Secret Defenders #1 (1993)

At the Sanctum Sanctorum, Doctor Strange is examining a pack of Tarot cards. He divines from them that someone is hatching an evil scheme using black magic. The cards also tell him he (The Magician) will be needed to combat it, as well as teammates that Strange will need to recruit. The Hermit (Nomad), the Knight of Wands (Darkhawk), the Queen of Pentacles (Spider-Woman), and the Knight of Swords (Wolverine). Strange reflects on the fact that reality is fragile at present due to the weakening of walls between worlds as Lilith and her Lilin attempted to make their way through to Earth. Strange also realises that with his power weakened his defence of the Astral Plane will need to be carefully orchestrated. The cards then show him the location from where the evil emanates - Phoenix, Arizona. In Phoenix, a group of homeless people bear witness to a bank robbery committed by several youths. The criminals then run to their getaway car. Before they can escape they are accosted by Nomad. Nomad, with Bucky on his back, shoots one of the criminals in the leg. Nomad’s own gun is shot out of his hands by another of the gang, with Nomad surprised to find that she’s a woman. She punches Nomad before the gang escape in their car. The gang drives into a giant spider web, which manages to restrain the car for a while. Eventually the car bursts through but ends up broken. The gang attempts to flee on foot. They then encounter Spider-Woman. The gang fire their guns at her, but the bullets are deflected by the armour of Darkhawk who swoops in front of Spider-Woman. Spider-Woman manages to apprehend the woman who punched out Nomad. Another member of the group flees, but runs into Wolverine. Wolverine punches the man into a wall. Nomad arrives on the scene and meets the other three, just as the police arrive. The police arrest the bank robbers and recover the stolen money, but for some reason neither the criminals or the police are able to see or hear the group of heroes. As the police drive away, the heroes deduce that their lack of visibility is down to Doctor Strange. Strange’s astral form appears to the group and tells them he transported all of them, apart from Nomad, to Phoenix. Strange levitates the heroes into the air to speak with them. He informs them that a dimensional rift is leaving Earth vulnerable to menaces from beyond. He recounts his recent recruitment of a group of heroes to help him defend Earth. This in turn reminded him of his time with the group known as the Defenders. Strange decided another team of random heroes was needed, so he let his mystical subconscious choose them for him. He then went to each of them individually, in his astral form, and asked for their help. Doctor Strange goes on to explain that the bank robbery is only a small aspect of the mystical threat to Earth, but even he doesn’t yet know what the threat is. He then asks if the gathered heroes will trust him when he says that Earth is in danger and asks that they help him to combat the threat. All of them agree. Strange informs them that the evil he senses is linked to both the bank robbery and the homeless people in Phoenix. The group notices that Strange’s astral form is starting to fade. He tells them that the time he can be away from his body has elapsed and he’ll need to stay where he is for several hours whilst they investigate in order to renew his astral form. The team make their way to the police station. The officer on duty is surprised to see them and wonders how they heard about the bank robbers. Unusually, none of the teens that were arrested had their fingerprints on record for any previous crimes. He tells them that there have been a few robberies committed by teenage gangs in the last few weeks. Most of the time they were able to get away, apart from the gang in the cells and one previous arrest. The team asks to see the previously arrested teen as the gang they took on earlier aren’t willing to talk. When they get to the cell of the teenager that had given the police their name as they find an old man sitting in the cell. The man suffers a heart attack. Darkhawk and Spider-Woman rip the bars away from the cell, in order to help the man. Although Spider-Woman attempts CPR, the man dies. The officer doesn’t understand why the man was in the cell wearing the same clothes as the teenager that was arrested. Wolverine suggests getting the bank robbers and showing them what happened. They insist that they never saw the man before, although the woman who identified herself as Tabitha Bramble seems particularly upset. As the bank robbers are led back to their cells, she whispers an address to Spider-Woman. Wolverine and Spider-Woman head to the address. As they climb up to an open window they discuss the fake names the teenagers gave the police being from an old novel and the fact that one of the teenagers called the officer “copper”, which is not something a normal teenager would have done. Once inside the building, an investigation of the room the bank robbers were living in uncovers a diploma for Tabitha Bramble from the Second Chance Institute. This seems odd as the woman was barely old enough to have been out of High School. As she investigates the darkened room, Spider-Woman bumps into something. She searches for a light switch and suddenly gets zapped. Whilst the two heroes wonder what could have caused it, they are confronted by a glowing figure called Tokamak and his comrade, Decimator. The two villains attempt to attack, but Wolverine grabs Spider-Woman and leaps from the window in order to be able to fight in less cramped quarters. The villains crash through a wall. Wolverine tackles Decimator whilst Spider-Woman faces Tokamak. Spider-Woman realises that if she hits Tokamak then she’ll be hurt by his electric powers. She decides to use her psi-webs instead. They hold Tokamak long enough that the armour which he’s wearing starts to lose its glow as its power supply runs out. Wolverine demands answers about the connection between the villains and the teens living in the building from Decimator as they battle. He gets none, but manages to subdue his opponent. As he and Spider-Woman compare notes, they are suddenly joined by a woman who calls herself Dreadlox. She plans to take Decimator and Tokamak away from the heroes.