s mother—just before he is magically
overpowered and brought to the basement where he and Val are about to be
sacrificed. The cult, led by Van Nyborg, is intending to draw the Nameless Ones
back to our dimension and they have promised to restore the horribly aged and
disfigured Celestia to her youth and beauty in exchange for her daughter’s
life. Thing and Nighthawk escape from the cellar and disrupt the ceremony,
Nighthawk fighting the cultists and Thing taking on the Nameless Ones. Celestia
prepares to play the harmonica but Ben snatches it away from her, inadvertently
crushing it to dust. This also causes her to crumble into ash and all the magic
goes away, the Nameless Ones return whence they came and Strange and Val are
unharmed. Strange erases the memories from the cultists’ brains and the
Defenders head home….