[User]
<image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image>
Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
A Gathering of Heroes
Stephen Strange a.k.a. Dr Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, is inside his sanctum sanctorum, and is reading some tarot cards. The Ace of Wands shows up, ‘A new enterprise is begun…black magic…imagine my surprise!’ he remarks when the card of the Devil is turned. ‘Could be bad. Death reversed, signalling disaster’ Strange tells himself when the upside-down Death card is revealed. ‘Ah, this is more like it’ Strange decides when the Six of Wands is shown. “Victory after strife…with a little help from one’s friends” Strange states. The card of the Hermit is next turned, and it shows the vigilante hero called Nomad. ‘A journey may be needed to gain knowledge’ Strange tells himself. ‘A courageous young man’ he adds when the Knight of Wands, depicting the young hero Darkhawk, is turned over. The Queen of Pentacles is next, and it shows the second Spider-Woman. ‘A generous woman, rich of heart…’ Strange calls her, before the Knight of Swords’ is turned, upside down. It depicts Wolverine, and Dr Strange remarks that he is always ready to start a fight, leaving destruction in his wake. Finally, the Magician, depicting Strange himself, is turned. ‘Willpower…creativity…organizational skills…modesty forbids that I go on!’ Strange declares as he hovers, legs crossed.
A candle lights the dim room, and a book hover overhead, while Strange builds a tower with the tarot cards. ‘Still, I’d begun to wonder exactly where I fit into all this…house of cards!’ he declares. Strange wonders if reality is truly anything more than a fragile structure, built of cards in this troubled hour. ‘The walls between the worlds, weakened by the coming of Lilith and her despicable Lilin. Myself, stripped of much of my power, not to mention the good will of the Gods’. Strange decides that the safety of Earth’s astral plane is a drunken dancer, precariously poised on the edge of an abyss, and he must be careful indeed how he places each card. ‘NO!’ Strange shouts as he places the last card, calling the house of cards to topple. ‘And yet, an end was inevitable. It was all a matter of which card would bring everything down’ Strange tells himself, taking the card which caused the house to topple. ‘The Empress, reversed’ Strange sees. ‘Loss of possessions perhaps - even war, or famine or - poverty’. Dr Strange tells himself that he at least has mystic power enough left to sense the “where” of this particular threat.
Phoenix, Arizona, where several homeless people have gathered for the night. ‘Hey, Mary - you run into old Willie on Van Buren today?’ a man calls out. ‘Nope’ Mary replies, explaining that she is heading home from the Hall of Flame. ‘They slipped me a buck to soothe my conscience…cause they got a home to go to, I guess’ Mary remarks, adding that she hasn’t seen Lester in a few days, either. Mary points out that it will be dark soon, and asks the man if he wants to head on over to the Fillmore Shelter with her. ‘Sure. Why not’ the man replies. Pushing a shopping cart full of her belongings, Mary tells her companion that they gave her a fiver last week over there by 20th Street, when suddenly, an alarm goes off inside the Monument National Bank.
‘You think maybe we -’ the man begins, before several thieves rush past he and Mary, knocking Mary to the ground. ‘Outta the way, loser!’ one of the thieves shouts. ‘There’s plenty more for anybody else gets in our face!’ one of the thieves warns the homeless people. ‘Stop! Police!’ an officer shouts as he and his partner rush after the criminals. ‘Those young men - they robbed the bank!’ Mary exclaims, while her companion helps her up. ‘Don’t miss a thing, do you, grannie?’ one of the thieves mutters. Rounding an alleyway, the thieves approach their car. ‘Boy, that felt great!’ one of them declares. ‘Yeah! We outran those cops like they were wearing snowshoes!’ another exclaims. The third remarks that he feels like he could go on running all night. ‘But I guess from here on we drive’ he points out.
Suddenly, ‘Wrong!’ a voice exclaims, as a yellow disc is flung at the handle of the car door, before the thief can open it. ‘You ride. In the police van’ a voice calls out. The thieves turn and see Jack Monroe better known as the vigilante Nomad. He holds a gun towards them, while holding the baby he has dubbed Bucky on his back. Nomad tells the criminals to relax, and that the police van will be here before they know it. ‘Gagoo-chi-wooo…’ the baby gurgles. ‘There’s a lot in what you say, Bucky, me lass’ Nomad tells the girl. ‘I don’t believe this!’ one of the thieves bursts out. ‘A guy with a baby on his back is making a citizen’s arrest!’ another declares.
One of the thieves turns and begins to run, ‘I’m getting outta here’ he decides, but Nomad fires his weapon, striking the thief in his foot. ‘you’re lucky, man. He was aiming for your calf’ one of the other thieves exclaims. ‘I got a good aim, too’ the female thief declares, and fires a gun, the bullet knocks Nomad’s weapon from his hand. ‘No. First my gun - then you!’ Nomad shouts as he lunges at the criminal, who aims her gun upwards: ‘Okay, you asked for -’ she begins, but her shot misses him. ‘Where’d you learn to jump like that?’ she mutters.
With baby Bucky still strapped to his back, Nomad takes hold of the criminal and replies ‘Watching old Kung Fu movies’, before telling the criminals that it is time to punch their lights out, so they won’t do any more of that championship sprinting. Just then, Nomad realizes that this particular criminal is a girl. ‘I got a bulletin for you, Charlie…we’re called women now!’ she exclaims as she punches Nomad in the face. ‘I…knew that’ Nomad mutters, while the two remaining criminals make it into their car. ‘Floorboard it, man! I caught him flat-footed once - but it won’t happen a second time!’ one of them calls out. ‘It’s floored!’ comes the reply, as the car speeds down the alley.
‘Soon as we clear this alley, we’re - hey! What’s that?’ the driver calls out as he sees something up ahead. The female criminal remarks that it looks like some kind of big spider web covering the exit. The male criminal tells her to hold on, because whatever it is, they are plowing through it. However, as the car hit’s the oversized web, it comes to a screeching halt, slowing right down, before snapping through the web, and careening sideways, where it slams into a nearby wall. The criminals emerge from the car, the male muttering that whatever it was, it gave, just barely, before the whole car did. ‘We gotta run for it’ he decides, while the woman motions to the side of the building: ‘Look! There’s the one did it!’ she shouts.
The criminals begin firing their gun up the side of the wall, ‘It’s that She-Spider or whatever she’s called, from the Avengers West Coast!’ the female criminal remarks, adding that she picked a fine day to shlep out from Los Angeles. ‘Let’s make her wish she’d stayed there!’ the male thief suggests as they continue to fire. Climbing down the side of the wall is Julia “Spider-Woman” Carpenter, indeed of the Avengers West Coast. ‘Uh-oh. They spotted me sooner than I thought they would’ Julia tells herself. She plans her next move to evade the bullets, when suddenly, Chris Powell a.k.a. the young hero called Darkhawk flies in front of Spider-Woman to protect her from the flurry of bullets. ‘Darkhawk?’ Julia exclaims. ‘Glad you remember me’ Darkhawk tells her. ‘And I’m even gladder your armor’s bullet-proof!’ Spider-Woman exclaims.
Julia drops down from the wall and lands behind the female criminal, while calling out to the male, who begins to make a run for it. ‘Hey, stop!’ Julia calls out to him. ‘Wadda you think I’m crazy?’ he calls back as he runs onwards - coming to a stop when he smacks into someone - not just anyone, but Wolverine a.k.a. Logan of the X-Men. Logan folds his arms across his chest and blows cigarette smoke into the thief’s face. ‘The web-lady asked you real nice to stop, bub. Left your manners in the barn?’ Wolverine remarks. The criminal offers no response, so Wolverine remarks ‘I’m talking to you, punk. What you got to say for yourself?’ he asks.
The criminal offers no response, other than punching Wolverine in the face. Logan’s head turns slightly, and he remarks ‘You know something? I didn’t think it would…but that kinda hurt’. ‘It did?’ the criminal asks, smiling. ‘It did’ Wolverine confirms, as he punches the thief over, knocking him into a nearby garbage can. ‘What’re you steroid types doing here?’ Nomad asks as he walks over to Wolverine, Spider-Woman and Darkhawk, who have gathered together. ‘We’re not buckin for a fat lip - which is more than I can say for you’ Wolverine remarks. ‘You mean, that guy didn’t come with you - whoever he is?’ Spider-Woman asks Wolverine.
‘Jack Monroe a.k.a. Nomad. Has been super-soldier and wanna-be easy rider’ Wolverine remarks, adding that he would bet all of them came here separately. Darkhawk suggests that the cops could clear things up for them, and they turn to the Phoenix Police Dept vehicle which has pulled up. Two officers are loading the thieves into the back of the van, and the female thief remarks ‘Three costumed guys, I tell ya, plus some hippie with a kid strapped on his back!’ The officer looks surprised - ‘Super heroes - in Phoenix - where’d they go?’ he asks. ‘How should we know, copper? Maybe they rode off yelling “Hi yo Silver”!’ the male thief mutters. “Where’d we go?” Darkhawk asks, quoting the police officer. ‘We’re standing right here -’ Darkhawk begins.
The other officer opens a case full of money and points out that they caught the bad guys and recovered the money, so that will have to do them for tonight. With the thieves loaded into the van, the police then drive away. ‘Yep, that sure cleared things up, all right’ Julia remarks. ‘The police - even those hoods now - they couldn’t see us - couldn’t hear us!’ Darkhawk declares. Wolverine suggests that it must have been Strange’s doing. ‘Strange? Did he contact you, too?’ Nomad asks. Suddenly, ‘I contacted all of you, Jack Monroe’ Dr Strange calls out, as his astral form appears overhead. Strange tells Nomad that he had to spirit the others here to Phoenix by mystic means, otherwise they would have arrived too late for their rendezvous with destiny.
‘Hey, cool it with the levitating, already!’ Wolverine calls out as Strange lifts the heroes into the air. ‘It’s okay, Buck’ Nomad assures the infant girl, while Darkhawk remarks ‘To coin a cliché, what’s up, Doc?’, and Spider-Woman tells Strange that he never mentioned to her anything about teleporting her to a super hero convention. ‘Strictly speaking, I didn’t take you - I sent you’ Strange explains, adding that, for the present, only his astral body can be here with them, but assures them that everything he has done was absolutely necessary. ‘I want some answers, mister - and I want ‘em now!’ Wolverine barks, but Spider-Woman declares that if Dr Strange says it was necessary, then that is good enough for her.
‘Yeah, well, I don’t exactly appreciate being dragged all the way out here to Phoenix’ Wolverine mutters, ‘Man’s got a point, Strange. I was already close by, but they -’ Nomad begins, until Strange interrupts, announcing that there is danger abroad in the Multiverse, a growing rift in the dimensional walls has made Earth more than usually vulnerable to menaces from beyond. Strange reveals that certain circumstances have dictated that his own magical powers are at a low ebb, just now and that he was recently forced to call upon several other heroes to help him deal with one aspect of the cosmic peril. He tells Wolverine, Julia, Nomad and Darkhawk how that reminded him of how the Hulk, Namor, Silver Surfer, Valkyrie and he once formed a loose-knit team known as the Defenders.
‘Such an ad-hoc group I decided was needed again. I devised a way to let my mystical subconscious do the selecting for me. Yet, knowing little of the precise nature of the threat - how could I choose which heroes to summon?’ Strange remarks.
Narrated by Strange in the present, shown with flashback images:
Dr Strange explains that his selection sent him to New York in search of Darkhawk. ‘You’re Dr Strange, right?’ Darkhawk asked as he and Strange’s astral form hovered over New York City. Darkhawk reveals that the Avengers West Coast told him about Strange when he helped them out against Professor Power. ‘Count me in!’ Darkhawk exclaimed.
In California, Dr Strange found Spider-Woman, who was with her daughter, Rachel. ‘We don’t care if the nice see-through man knows who we are without our masks, do we, Rachel?’ Julia asked her daughter. ‘Nope!’ the girl replied.
At the X-Mansion, where Wolverine was unwinding in his own way - beer cans littered the floor, as did an overturned bowl of popcorn, while Logan reclined on a sofa, smoking cigarettes and watching television. ‘Got another Sa’arpool flooding your basement with creepy-crawlies, Doc?’ Wolverine asked without even looking up. ‘Not saying, huh?’ Wolverine mutters, before indicating that he will go as soon as his television show is over.
As the inner consciousness to which Strange was responding would have it, he was then lead to an Arizona highway, where Nomad was. ‘Bank robbery, huh? Yeah, guess that is more in my line than yours, magician’ Nomad told Strange’s astral form.
Present:
However, Strange reveals that he did not tell Jack everything he knew, for the robbery he brought them here to foil was only peripherally connected to the far greater threat whose mystic vibrations Strange felt through the ether. Strange reveals that even he knows little more than that, and asks if the four of them will trust him enough to believe him when he says that the future of Earth itself may well be at stake here in Phoenix. ‘Will you join forces with me - and with each other - to learn  the true perimeters of the peril?’ Strange asks.
‘I saw the way you handled Satannish when he materialized in LA. I’m in!’ Spider-Woman announces. Darkhawk declares that he is glad Strange’s subconscious - or whatever - chose him instead of somebody else. However, Chris tells himself to ease off, as he doesn’t want the others figuring out that inside the armor is an over-eager high school students. ‘Okay. But just for this one caper’ Nomad states, adding that the day he becomes a joiner, especially with the spandex crowd, is the day he can be carried away. ‘You don’t ask much, do you, Strange? Just hang around Phoenix, waiting for the world to end? All right - I’ll give you 24 hours, for old time’s sake!’ Wolverine declares.
Nomad turns to the baby and tells her that it looks like Tucumcari will just have to wait. ‘Froo…zumml’ the baby utters. Concerned, Spider-Woman points at the baby strapped to Nomad’s back and asks ‘This is a real baby? I thought it was some kind of doll!’, to which Nomad replies that she is a doll. ‘Are you crazy, taking a child into action with you?’ Julia enquires. ‘Hey, do you know what baby sitters cost these days?’ Nomad replies. Dr Strange requests their attention once more, and announces that one of the few things he learned is that this threat seems to have something to do with both the robbery, and the homeless. ‘Can I make that 23 hours?’ Wolverine mutters. ‘Logan!’ someone scolds.
Darkhawk asks the others if any of them notice Strange is doing a fade-out on them, and as he disappears, Strange explains that he has exhausted the time his astral self can remain apart from his body these days until it is renewed by several hours of intimate contact. He then promises to join the heroes at the earliest possible moment. Spider-Woman tells Strange to do what he has to, and that they will follow up all leads. Nomad frowns and wonders whether he should contact the Undergrounders and have them take care of Bucky after all, while Wolverine mutters ‘Some leads! Sounds to me like this main villain in this piece is a sick economy!’
Soon, at the Phoenix Police Dept, ‘You guys are kidding, right?’ one of the officers asks. ‘Serious as cancer, officer’ Nomad replies. ‘Real phrase-maker, aren’t you, Monroe?’ Julia remarks, while the officer asks the four super heroes how they even learnt about these creeps, let alone got interested in them. ‘Slow news day’ Darkhawk replies as they stand around the cell where the three young bank robbers are kept. The officer announces that the only unusual thing is that none of their prints checked out. ‘You’d think at least one of ‘em would have a record somewhere. That, and those phony names they gave us!’ the officer remarks.
Motioning to the three prisoners, Spider-Woman asks the officer if he doesn’t believe they are really “Humphry Clinker”, “Tobias Smollett” and “Tabitha Bramble”. Leaning back against the wall and smoking a cigarette, Wolverine asks if there was no ID on any of them. ‘None’ the officer replies, and adds that they had a rash of these robberies by punk teenagers over the last few weeks. ‘Only, till tonight they were all fast and smart enough to get away, huh?’ Darkhawk asks. The officer replies that all but one a few nights ago were. ‘What? Quick officer - we’ve got to see that one!’ Julia exclaims, suggesting that he might talk to them, while the other three didn’t.
The officer leads the heroes down to another cell and remarks that it is a waste of time as far as he can tell, as none of the heists has anything to do with the other. ‘Besides, if you think those three are playing dumb, this next guy’s a one-man silent movie!’ the officer adds, before remarking ‘Anything for visiting firemen and super heroes!’. Arriving at the cell, the officer calls out to the inmate, ‘Yo, “Tom Jones”, if you won’t sing for us, maybe you will for your visitors?’ the officer calls out. ‘Go away!’ comes the reply from inside the dark cell. But the officer remarks ‘That voice - it doesn’t sound like -’ and asks the inmate to turn around, as they want to talk to him.
The inmate does turn around, but its not a punk teenager, instead an old man. ‘Why would you want to talk - to a dead man?’ the old man asks. ‘What in the -?’ someone calls out, when suddenly, ‘Please just leave me alone -’ the old man begins, before convulsing, and keeling over. ‘Good Lord! How’d that old man get in there?’ the officer gasps. ‘Never mind that now - just unlock his cell, fast!’ Wolverine orders as he sees the old man in danger. The officer replies that he doesn’t have the key, an will need to go get them. ‘No time!’ Darkhawk declares, announcing that they will have to do this their way, and he and Spider-Woman tear the prison bars from the wall. ‘You two beat me to it’ Wolverine tells them, while Spider-Woman announces that it looks like the old man is having a heart attack, and tells her companions to keep back, as she will give him CPR. Julia wonders, however, why Doctor Strange tapped her, when the other three have all the muscle.
Moments later, the officer tells Spider-Woman that she did her best, but that the old man is a goner. He adds that the old man shouldn’t even be in here. ‘He’s wearing the same clothes - but the guy we locked up was about nineteen’ the officer explains. Darkhawk suggests that perhaps Dr Strange did know what he was doing, bringing them all to Phoenix. ‘Officer, I think what we need here is an instant wake’ Wolverine remarks.
In short, the new prisoners are brought in to view the corpse. ‘Sorry, coppers’ one of the punks remarks. ‘Never saw this stiff before in my life’ another declares. Nomad tells his companions that the punks are lying through their teeth, while Julia turns to “Tabitha” and exclaims ‘You’re not as hardened as they are yet, are you?’, and crying “Tabitha” replies ‘I - guess not’. the young woman replies, to which Spider-Woman tells her to spill - ‘What did this man die of?’ Julia asks. Teary-eyed, “Tabitha” looks up and replies that she honestly doesn’t know. ‘It just made me so sad to see that poor old guy dead, that’s all’ she claims, before asking if she can go back to her cell now. ‘You call can - three separate ones’ an officer orders. ‘Good! I never could stand sob sisters’ one of the punks mutters as the officers lead them away. Out of earshot from the two male punks, “Tabitha” whispers to Spider-Woman ‘Regents…on 5th…room 322”. ‘What?’ Spider-Woman asks, before Wolverine tells Julia to “clam-up”.
Before long, on the fringes of the downtown area, Spider-Woman climbs up the side of a building with ease, while Wolverine uses his adamantium claws by shoving them into the brick to climb up the side of the building. ‘How long you been an Avenger, lady? That girl tries to toss you a bone, without her buddies hearing - and you nearly blow it!’ Wolverine remarks. Julia admits that she deserved that, and thanks Wolverine for shutting her up, explaining that she is still learning. ‘Speaking of which - you’d heard those three fake names those punks used before, hadn’t you?’ Logan asks his new ally. Julia replies that two o them are characters in an early English novel by the Third, and that she had to read “Humphry Clinker” in college, before she dropped out.
Entering an abandoned and dishevelled room through the window, Wolverine tells Spider-Woman that he sees what she means - not the kind of names most teenage hoods would pick out of a hat. ‘And that’s another thing - one of those kids called that guard a “copper”. That’s not exactly current street talk, either’ Julia points out. Shinning a small torch into the dark room, Julia wonders which of the “Tabitha” meant was staying at this hotel during its declining years, assuming that is what she meant. Lighting a cigarette, Wolverine tells Julia that if it isn’t, they can go and join Darkhawk and Monroe and help canvas the homeless, before seeing Julia look over a piece of paper, he asks her if she has something.
Julia replies ‘Maybe’ and points out that these guys travel light, not many personal effects, only this seems to be a diploma. ‘Huh?’ Wolverine asks. Julia reveals that it is made out to Tabitha Bramble, in fancy script from something called the Second Chance Institute. ‘What second chance? She’s barely old enough to be out of high school - unless’ Wolverine begins, while Spider-Woman turns around, and suddenly bangs into something in the darkness. ‘Oof’ she utters. ‘What’ Wolverine asks her. Julia tells him that she ran into something in the middle of the room, but that she could have sworn there was nothing here a minute ago. She decides to throw a little light on the subject, when suddenly, she is electrocuted, and falls backwards.
‘You okay, darling?’ Wolverine calls out, unsheathing his claws as he goes over to Spider-Woman. Rubbing her had, Julia replies that she thinks she is okay, bur that the shock might have killed a normal person. Logan asks Julia for her flashlight and announces that he is going to find out what zapped her. Suddenly, ‘If you wish to see us - that can be arranged, eh, Decimator?’ a glowing white figure calls out. ‘Yes, Tokamak’, Decimator calls out to his companion. ‘But I fear they will not like what they see’ the over-sized Decimator adds. ‘You feared right, high-rise’ Wolverine remarks, to which Julia asks them what they are doing in a fleabag motel. ‘It’s not what we’re doing, woman - it’s what we’re about to do!’ Tokamak calls out as he races towards Spider-Woman.
‘Watch it, Red!’ Wolverine calls out as Tokamak charges towards her. Julia is pulled to safety by Wolverine, and she exclaims that Tokamak is so blindingly bright, she didn’t see for a second that he was charging her. ‘Trick is to keep an eye on shadows. When they move, he’s moving’ Wolverine remarks, while Tokamak calls Wolverine a “bestial fool” and warns him that next move, he will cease to move all together. “Bestial”? Wolverine quotes Tokamak. ‘Now that hurt’ he mocks as he puts an arm around Julia and they leap out the window. ‘I’m outta here - and I’m taking my ladybug with me’ Logan declares, while Julia asks him why they are running from those creeps.
Wolverine explains that he is just getting some elbow room, when suddenly, Decimator and Tokamak burst from the run-down motel. ‘Not that they can’t make their own’ Logan adds. ‘They must have taken the stairs in record time’ Julia points out. ‘You change that walking light bulb, while I-’ Wolverine begins, only for Decimator to go over and smacks Wolverine hard in the face. ‘While you what, little man?’ Decimator asks. ‘While you die, maybe?’ Decimator suggests. ‘No, darling - while I slice you in half and make two normal sized people outta you!’ Wolverine snarls, releasing his claws.
‘This is crazy!’ Julia thinks to herself as she leaps above Tokamak when he lunges at her. ‘Phoenix is knee-deep in teenage bank robbers - one of whom dies of old age! But what’s that got to do with these super-goons?’ Julia wonders. ‘You cannot elude me for long, woman!’ Tokamak exclaims. ‘Spider-Woman, to you!’ Julia shouts, while realizing that if she uses hits Tokamak, the shock will hurt her more than him. Julia knows that she hasn’t used her psi-web in a while, so she should have lots of energy stored up. ‘I just hope it’s enough’ she tells herself as she releases her psi-web on the villain. Wrapped in the psionic webbing, Tokamak asks Spider-Woman if she thinks the flimsy webbing will stop him, while Julia thinks to herself that it won’t stop him, not yet anyway, but that it will slow him down.
Suddenly, Julia realizes that she shouldn’t have looked directly at Tokamak, as now she can’t see well enough to evade him. All she can do is keep forming webs around him and hope they hold, when suddenly, Tokamak’s form is no longer blinding, and he begins to dim, like headlights when the car battery is going dead. ‘It must’ve been the armor that did the glowing’ Julia realizes as Tokamak’s human form can be seen. ‘Gotcha!’ Julia exclaims as the villain is imprisoned in her psi-webs.
Nearby, ‘I want some answers, bub - and I want ‘em now!’ Wolverine exclaims as he slices at Decimator, who falls back against the brick wall. Logan tells himself that his opponent has the edge on him in muscle, ‘And we won’t even mention his breath’ Logan mutters, before knocking the over-sized villain off balance. Wolverine demands to know what the connection is between these two and the juvenile delinquent who rents the room. Wolverine keeps slashing away at Decimator, and one of his blows causes the wall to fall outwards over Decimator. ‘Nuts! That wall was even weaker than I thought!’ Logan tells himself.
Spider-Woman walks over to Wolverine and announces that Tokamak is all wrapped up after running out of juice. Wolverine reports that Decimator is out cold, which doesn’t get them any info. Wolverine decides that he might try to pry Tokamak out of his armor, when suddenly, ‘Actually - I was sorta thinking I might take Decimator and Tokama off your hands!’ a voice calls out. A woman clad in a revealing silver costume materializes. ‘Huh? Who the -?’ Wolverine asks, while the woman introduces herself as Dreadlox, and warns the heroes that they are about to find out why!


[User]
<image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image>
Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Second Chance
Phoenix, Arizona, is noted for 300 days of sunshine a year, “river tubing” lazily down the Salt River, and breathtaking desert scenery. But not for free-for-alls between super heroes and super villains - al least, not until tonight, where right now, down an alleyway, Wolverine a.k.a. Logan and Julia “Spider-Woman” Carpenter find themselves up against a new villain. ‘Are you serious? Your name is Dreadlox?’ Spider-Woman asks as debris from the building behind them falls down around them. ‘That ain’t a name, darling - it’s a haircut!’ Wolverine declares. Hands behind her head, the aggressive villainess replies ‘I am not your “darling”, mutant!’. ‘Well, Spider-Woman?’ Wolverine asks his companion. ‘Well what?’ Julia replies. ‘Aren’t you gonna try talking me into not attacking this Elvira wanna-be unless she attacks us first?’ Logan enquires. Julia points out that she is obviously in league with those two muscle-men they just clobbered.
Noticing that their opponent is massaging her dread-locked scalp, Julia isn’t sure what she is doing that before, but tells Wolverine that she votes they take her out and ask questions later. ‘Y’know, you might not turn out to be as big a pain as I thought’ the X-Man tells Julia as they rush towards Dreadlox in unison. Although Julia is a member of the Avengers West Coast, and Wolverine of the X-Men, they are also members of the Secret Defenders, and they swiftly learn that whatever the reason Dr Strange dispatched them into the Valley of the Sun, it was not to do battle with pushovers by the light of a burning building.
But as they attempt to reach their opponent, she releases some energy, and Julia keels over, ‘What’s happening to me? Everything’s spinning around’ she exclaims, while Wolverine remarks that he was dizzy for a second as well, but standing up, his head is clear now. He turns around and sees Decimator and Tokamak and asks them when they got back on their feet. ‘Since we found out we were fighting a loser!’ Decimator exclaims. ‘Which didn’t take long’ Tokamak adds. ‘I’ll show you clowns who’s a cream puff!’ Wolverine declares, enraged. Tis is hardly the first time he has flown into a berserker rage, triggered by sudden, overwhelming fury. It is the first time, however, this rage was brought on by so mild an insult as being called a “loser”.
Now, as if in a blinding fog, almost as if it were all happening to someone else, Logan feels the rending of flesh and bone as his adamantium claws slice the air like the blades of some deadly threshing machine. He smells the fear of the mystery men, who, only minutes ago, set ablaze the seedy hotel room he and Spider-Woman were searching. He sees the spurt of crimson from shredded pectorals and severed jugular, and then he is awash in a universe of blood, once again the killing machine he was engineered to be - and as he is dowsed in blood and the stench of death fills his nostrils like a heady bouquet.
Spider-Woman, too, finds herself swimming, disorientated, through a translucent miasma towards her intended quarry’ Julia tells Dreadlox that she doesn’t know what she, Decimator and Tokamak are up to, or what it has to do with young criminals who grow old and die before their very eyes, ‘But when I get hold of you, believe me - you’re going to tell me!’ Julia exclaims. But as Julia reaches  out to grab Dreadlox, she finds her opponent disappears. ‘Where in blazes did you go?’ Julia calls out, before suddenly, her vision begins to restore, only Julia witnesses her beloved daughter, Rachel, walking in front of a car and being killed. She calls out to her: ‘Rachel, honey - don’t’, but it’s no use. Then, the leering face of Dreadlox fills Julia’s horizons anew: ‘Do you like that, sister? There’s plenty more where that came from!’ she exclaims. ‘No!’ Julia replies, wiping back the tears from beneath her mask, as this time, she sees Rachel trapped and drowning. ‘Mommy!’ the young girl calls out.
Nearby, the haze of blood that has swirled around Logan has dissipated, and he most reverently wishes it had not, as he sees laying at his feet the bodies of his motionless X-Men teammates Cyclops, Storm, Jean Grey, Colossus and Jubilee. ‘Awww…what’s the matter, mutie? Never woke up and found you’d kill your best friends before?’ Dreadlox asks. ‘Never woke up and learned your nightmare was real?’ she screeches. Wolverine goes eyes-wide, while Dreadlox laughs and asks Decimator and Tokamak how they like her power to make lesser mortals see - no, live - the events they most dread? ‘Not half as much as I’m going to like electrocuting those two while they’re helpless’ the armoured Tokamak mutters, while the oversized Decimator declares that the “shrimp with the claws” is his. ‘He actually thought he was slicing me, instead of thin air!’ Decimator adds.
At that moment, police officers are keeping civilians behind barriers, while a crew of fire fighters tends to the out of control blaze that is sweeping through the old hotel. Dreadlox tells her companions that the bonfire is beginning to draw attention, so they need to get going. The three then depart, surrounded by flames, leaving Wolverine and Spider-Woman to their own devices, struggling with what they have just witnessed, they stagger along the alleyway.
Across the road, two homeless people are searching through trash cans, when one of them alerts the other, George, to the fact that the Regent is on fire. ’That rat hole? Good riddance!’ the other exclaims,  adding that they stayed there once when he was flush. ‘Boy, that was a long time ago’ Geroge mutters, before noticing a half-used cigarette and matches in the trash. ‘Even getting rousted by those bank robbers and everything, maybe this is my lucky -’ he begins as he starts to light the cigarette, only for someone to step forward and flick it from his mouth: ‘Don’t you know these things can kill you?’ a voice asks. ‘Hey! What’s the big idea of -’ the homeless man declares, before turning and seeing the vigilante hero Nomad a.k.a. Jack Monroe.
‘You’re one of them costumed guys we say before - even if you’re not wearing a costume!’ the homeless man gasps. ‘So you saw us earlier, huh?’ Nomad asks, realizing that Dr Strange’s spell must not have been cast quite as wide as he thought. ‘Not hardly!’ the homeless man exclaims, before calling out to Mary, his companion, and telling her to come along. ‘Look, we need to talk to you two…’ Nomad tells them, when suddenly Darkhawk a.k.a. Chris Powell stands at the other end of the alleyway. ‘Stop! We won’t hurt you!’ he tells the homeless people.
‘Another one! We’re trapped!’ George mutters, before Darkhawk declares that they saw three young hoodlums knock him down during that bank heist. ‘We just need to know if they said anything that might help us find out who they are’ Darkhawk explains. George replies that they didn’t, and adds that he doesn’t want to get involved, but Mary tells him that just because they don’t have homes, they don’t need to act like animals. ‘Actually, there was something’ she announces. Nomad, with his foster daughter, Bucky, strapped to his back, asks her what that was. Mary reveals that one of them called her “grannie” as they ran by, and that it could be a coincidence, but that since she is younger than she looks, that has been her nickname with a few of the old people on the street that she knows.
Soon, at the precinct house, the sergeant leads Nomad and Darkhawkdown a corridor, while other officers look on at the heroes. Following them are George and Mary. The sergeant remarks that he supposes it won’t hurt for them to take another look at the body. ‘But I don’t know about those two’ he adds, referring to George and Mary. Darkhawk assures the officer that it is important and explains that the guy might have just called her “Grannie” because they thought she was older than she is, when suddenly, in the morgue, Mary sees the body and cries ‘It - it’s him, George! Look!’, while Geroge identified the body as Lester. ‘I told you I hadn’t seen him for a few days!’ Mary declares. ‘Somewhere in between, he shed fifty years’ Darkhawk points out, while Nomad declares that he then gained those years back a couple of hours ago, only to die in the police cell.
Shortly, Nomad rushes from the police station, ‘Somehow, I think things might just start getting nasty’ he declares, while the baby strapped to his back utters ‘Fwyyy’ as Darkhawk soars above them.
Soon, on the slopes of South Mountain Park, outside the city, Nomad and Darkhawk meet up with Spider-Woman and Wolverine, and announce that they may have a lead. ‘That’s good‘ Julia utters, to which Nomad tells the heroes that they look like their just lost their proverbial last friend.  ‘…in a way…we did. But I can’t…’ Julia begins, while Wolverine, cigar in his mouth, remarks to Spider-Woman ‘We gotta tell ‘em, Web-Lady’, and so they do, and for a few seconds, the pain of those moments lives within them again. ‘Why, those scummy -’ Darkhawk begins, while Nomad tells Julia and Logan that if they need a breather, he and Darkhawk can investigate, but Julia thanks Jack and tells him that they have to go on, so that Dreadlox doesn’t get a chance to do that to anyone else.
‘Which she will - maybe even again to us’ Wolverine snarls. ‘When I think of what she made me believe I’d done to my buddies - I could almost forget she’s a woman!’ Logan exclaims, unsheathing his claws, before retracting them and muttering ‘We’ll see’. When the two groups have compared notes, Julia asks the others if they think the “Second Chance Institute” diploma that they found in “Tabitha’s” hotel room fits into this at all. Darkhawk suggests that they contact Dr Strange, as he is the one who dumped them in Phoenix. Nomad asks how they reach him, to which Wolverine announces that he has a wild idea.
A short time later, ‘Yo - Doc? Look this is -’ Wolverine remarks as he speaks into a phone in a public phone booth, only to hear a recorded message: ‘You have reached the answering machine of Dr Stephen Strange. I’m afraid I’m, out just now, but -’, which causes Wolverine to release his claws, and angrily shouts ‘I hate those things!’ as he busts up the phone box. ‘Feel better?’ Nomad asks him. ‘Not much’ Wolverine mutters, before asking the others what they are smirking about, and tells them that if they have any better idea of how to get hold of that Greenwich Village mandrake, he wants to hear it.
Darkhawk mutters that you think it would be easy to get in touch with a guy who is a real-life wizard, to which Wolverine exclaims ‘That’s it!’. ‘What is?’ Darkhawk asks. Wolverine reminds the others that Darkhawk first contacted them all by astral body, by talking through their minds, and declares that there might be still some kind of psychic link-up between them, wherever he is. ‘You mean like he left his mental phone off the hook?’ Nomad jokes, to which Spider-Woman suggests it is worth a shot. Several civilians nearby turn their attention to the costumed heroes: ‘Who are these guys?’ one of them wonders to himself, while Julia asks Logan what they do now. ‘Join hands and sing “Where have all the flowers gone”?’ Nomad suggests, while his baby laughs. ‘Do I look like I got a rulebook’ Logan snaps, and suggest that they could close their eyes and concentrate on Dr Strange.
The quartet does so, to the amazement and consternation of puzzled pedestrians filtering out onto the pre-dawn streets. Seconds go by, slowly, frustrating, like so many hours. Then, just when everybody thinks they can’t think any harder, or any longer - ‘We’re in!’ Julia exclaims. ‘All right!’ Darkhawk calls out. ‘Only - in where?’ nomad asks. ‘Does that give you a clue?’ Wolverine asks as he motions forward in the strange hazy landscape, where Doctor Stephen Strange is up ahead, battling a foe. ‘What’s he doing?’ Nomad asks as green energy lights up the area. ‘Fighting for his life’ Wolverine replies, before announcing that the villain is Nightmare. ‘No wonder he hasn’t been looking in on us’ Julia declares.
‘The Doctor is far too busy to see you now, mortals!’ Nightmare exclaims.  ‘Will these little fellows do?’ Nightmare asks he releases a horde of demons at the quartet of heroes. The demons hiss at Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Darkhawk and Nomad, uttering that they need souls. ‘Tasssste good!’ one of the demons utters. ‘Where are we? And what are these things?’ Nomad asks. ‘Does it matter?’ Darkhawk declares as they attack the demons. Julia exclaims that they have to get through to Dr Strange, as Wolverine tells his comrades to hit the demons. ‘If they’re solid enough to grab us, they’re solid enough to bleed!’ he declares. ‘Easy enough for you spandex types to say’ Nomad mutters, while Darkhawk finds several crawling over his armor at once, and exclaims that they are like little fears. ‘They can all be handled separately, but when they come at you all at once -’ he remarks, to which Wolverine agrees, and announces that it is as if they are in somebody’s bad dream.
Julia dodges one of the demons who lunge at her, and she declares that they have to get Dr Strange out of this. ‘NO!’ a voice booms, as Dr Strange tells the Secret Defenders that this is his fight, and only he can win or lose it. He tells the heroes that if they stay here, they merely endanger his entire purpose in gathering them. ‘You must go back’ he declares, as energy swirls around them, and the heroes are shunted back to reality. ‘If you say so’ Logan mutters.
An instant later, Julia, Darkhawk and Nomad land on their feet, back on the sidewalk, while Wolverine falls flat on his face. Nomad suggests that he best leave Bucky with the local under grounders, as this is getting out of hand. Julia asks her makeshift teammates if they have any idea just what was going on in there, to which Darkhawk replies that whatever it was, Dr Strange clearly felt it was out of their league. ‘Maybe out of his, too. Anyway, at least now we know - we’re on our own. And you know what? I think I like it that way’ Wolverine declares. Julia asks Wolverine if he is sure, and suggests that she could contact the rest of the Avengers West Coast. ‘Hey, maybe that’s not a bad -’ Nomad begins, but Wolverine tells her ‘No way’, and reminds everyone that Doctor Strange told them his “mystical subconscious” chose the four of them for this skirmish, and he thinks it is their best bet to assume he knew what it was doing.
‘Say, do you guys mind posing for a picture with me?’ one of the locals asks as they approach Wolverine. ‘Are you anybody, mister?’ one of the civilians asks Nomad, who replies ‘Not so’s you’d notice’. ‘That armor is hot! Can I -?’ a boy asks Darkhawk, who replies ‘Sorry’, and asks the civilians to let them pass. ‘Didn’t you hear the man ask you nice’ Logan snaps at the man with the camera. ‘Let us through!’ he shouts. The civilians begin to depart, and one of them exclaims ‘Sheesh! If that’s how these guys act, they can stay in New York and LA!’ one of the civilians declares.
Soon, back at the precinct house, the young woman called “Tabitha” is led away by two officers, and calling them “coppers” she asks them where they are taking her. ‘Hear that? Tabitha here called us “coppers”!’ one of the officers declares, suggesting that there must have been a Cagney move on TV last night, before telling her that all they know3is somebody pulled some strings to get her sent downtown. The first officer asks the other if he noticed something about Tabitha, and the second officer declares that she looks older than she did when they hauled her in. ‘Is your makeup wearing off, lady?’ the second officer asks. Tabitha replies that she isn’t wearing makeup, and nervously asks if she really looks older. ‘Are you kidding? You look at least thirty’ one of the officers begins, before both officers find themselves knocked backwards when some webbing appears out of nowhere and topples them. ‘What the -?’ the other officer gasps.
‘Something tripped us!’ one of them points out, but looking around, the other exclaims that it is gone, before realizing that Tabitha is racing off as well. Indeed, still handcuffed, “Tabitha” runs away, while keeping watch from the roof of a nearby building, Wolverine tells Spider-Woman that she has nice control of her psi-webs. Julia doesn’t respond to the compliment, instead she just asks whether the others think Tabitha will lead them to whoever is behind this. Nomad replies that an experienced crook might guess it was a setup, but that Tabitha has amateur written all over her - so she just might.
Meantime, George and Mary, as well as a bunch of other homeless people have arrived at the rear door to a building, down a dimly-lit alley. ‘Well, Mary. This is the place, all right’ George remarks as he looks at the back of the card he holds up. “Around the back” he reads on the card. Mary points out that you can’t get any further “round back” than this. ‘All right, George - I guess we might as well -’ Mary begins, when suddenly, the door opens, and a man appears. He motions at Mary and calling her “grannie” exclaims that she can come in. ‘And you - and you, and you three’ he adds, before telling everyone else to take a hike, as they are too young. ‘Go out and get a job, for cripes’ sake!’ he adds. George drops the card in surprise.
When the door has closed behind some, and the others have wandered off, Darkhawk steps into the alleyway, and tells himself that Nomad was right - those two homeless people were holding out on them. He notices the card and picks it up - reading “Second Chance Institute. Renewed Health. Renewed Vigor. Feel 50 Years Younger. Harrison - around back”. Darkhawk realizes that this is the same name on the diploma that Spider-Woman saw at the hotel before those two super-hoods burned it down. Chris tells himself that it might now have anything to do with the robberies, let alone why Dr Strange sent them here, but then again, it might.
Chris wonders what he does now, as he was supposed to just watch Goerge and Mary, but he can’t very well watch them if they are inside and he is out here. He uses the strength of his armor to force the door open, and decides that the inside part of this job might come more naturally to his human form, his armor vanishes, his “switchback” working just like it is supposed to. ‘Could be an omen’ the handsome young hero tells himself, and wonders if he can crack this case wide open all by his lonesome. ‘Wouldn’t that be a kick in the -’ he thinks to himself as he walks down the darkened corridor, when suddenly, a voice calls out ‘You -!’. Chris becomes worried, as a young blonde woman walks up to him and asks ‘Which one are you?’ Chris hesitates and replies ‘I - uh -’, so the woman asks him if he is Mel, Norm or Leopold. ‘No, I’m…Cal’ Chris replies. The woman walks past him and utters ‘Looking good’, before telling him that she will see him. ‘Right’ Chris replies, while rubbing his head and wondering what that was all about.
He comes to another door, and peers into the room, while wondering ‘Don’t the people in this place even know each other?’, as he watches the scene in the room - a voice calls out The coming of those three masked beings and the man with the gun changes everything - particularly since Decimator, Tokamak and Dreadlox failed to eliminate two of them’ a woman hidden by a hooded cloak calls out. Dreadlox, Decimator and Tokamak stand before the mysterious woman, while another brightly-clad being in a red suit is with them. Several others stand back further in the room. ‘The authorities arrived - as did a crowd of onlookers - too many for my power to affect at the same time’ Dreadlox declares. Decimator reminds their leader that she said they should avoid detection by the populace at all costs. ‘That much, at least, is true’ the hidden woman declares.
Chris tells himself that he has to get a closer look at the one who is bossing the others around, deciding that she has a voice like an angel. ‘I told you you should have sent me along’ the man in red exclaims. ‘That was not for you to decide, but for Macabre!’ the cloaked woman declares, revealing her face - a skeleton. ‘Whoa! I never would have dreamed -’ Chris thinks to himself as he steps backwards after seeing Macabre’s face. But in doing so, he knocks a container over. ‘Apprehend the intruder!’ Macabre orders.
Chris runs from the room, and tells himself that he has to find some place he can switch back into Darkhawk. Suddenly, Chris sees Tabitha, and calls out to her, but she doesn’t recognize him. ‘Who in blazes are you?’ she shouts. ‘Forget I said anything’ Chris mutters as he runs past her, and realizes that he should have blurted out her name, for Chris Powell has no way of knowing who she is. He decides that he has no choice now, even if someone sees him, he has to change. But attempting to do so, nothing happens. ‘Why me, Lord? And most of all - why now?’ Chris wonders.
Suddenly, the being in red appears behind Chris. ‘Ah! Here you are! I’m so glad it was I who found you first!’ he exclaims. ‘So am I! This guy looks like a real wimp’ Chris tells himself, deciding that if he can make it past him, he can probably run back out into the alley. Chris moves forward and punches his opponent in the face, but he doesn’t even move. ‘I’m not that weak!’ Chris exclaims. The villain rubs his face and replies ‘On the contrary, that was a fairly strong blow for one of your age and physique. As for how hard it was - it was precisely this strong!’ he declares as he whacks Chris, knocking him backwards. Chris falls to the floor, and Macabre, Dreadlox, Decimator and Tokamak appear over him. Macabre calls the man in red “Stasis” and tells him that if the young man had known his name, he might have realized he represents the stats of equilibrium at which two forces balance each other out, so that he automatically absorbs any forced hurled against him, and can return that exact amount.
Stasis remarks that if the young man simply bypassed him, he could never have stopped him. ‘I wonder who he is. He is not one of ours’ Tokamak announces. Suddenly, ‘No, lightning-bug - he’s one of ours!’ Nomad declares as he, Wolverine and Spider-Woman burst through an outer wall. Logan tells Julia that he didn’t know she was strong enough to knock through a wall, to which Julia replies ‘Proportionate strength of a spider and all that, X-Man. It’s all the rage!’. Wolverine remarks that there is nothing like making an entrance, and as bricks fall on the young “punks” as Logan calls them, he adds that this is a bonus. Another brick hits Dreadlox in the head, and Wolverine declares that taking her out before she could put the whammy on them again was a real must.
‘Now, whoever you guys are…lets boogie!’ Nomad exclaims as he, Wolverine and Spider-Woman move towards Macabre and the others. ‘Dreadlox is down!’ Decimator exclaims. Macabre tells the others that this is their chance to prove they can handle these fools without Dreadlox, and orders them to attack. ‘You just said the magic word’ Wolverine snarls, while Nomad asks Julia where Darkhawk is. ‘That Avenger communi-card you loaned said he’s here, as well as Tabitha - but I don’t see hide nor hair of him’ Nomad remarks. ‘We’ll worry about him - after payback time for what those creeps did to Logan and me!’ Julia calls out as she throws Decimator aside, telling herself that she is pleased he got over-eager, or this might have been a whole lot harder.
‘You cannot dodge my fusion bursts forever!’ Tokamak tells Nomad, who asks ‘Who says I intend to?’, while Wolverine approaches Stasis and tells him that if he makes a move he will be shredded wheat. ‘Actually, I’d prefer you make the first move’ Stasis replies. Suddenly, ‘STOP!’ Macabre calls out, as she grabs the unconscious Chris and Tabitha, and declares that they will truly be just as dead and desicated as he powers make them appear to be, holding them up, they appear as skeletons. ‘No - please don’t!’ Tabitha calls out. Macabre tells the heroes that if they don’t believe she has the power to do what she says, then all they need to do is continue their defiance. ‘You have, as I believe the custom is, to the count of three’ she warns them.
Spider-Woman, Wolverine and Nomad turn to Macabre, and Julia remarks that she doesn’t recognise the boy, but that the girl is Tabitha. ‘We can’t let that skull-faced devil kill them!’ Julia exclaims. Claws barred, Wolverine points out that if they surrender, they all get deep-sixed. ‘Definitely a lose-lose scenario!’ Nomad exclaims. Decimator, Tokamak and Stasis stand behind Macabre, who has a hold of Chris and Tabitha, while the motionless Dreadlox lies before them. ‘Two…and you do know what comes next, don’t you?’ Macabre asks as her skull-face grins wickedly….


[User]
<image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image><image>
Provide a full summary of the comic book.

[Assistant]
Swarm Song
Inside the Second Chance Institute, the young hero Chris Powell, better known as Darkhawk, stripped of his armor, has become a prisoner, alongside the mysterious young woman called “Tabitha Bramble”. The villainess Macabre, and her cronies Decimator, Stasis and Tokamak stand over them, while Wolverine a.k.a. Logan, Julia “Spider-Woman” Carpenter and the vigilante Jack Monroe a.k.a. Nomad stand helpless, unaware that Chris is actually Darkhawk. ‘I have counted to the traditional two, Earth-spawn. If you refuse to surrender, and force me to continue - you will have the deaths of these two on your heads - and I have reason to believe that would be distasteful to you. Well?’ the skull-faced Macabre calls out. ‘Why not simply kill them, Macabre - and let us deal with these three?’ Stasis suggests.
‘What do we do, Wolverine - Nomad? We can’t just stand by and let those kids be murdered in cold blood’ Spider-Woman exclaims. ‘And if we give up?’ Wolverine asks, claws ready. ‘You think Sister Skull is going to start passing out milk and cookies?’ Logan snarls. ‘No’ Julia replies, before suggesting that they might be able to bargain with her. ‘Macabre! Release those kids - and we’ll call off the fight’ Nomad announces. ‘Well? Have we got a deal?’ he asks. ‘We have - when the one called Wolverine sheaths his claws’ Macabre calls out. ‘Ah! That is more like it’ she exclaims when Logan retracts his claws. The villains’ teammate, Dreadlox, joins her companions, and Tokamak asks her if she has recovered from the mutant’s blow. ‘Yes - though I’m still disorientated to use my dread power on those fools’ the woman replies.
‘Then Tokamak’s fusion bursts will do the honors’ Macabre states. ‘They are done!’ Tokamak declares as he releases his power against Logan, Julia and Jack, knocking them all to the floor. ‘You killed them!’ one of the “students” of the Second Chance Institute calls out, as several stand around nearby. ‘They’re alive, boy - because they may yet serve my purposes’ Macabre calls out, adding that she senses their recruits feel a maudlin pity for the heroes, and may even want to help them. ‘Dreadlox?’ Macabre calls out, and with an evil grin, Dreadlox declares that she know what must be done, and releases her power, bombarding the youthful criminals who serve them with mental emanations which cause them to inwardly live the things they dread the most. Each of them separately and alone grows old, weak, decrepit, in his or her own eyes. Beneath such terrifying visions, they fall screaming - “Tabitha” with them.
‘They will not dare question our decisions again’ Dreadlox exclaims, while Macabre orders Decimator and Tokamak to take the three interlopers to the central chamber, where they will find out how these heroes learned about them, and if any others know what they know. ‘And then we’ll kill them!’ Decimator boasts as he carries Wolverine under one arm and Nomad under the other, while Tokamak carries Spider-Woman.
Before long, Wolverine stirs, his healing factor making him the first of the Secret Defenders to reawaken. It turns out to be a distinction of little practical value. He calls out to Nomad and Spider-Woman and wakes them. ‘What’s this light show?’ Nomad asks, looking around the room. ‘You think I know?’ Wolverine retorts, while Spider-Woman realizes that some kind of energy field is all around them, before asking where Darkhawk is, as they left him outside earlier to watch this building. ‘Forget Darkhawk and Doc Strange both! There’s nobody going to help us - nobody but us - nobody but us!’ Wolverine declares, asking his companions if they are ready. ‘If I’m not, I never will be’ Julia replies, as she punches the energy field, while Wolverine strikes it with his claws.
Nothing happens, however. Logan turns to Nomad and asks him why he is not giving them a hand, to which Nomad points out that if Wolverine and Spider-Woman can’t dent the wall of light, he would have no chance. ‘Now that is the proper spirit of defeatism I was hoping to hear!’ a voice calls out. Part of the wall of light goes transparent, and Macabre and her cronies are revealed behind it. ‘Our window of opportunity, if we’re lucky’ Nomad exclaims, while Wolverine declares that his adamantium claws can cut through just about anything. ‘And now that they have stopped hiding behind a couple of kids -’ he adds as he lunches at the energy field, but he finds that even now getting physically violent, he cannot penetrate the wall of energy. Julia encourages Wolverine to keep trying, while Macabre tells them to waste their last few moments of life if that is what they wish.
‘Who are you people - you called us “Earth-spawn” before. You’re not from around here, are you?’ one of the heroes calls out. Macabre tells them that if they learn a bit more about them, they will see the futility in opposing them, and give the information they need. She turns to Tokoamak, who illuminates the room so the prisoners can behold the Aperture. Logan, Julia and Jack look up and see a hole in space, right here in this building. ‘Listen, spawn of this back-water world! Learn the fate that is in store for your Earth - before this very night is finished!’ Macabre declares.
Elsewhere within the building, ‘I don’t believe this. A padded cell! I’ve got to get out of here!’ Chris tells himself. ‘It didn’t work last time I tried to become Darkhawk - but this time, maybe I can -’ he thinks to himself, rubbing his head. “Tabitha” wakes and sits up next to Chris, asking him what he is doing and whether they hit him in his head. ‘Uh - yeah - I guess they did’. Chris suddenly frowns and declares ‘Look “Tabitha”, or whatever your ream name is - you don’t know me - but you’d better come clean about what’s going down, before some super hero buddies of mine get here…’ he warns her. However, “Tabitha informs him that they have already been captured by Macabre. ‘What?’ Chris exclaims. “Tabitha” assures him that she had nothing to do with it, and reveals that her real name is Wilhemina Canton, and that the other homeless called her “Willie”.
Chris asks ‘You’re one of the homeless? But how’d somebody like you turn bank robber - and why?’, to which Wilhemina tells him that she wants to hell him, and aks him to hold her close, as she doesn’t know whether she can save the words. Chris pulls her towards him, and Wilhemina explains that she was desperate, as her husband and both sisters werer dead for years. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be turned out of your home - at my age!’ ‘Huh? What are you - twenty? Twenty-five?’ Chris asks, only to frown with confusion as Wilhemina explains that she is older than she looks, and reveals that she is sixty-eight.
At that moment, back in the central chamber, Macabre tells the “Earth-spawn” to listen to the story of their creation and conquest, to an epic of their coming - and of their inevitable triumph over the life forms of this astral plane on which they have found themselves. ‘Is this going to be a long story? I got a baby double-parked’ Nomad mutters. ‘Silence!’ Macabre booms, revealing that it all began, they have since learned, with Lilith.
Flashback, narrated by Macabre:
The violent erruption of Lilith into this sphere not long ago has weakened the barriers between the various dimensional planes. Lilith and her Lilin prepared the way, though neither known nor caring, for those who came after, namely Macabre and her companions. Macabre tells the heroes that whether they realize it or not, there are worlds within worlds, worlds upon worlds, and worlds beside worlds. She explains that in one dimension, affected by the Lilin’s passage, a plane which is mostly empty space, a great viral swarm was the dominant life form. Operating with a single intelligence, it had long since stripped that cosmos of other life. It was hungry, even desperate for new energy on which to feed, so it pushed, surged and smashed against the ruptured barrier between its own astral plane, and this one.
Macabre announces that this very chamber was a basement refuge of those that are called, with self-deceptive imprecision, “the homeless”. ‘Cold one tonight out there, huh?’ Willie called out. ‘Yeah, Willie. Us old codgers, though, guess we get used to it. It’s kids like Maggie I feel sorry for’ an elderly man called Lester replied. ‘No sorrier than I feel for myself, Lester’ Maggie called back. ‘I’ve got a degree in English lit! People like me aren’t supposed to wind up on the street’ she added. ‘Makes you hate the whole blasted human race!’ Another man stepped forward and pointed out that having practical skills is no guarantee either, these days, revealing that he worked at a power plan, and always figured he would run the place one day. ‘But now…’ his voice trailed off.
‘Me, I always just took things as they came. Just the same, I wish -’ another man began to say, adding that he would settle for just being as young and as strong as he used to be. Suddenly, there was a bright light, as energy flared up in the middle of the room. ‘Run for your life! The place is on fire!’ one of the homeless cried out. But, this was a different kind of fire from any this world had ever known, one which suddenly touched with incandescent tentacles five of the nearest “Earth-spawn”. Four of those struck at random were old, but Earth’s short-sighted standards. The fifth however was a younger female, whose inner bitterness called out to the psychically sensitive Swarm. The other homeless either ran away or watched the event transpire.
The gestation period a brief one, as every cell, every molecule of the female was digested mutated and transformed - and thus was born Macabre. Four new entities stood beside her, no longer was the Viral Swarm of a single mind, because of the youth and vigor of the woman-frame, Macabre’s will was instantaneously dominant over the others. ‘I feel life throbbing on this world - billions of live-  each separate, each a delicacy!’ Macabre called out. ‘But, is it the type that will sustain us?’ Dreadlox enquired. ‘Who are you guys, anyway? What did you do to Willie and Lester and -’ one of the old men called out. ‘A very different kind of thing, feeble one - than I shall do to you’ Macabre called back, before she drained him of life and the flesh that came with it. And felt that it was good.
However, Macabre realized instinctively that there was a better way, and announced that they needed minions, servitors, who will do their bidding, so they need not expose themselves to scrutiny. ‘Which of you will serve us?’ she asked the remaining homeless people. ‘This aged female seemed half included to step forward, First-of-Swarm’ Decimator called out. ‘No, please don’t! I was only -’ the old woman exclaimed, while Macabre announced that they must have names to enshrine their newfound individualization, names plucked from the mental swirl they detect in this chamber. ‘I shall be - “Macabre” - for I sense these creatures think me so’ she announced. ‘Old female - is the one I shall call Decimator correct?’ Macabre enquired.
The old woman said nothing in reply, before Macabre grabbed her face and asked her ‘Have you a name - and will you serve us?’ The old woman introduced herself as Wilhemina, and replied ‘Maybe I will. Sure - why ot - what’s in it for us? I mean -’ she began, to which Macabre announced that she knows this race is not ageless, as the Viral Swam are, and that this race wants one thing above all - life. ‘Prolonged life! And we have a way to give you that!’ she explained, using her abilities to drain the years from Wilhemina’s physical shell, leaving her a long and vigorous life to come.
Tossing the now young Wilhemina to the ground, she turns to the other homeless: ‘You see, aged ones? Though she must rest a while now ,she is fifty sun-circling younger than she was - and in the prime of physical vigor. Who among you would not prefer that to the prospect of fast-approaching decrepitude, weakness, decay - assuming we were to allow you to live out even one more of your world’s dark-times?’
Present:
‘Needless to say, they all accepted our offer’ Macabre tells the Secret Defenders, explaining that all they asked in exchange for this restored youth is that the bring them the wealth of this world which they need to survive undetected. Macabre reveals that before long, they used their burgeoning knowledge to create the “Second Chance Institute”. Stasis explains that through it, while one group robbed for them, they could garner new students. Dreadlox adds that even if a new of the rejuvenated were captured, they would still have long life to look forward to after being imprisoned for a few sort years. ‘You don’t blame us, do you, people?’ one of the restored homeless calls out to the heroes. ‘We know it was wrong - but it’s our lives!’ another declares.
‘You fools! Don’t you know the youth she gave you is only temporary!’ Spider-Woman exclaims. ‘We’ve seen one of you age - and die - in moments before our very eyes!’ Julia adds. ‘Save it, Web-Lady’ Wolverine declares as he continues to slash at the energy field, adding that he can tell by the expressions on the people that Macabre is not letting their voices filter out to them. ‘If we’re going to help those poor devils, we’ve got to break out of here!’ Nomad exclaims as he tries kicking the field. ‘And that doesn’t seem too likely’ Wolverine mutters.
While the trio of Secret Defenders struggle in vain to escape, realizing that their life forces will be like a sumptuous feast to these ghoulish aliens in human guise, Chris Powell and the woman who is both Wilhemina and “Tabitha” examine the narrow confine of their threatened existence. ‘I’m sorry I got so maudlin, young man’ Wilhemina tells Chris as they both push and pound against the padded cell in an attempt to escape. ‘Forget it. What counts now is getting out of this padded cell!’ Chris replies. Chris tells Wilhemina that she won’t understand this, but that there is something he has to try again. ‘I only hope this time…’ he begins, only for Wilhemina to announce that she is so confused, and touching her head, she declares that it is spinning.
Wilhemina screams as she falls to the ground. ‘Tabitha? What’s wrong?’ Chris calls out as hr rushes over to her, holding her in his arms, Wilhemina explains that she has been away from Macabre for too long, and that she is as old as she used to be, only now she is weaker, dying. ‘You don’t deserve this - none of you do!’ Chris exclaims. ‘You’re a brave boy…but you’re so young…’ Wilhemina a.k.a. “Tabitha” utters. ‘NOOO!’ Chris screams, telling himself that he has a chance to concentrate, and his form begins to change, as his armor materializes over him. ‘What’s happening to you? You’re -’ Wilhemina utters, as Chris introduces himself as Darkhawk. ‘Then maybe…there is hope…after all…’ Wilhemina utters as she goes silent. ‘You just rest here, Willie…I’ll be back!’ Darkhawk exclaims as bursts through the padded cell. ‘I swear I will!’ he declares.
At that moment, two of the homeless people, Mary and George, are in the central chamber. ‘I don’t like the looks of this bunch, Mary’ George tells his friend as they look at Macabre and the others. ‘You think I do?’ Mary mutters back, before demanding to know why they have been locked up here for hours. ‘Don’t rile them! They’re not what they seem - and that’s bad enough!’ Nomad calls out from behind the energy field. ‘You should have listened to the Nomad, Mary - for now, you are about to be -’ Macabre begins, when suddenly, ‘STOP!’ Darkhawk shouts as he flies into the room. ‘You’re not hurting anybody else!’ he exclaims as he knocks into the villains. ‘Darkhawk!? I knew he had to be around here somewhere!’ Spider-Woman exclaims, as she, Logan and Nomad are freed from the energy field, as Macabre’s concentration has been broken. ‘We’re out!’ Logan declares. ‘And ready to kick butt!’ Nomad exclaims.
‘You might be - if I were still unconscious!’ Dreadlox exclaims, while Macabre tells Dreadlox to hurt the heroes. She moves towards the heroes, while Spider-Woman warns everyone to watch out for her ‘Not east to guard against somebody who makes you see what you dread most in all the -’ Wolverine begins, only for an elderly woman to rush forward between the heroes and Dreadlox. ‘Lady - keep back!’ Wolverine calls out. ‘No! I’m too old to be afraid of that young guttersnipe’ the old woman replies.
‘If the old-made-young see themselves decrepit and dying, what will my powers make you see, woman?’ Dreadlox calls out as she uses her powers on the old woman. ‘The real question - is what they’ll make you see’ the old woman replies, as Dreadlox suddenly keels backwards as her own power washes over her. ‘I - I see nothingness - blackness - oblivion - the void of the universe we ravaged before we took human form!’ Dreadlox shouts. ‘The ultimate end of the cosmic hunger we fled to this world - to escape…’ she utters, before keeling over. ‘What happened to her?’ Decimator asks as he, Tokamak and Stasis look on. ‘’It’s as if she beheld the thing she most dreaded’ Stasis explains.
Suddenly, the old woman who confronted Dreadlox stirs, and exclaims ‘That is exactly what she did see - courtesy of Dr Strange!’ as the old woman vanishes, and Dr Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme reveals himself. ‘Looks like the ganga’s all here, finally!’ Nomad remarks as the Secret Defenders gather together. ‘But you look wasted’ Darkhawk points out. ‘My battle with Nightmare - then reflecting Dreadlox’s power - I realize now, that’s why I needed you four’ Strange replies, telling the Secret Defenders that they must do the rest of the Earth is lost. ‘We’ll give it all we’ve got, Dr Strange’ Spider-Woman calls out. ‘It will not be enough!’ Macabre shrieks as she rushes towards the Secret Defenders, her cronies following her.
‘Won’t it, Macabre? Most times, I’d think twice before I used my claws on a woman. I’d de-bone ‘em if I had to, but I’d think about it first. But you’re no woman - that bod’s not even human any more!’ Wolverine exclaims as he shoves his claws into Macabre’s chest and tells her that now he is ripping her apart, he can see there is not a drop of blood left in it. Spider-Woman confronts Stasis, who tells her that she will never defeat one whose touch will cause her own psychic webbing to recoil. Releasing some psychic webbing, Spider-Woman tells the villain that it isn’t touching him, so its energy won’t be hurled back at her. ‘And if you touch it, you’ll get all the feedback’ Julia adds.
Nomad dodges an attack from Decimator, telling him that he is big, but slow, and kicks him into Tokamak, who shouts ‘Look out! Our collision is draining much of my charge!’, enabling Darkhawk to move forward and punch Tokamak in the face, ‘He was just clearing the way for me to land a punch!’ Darkhawk exclaims. ‘We have ‘em on the run, people!’ Wolverine shouts, pointing out that Macabre is starting to disintegrate. ‘Human offal! I am simply preparing to move on to the next phase!’ Macabre replies.
As if of one mind, the other four alien spawn surround the rapidly shredding form of Macabre, then suddenly, a burst of energy, followed by an implosion, a merging, into a single skull-like image, which glows and throbs with an evil beyond time. ‘Bow, Defenders of this astral plane - there will be no more masquerades in repulsive human shells. Now, you will face our viral form in its pure and primal form - and we shall destroy you, absorbing you, thus making ourselves even mightier than before!’ the Viral Swam declares as it casts forth the globules of virus towards the Defenders.
‘Huh? Now that thing’s turned into - what? A bunch of corpuscles, swirling around like in the middle of a blender!’ Darkhawk exclaims. Dr Strange explains that this is the true, other-dimensional virus, and that it has abandoned all human semblance to attack them with the full force of one amorphous entity. ‘In other words - payoff time!’ Wolverine exclaims. ‘Great! So now we’ve got to fight what we can’t even grab hold of!’ Nomad mutters. The five heroes gather together, and Darkhawk exclaims that the are being bombarded. ‘We didn’t know how easy we had it before!’ Wolverine mutters. ‘And when it’s done with us, it’ll turn on those old people - maybe even on the ones it rejuvenated’ Julia points out.
Dr Strange tells his makeshift team that this swarm is nothing compared to many of the cosmic foes he has battled, but that denied of the power of the Vishanti and the others, he can turn away the first assault, perhaps even a second, but that soon his magic will fail and they will find themselves defenseless against the Swarm’s mystic attack. The Viral Swarm is held back by Strange’s mystic attack, but it hovers around them. ‘We’ve got a lot more energy than you have at this point - only it isn’t doing any of us any good!’ Julia declares. ‘But maybe it could’ Wolverine suggests. Nomad agrees, and reminds everyone that they contacted Strange in Nightmare’s realm by joining forces. ‘How powerful could we be - if he was part of that circle?’ Nomad asks.
‘Yes - it might succeed’ Strange replies, explaining that his focus on their defense kept him from sensing that possibility. ‘But - if it doesn’t work -’ he begins, to which Nomad interrupts and tells him that then they will all be dead anyway, so not to sweat it. ‘Gather round and clasp hands body and girls - cause here it comes again!’ Wolverine declares as the heroes put their hands together, and the Viral Swarm rushes over the five embattled heroes like a tidal wave of unadulterated filth of unleavened evil, which seeps into the every pore, seeking to corrupt, to infect and to kill. But, the give stand firm - allowing the magician to draw their combined strengths into himself, and the other dimensional tsunami breaks upon the iron shoals of their oneness.
A moment more and Dr Strange has gone on the attack, and through his hands, grasped by those of his allies, arcane spells flow to meet the soul-thirsting swarm. Once, Jack Monroe’s hand slips from the others, for he has not their strength, yet by sheer force of will, he brings it back. Darkhawk employs the full force of his armor, whose secrets are only now becoming known to him. Spider-Woman feels momentarily faint, but then the thought of her daughter open to the Swarm imbues her with newfound fury. And Wolverine has never known any shortfall of rage. The Swarm fives way, slowly, at first, and then fully - until his energies restored by his communion with his fellow Defenders, Dr Strange hurls the vanquished Viral Swarm back through its hyper-spatial aperture, and seals it up behind them.
The Secret Defenders collapse onto the floor, and looking around, Wolverine asks Dr Strange if they have won the battle, or just a skirmish. Strange explains that the Swarm had depleted its own plane, so that it will be too weak to break through the dimensional walls he has strengthened. ‘But there are other forces out there - entities that dwarf this one in power!’ Strange adds. ‘One cosmic menace at a time, okay, Doc?’ Julia remarks. ‘Yeah, let us enjoy a little taste of triumph while we catch our breath’ Wolverine smiles. ‘You’re right’ Strange agrees, and remarks that his mystic subconscious did well in guiding him to the four of them. ‘Without you, the Swarm would’ve turned the Earth into its private viral host. With your help, we sent it packing!’ Strange declares.
‘But - those old folks!’ Julia point out. The heroes look down at the elderly homeless people, and Strange tells Julia that in every war, there are losses. ‘Those who weren’t rejuvenated have only continued poverty to look forward to - while with the Swarm gone, the rejuvenated ones swiftly regained their postponed spawn of years. ‘And the strain was too much for some of them’ Nomad points out as some of the elderly lie motionless. ‘Isn’t there something you can do, Doc?’ Darkhawk asks as he returns from collecting “Tabitha”. ‘Some magic spell up your sleeve that’ll save those poor people - and “Tabitha” - her real name’s Wilhemina’ Darkhawk announces. Strange replies that he is a sorcerer, but not a god. ‘And yet - I wish - he utters, when suddenly, ‘Hold it - she’s trying to say something’ Nomad announces.
‘Don’t cry…too many tears…for us. At least…we knew…just for a little while…what it was like to be young again. Guess sort of...sold out souls…for the chance…but you folks got ‘em back for us…thanks…’ Wilhemina a.k.a. “Tabitha” whispers as she passes away. ‘She’s…gone’ Darkhawk declares, still holding Wilhemina in his arms. The heroes gather around Wilhemina as Darkhawk lays her n the ground. ‘I learned a long time ago - the only kind of victories outside of fairy tales are partial ones’ Nomad declares. ‘We can do something for those left alive - and we will’ Strange announces. ‘But there are so many other people without homes - in this city - in others…’ Spider-Woman points out. ‘You got to start somewhere’ Wolverine tells her, and adds that if they just learn that out of this whole sordid mess, then maybe it will have been worth it. Maybe.