With this post, we continue our coverage of writer Steve Gerber and artist Sal Buscema’s “Headmen/Nebulon Saga” in Defenders, following our recently established routine of taking on two issues of the lengthy storyline at a time.  This go-round, we’ll be starting with Defenders #37, whose cover by Gil Kane and Mike Esposito heralds the imminent return to this title’s pages of Luke Cage, Power Man — a hero who’d first fought alongside Marvel Comics’ premiere non-team back in issues #17-19, and then had renewed his non-membership when the group battled the Sons of the Serpent in #24-25.

As regular readers will hopefully recall, Defenders #36 had ended with three of our heroes — leader Dr. Strange, veteran Nighthawk (in his civilian guise of Kyle Richmond), and newbie Red Guardian — having been captured by Plantman, who intended to hold the wealthy Richmond for ransom.  But rather than immediately picking things back up with those characters, our creative team (which in addition to Gerber and Buscema includes inker Klaus Janson) start off issue #37’s “Evil in Bloom!” with another Defender, namely the Hulk.  Read More