The depowered Dr. Strange detects
a threat to Earth so he uses his special Tarot deck to choose a team to fight
the menace. The deck also suggests where this threat shall appear…
…in Phoenix, Arizona. A pair of
aged homeless people, Mary and George, are passing a bank when they are bowled
over by a trio of teenaged robbers dashing out of the place. The crooks make it
to their getaway car only to be confronted by Nomad (Jack Monroe) with baby
Bucky in a carrier on his back. He shoots one baddie in the leg and then
another shoots the gun out of Jack’s hand and he leaps at…her. Startled to be
suddenly grappling with a woman, he is easily knocked down with a punch and the
two intact robbers take off in their car. And then the car hits a web stretched
across the alley and is wrecked. They see Spider-Woman coming down a wall
toward them and shoot; Darkhawk interposes his armored body to protect her and she
nabs the woman. The last crook runs away and crashes into Wolverine who
clobbers him. The four heroes gather, surprised to see one another. They are
even more surprised to discover that neither the police nor the robbers under
arrest can see them. Then Doctor Strange appears to them in his astral form,
levitating them into the sky. He tells them of danger in the multiverse and
that his powers are at a low ebb; they were selected by his subconscious for a
mission. The bank robbery is connected to a much larger threat and he asks them
to consent to being his agents. They do and Strange points them toward the
robbers and the homeless as he begins to fade. Nomad considers finding a
babysitter for Bucky….
The team visits the police station
where they see the three bank robbers giving their names as Tobias Smollett,
Humphry Clinker, and Tabitha Bramble, obviously phony; none of them has a
criminal record. The police says this is part of a rash of crimes by teenagers;
the cops were only able to catch one. The Defenders are led to his cell where
they find an elderly man, who collapses and dies before their eyes. They show
his body to the three young crooks who all deny knowing him though the female,
“Tabitha,” cries, claiming to merely be sensitive. As they are taken back to
their cells, Tabitha whispers an address to Spider-Woman….
Shortly, Spider-Woman and
Wolverine are checking out that address, a shabby downtown hotel; in the
specified room they find a diploma from the Second Chance Institute, made out
to Tabitha Bramble. And then Spider-Woman is electrocuted by something in the
darkened room. Two bad guys step forward, Decimator (huge strong guy) and
Tokamak (armor emits bright light). Logan grabs SW and leaps out of the window
to give them fighting room and the bad guys just crash through the wall. SW
entangles Tokamak in her webs, draining his energy and putting his light out.
Logan punches Decimator out with a great deal of effort. And then a third
baddie arrives: a Black woman in a slinky silver outfit calling herself
Dreadlox….