A
group of volunteers move Aragorn indoors so the veterinarian can tend to his
injuries—but Hulk believes the horse is dying and throws a major fit in the
street. Police arrive to quell the Green Giant’s anger but he scatters them
with a shockwave in the sidewalk; he leaps up
and brings down a helicopter and,
finally, totally fed up with the human race, he bounds off into the distance.
Jack Norriss overhears a mention of Kyle Richmond on police radio and heads to
the hospital….
Doctor Strange and Red Guardian, with Kyle Richmond recovering from brain surgery, are
trapped inside a giant pod by Plantman, who is holding them for ransom. On his
way, Jack gets the details from a television on display in a store window;
assuming the other two hostages are Dr. Strange and Valkyrie, he calls Luke Cage
for help. Cage, who was in the middle of beating up a bunch of thugs who
had attacked him in his office, doesn’t really want to work with the Defenders
again but he goes anyway….
Dr.
Strange finally hits upon a spell to tear a hole in his green prison and he
teleports Kyle back to the hospital; he and Red Guardian try to levitate to the
ground but Plantman fires a cloud of spores at them then fires his
Chloro-blaster to make them ferocious. They trap the two heroes and drift
inexorably upward toward the ionosphere. Then Luke Cage arrives to punch out
the villain, tearing through his nasty trees. Strange works his hands free and
teleports himself and Tania to the ground, leaving the spores to continue
levitating right out of the story. Jack Norriss fills everybody in on what has
been happening but he doesn’t know where Valkyrie is…
…but
we know Val is in jail for wrecking a restaurant (issue #35) where she is
continually bulled by a fellow inmate but unable to fight back since her powers
will not allow her to use them against another woman….
Realizing
he can’t cut it on his own, Plantman returns to the Celestial Mind Control HQ
to be greeted by the disguised Nebulon. He is sown his partners in crime,
Alexander “Porcupine” Gentry and Leopold “Eel” Stryke shooting at clownish
versions of their villainous alter egos as part of the enlightenment plan.
Plantman wants out so Nebulon assumes his true form and knocks the baddie out….
The
Defenders visit Kyle in the hospital and find him recovering nicely. Luke Cage
tells them he doesn’t want to work for free, a position Tania Belinsky finds
appalling, so Kyle promises him a retainer and asks to be left alone with Dr.
Strange. Kyle tries to find an explanation for his weird experiences separated
from his body (issues #31-36) but Strange tells him he’ll have to work it out for
himself. Strange leaves—and is gassed like his colleagues by Porcupine and
Eel….