Defenders #27 (1975)

On the planet Earth in the year 3015 A.D., a Badoon underling named Koz reports to Lordsire Droom that the Guardians' starship has been detected in orbit around Earth with nine life-forms aboard and that he has already dispatched intercept craft. Angered, Droom orders the craft to be called back because he wants the starship taken intact and he has a far more dramatic fate in mind for the Guardians and their passengers than death by molecular dispersion fire. Aboard the starship Captain America, an attempt to teleport Valkyrie, Vance Astro, Hulk, and Yondu down to New York City goes awry when Droom, who has been monitoring the starship, fires a high-intensity directional radio wave that bisects and deflects the four teleport beams, sending the scrambled molecules of the four travelers into the void of sub-space. Yondu's announcement that he's lost them prompts Jack Norriss to come out of hiding to demand to know what has happened to his wife Barbara, the woman who is Valkyrie's host body. Elsewhere, the atoms of Valkyrie and Major Astro re-integrate in a marshland on an alien planet with two moons in its sky. Only seconds after their arrival, they are attacked by a group of lizard-things that are savage, mindless and violent. Despite being stronger than the attackers, Valkyrie's attempt to fight back against them causes her to become increasingly weak, and she is only saved from death when Astro uses his psycho-kinetic powers to blast all the berserkers away. As Astro remarks that the creatures resemble the Badoon but are more primitive, the pair are approached by a glowing figure who states that the woman is in need of aid and that they should follow him. After leading them to a small domed structure which they all enter, the glowing stranger emits light from within himself that enters Valkyrie's body and restores her to full health. With the glow about him having faded, the stranger (Starhawk) looks human but refuses to explain himself, stating only that Astro and Valkyrie are now in his debt. Aboard the Captain America in Earth-orbit, the Guardians have concluded that the teleportation failed due to some outside force. Angered by the news that his wife might be dead, Jack becomes aggressive so Doctor Strange casts a spell of immobility upon him. Having an idea about how to find their four missing friends, Strange asks Martinex to take him to the starship's sensor banks. Elsewhere, the atoms of the Hulk and Yondu materialize upon an alien world inhabited by human-looking people who are all grogged out of their minds. Despite the fact that the people are all laughing, dancing and singing, both of the visitors sense that they are not really happy. After hearing a scream, Yondu and Hulk run to investigate and find a woman being threatened by four men armed with swords. Yondu quickly uses one of his Yaka arrows to drive off the four attackers but the woman responds by slapping him and then running off herself. Yondu and the Hulk are then confronted by a squad of six humanoid robots who inform them that they are charged with disrupting the Festival of Death and must be brought to justice. Aggravated by the insanity of the stupid place, the Hulk smashed all of the "tin men" with a single blow, but he and Yondu are then confronted by a much larger, less-humanoid robot (Zinnia) who accuses them of having killed her babies, judges them guilty and fires beams from her eyes that places them in thrall. Zinnia then guides her captives to the throne room of Goozot who quickly realizes that the two visitors are gifts of a sort from their allies, the Badoon. Deciding that they are interesting specimens who would be fun in the Games, he orders Zinnia to take them to the studio. Back aboard the Captain America, Martinex has wired Doctor Strange into the starship's computer system so that he will be able to use a fusion of mysticism and technology to swiftly search the universe for their missing companions. When the two are linked and the sensor banks have been programmed for wide scanning, the result is a sorcerer who can process and evaluate data input with machine-like precision and rapidity, and a computer that is one with the universe. On the planet below, the equipment that has been monitoring the starship explodes when it attempts to analyze to single sensor probe, causing Lordsire Droom to theorize that the Guardians must have developed some new power source, one that could topple the Badoon Empire, so he orders that it be found and destroyed at all costs! Later, as Doctor Strange's scanning continues with him probing the galaxy's far rim, an intruder alarm reveals the presence of someone in the teleport room. Charlie-27, Martinex and Nighthawk race to the teleport chamber where they are confronted by two members of the Badoon Elite Guard and their Zom minions, with the Badoon declaring that their ship has been confiscated in the name of the Brotherhood!