Count On The Defenders To Bring The Weird

I ordered Essential Defenders Volume 3 last week, it arrived this week, I've done one cursory read-through so far*, and there's one sequence, very early in the volume that I keep thinking about.

Nighthawk's been captured by the Headmen. The Headmen are a group of intellects trying to take over the world, whose powers derive from their heads, which often don't jibe with their bodies. So you have Dr. Morgan, who developed size-changing gas before Pym, but only succeeded in shrinking the bones in his head, so his skin sags, Dr. Nagan, who put his head on a gorilla body (you may remember him from the Negative Zone prison in Guardians of the Galaxy #9), Chondu the Mystic, who eventually winds up with a freaky monster body including a horn, wings, and lampreys for arms *shudder*, and eventually Ruby, whose head is a featureless red sphere, from which all sorts of unpleasantries can spring.

One of their plans had already been thwarted by the Defenders, so before they proceed with their next big scheme, they'd like to learn some more about the Defenders, maybe remove them as threats if possible. So they remove Nighthawk's brain, and leave it in a vat of preservative chemicals. Nighthawk's brain still works, but it's devoid of any sensation, and it seems as though he would have gone a little mad, unclear on what is and isn't reality**. I'm not sure if Steve Gerber had more planned with that, and left the title before he had the chance or not, but it could have been interesting to see Kyle wig out periodically during a fight. Mostly though, he just spends the remainder of Volume 3 being angry about stuff.

Anyway, Nighthawk's brain is out, and Chondu's brain is in, and he skirmishes with the Defenders a bit, and loses, because he tries to duel Dr. Strange mystically, and that's not going to work. The Defenders decide to attack the Headmen, but need to keep Chondu out of trouble, so Strange moves Chondu's consciousness into the body of a fawn the Hulk brought with him from the Ozarks***. Then he transfers the consciousness of Jack Norriss into the brain of Chondu, which is inside the body of Nighthawk.

And Jack Norriss is only there because the Defender Valkyrie inahbits the body that used to be his wife, Barbara, and Jack seemingly can't get it through his skull that Barabra isn't home (though I think Barbara resurfaces at some point in Volume 4, when the team dies and goes to fight in Asgard), so he keeps expecting Valkyrie to respond romantically to him like Barbara would, and she keeps not responding in that fashion, which gets frustrating for both of them****.

Then the villains gain the upper hand and do nothing to actively harm the heroes, instead opting to tweak their minds so they'll unwittingly further the Headmen's goals of conquering the world through economic and political maneuvering. And then Nebulon, the Celestial Man enters the mix, and Dr. Strange kidnaps the President, and shrink rays are employed for the purposes of societal observation, and it's some fantastically weird stuff.

* I figure the next step is to start over with Volume 1, and just read everything up through Volume 4 and see how it goes.

** Though Dr. Strange isn't terribly helpful on that score, remarking that reality is different for everyone, and given what's he's been through, Kyle Richmond no longer perceives reality the same way, thus he isn't technically in reality the way he was previously. Gee, thanks Doc, I'm sure that made him feel so much better.

*** See, the Hulk was enjoying nature, when these drunk hunters show up and kill the fawn's mother, even though it's a game preserve and they aren't supposed to hunt there. The Hulk wraps one fellow's gun barrel around his neck, then picks up the other one (who had started praying) and tosses him across the lake. The guy skips like a stone until he slams headfirst into a tree. Somehow, neither one dies. Hey, I prefer the Hulk to not have killed people when he gets riled, but even I'm dubious about that one. The Hulk picks up the fawn, promising to care for it, but is smart enough to know he 's not smart enough to do so. Thus, he leaps his way to New York for Dr. Strange's help.

**** I wonder if Dr. Strange ever looked into fixing that part of Valkyrie's enchantment where she couldn't fight women? That had to be a bit annoying. Sorry, Val, none of our enemies have a Y chromosome, guess you better sit this one out. Sure you've got the Hulk, and he'll fight anyone, but he's not entirely reliable, you know? Heck, after Dr. Strange leaves the team and Nighthawk assumes de facto leadership, the Hulk seems constantly on the verge of pounding Nighthawk into paste.