The Winter Guard have been captured by the Presence and he
has a grudge against Darkstar for daring to impersonate his late daughter, the
original Darkstar. She provides the distraction for Red Guardian to escape from
the tentacles of Presence’s monster and attack the villain, while she frees
Crimson Dynamo and Ursa Major. CD learns that the tentacled monster is Igor
Drenkov, the man who created the Hulk but the creature then kills CD, biting
his head off. Darkstar then absorbs the monster into herself at great pain, ending
its existence. Presence is captured. The Winter Guard meet the press in Moscow,
accompanied by the new Crimson Dynamo, a woman named Galina Nemirovsky. But
Darkstar is still uneasy, thinking about Drenkov….
“The Closing Circle”
Reprinted from THE INCREDIBLE HULK #393.
“The Winter Guard”
Writer: David Gallagher. Art: Steve Ellis x 3. Letters: Scott
O. Brown.
Sasha Roerich a/k/a Darkstar is troubled by her discovery
that she has the DNA of a dead woman, the first Darkstar, in her; she goes to
Dmitri Bukharin, Winter Guard liaison (and former Crimson Dynamo), for advice
and he tells her not to worry about it….
In their civilian identities, Red Guardian, Ursa Major, and
the new female Crimson Dynamo are shooting pool and kibitzing with one another.
Bukharin enters to tell them that Soviet revolutionaries—the Remont 6—have
raided and A.I.M. facility and the Winter Guard needs to defeat them without
Darkstar….
The heroes jet down to the Forbidden Zone to face a band of
criminals including Titanium Man, Iron Maiden, the Snow Leopards, Unicorn, and
Volga. A huge battle ensues….
Sasha, still troubled in mind, confronts the imprisoned
Presence, demanding to know what he did to her. The villain reveals that the
medallion that gives Darkstar her powers has bonded with Presence’s daughter
and that Sasha is doomed to fail for her own weakness. She takes off to join
her comrades against the Remont 6. She arrives on the scene just in time to
keep Ursa Major from falling to his death but she is attacked by Titanium Man.
She morphs into a massive tentacled creature and clobbers the villain but she
is out of control. Her gamma-charged powers threaten to absorb all light and
radiation in the vicinity. Red Guardian flies to her center and removes the
medallion; Sasha burns out and vanishes. The team meets the press and a
replacement Darkstar is presented with the medallion and she begins to hear
Darkstar’s memories….