Defenders #23. Kyle reveals to Stephen that he'd met Holliman earlier that night: “He wanted to talk real estate with Kyle Richmond. I wasn't in the mood.” “Perhaps you should have listened more closely, Nighthawk. The forces of karma work in puzzling ways.” How very puzzling---as we’ll see! Whatever reasons drive Kyle to express his exceptionalism through his costumed identity, rather than his millionaire self with its connections, have as much to do with the limitations of a superhero story of the 70’s as the character trying to fit into one. The Defenders are much further from the answers for it. They head back to the Sanctum for tea and pondering---unaware of the remaining three Serpents spying on them. The Serpents, however, find a violent sting awaiting them through Yellowjacket, last seen in GS Defenders #4. Surreptitiously he’s skulked after them over the rooftops, and in a splash page smash he begins to take them down. The first two of them fall to wisecracks a...

Remus Sharptooth attempts his escape in a Gnomlin-built craft---it lifts vertically for take-off, as the Defenders attempt to strike it from the air. The creature Anomaly watches from behind a smoking data base; standing at the precipice, Corpse Flower wonders if Sharptooth’s decision is influenced by the Viking Captain, Ray Awen, who still makes up his subconscious mind. Hulk’s skips, powered by his mighty legs, give him velocity to match the launching craft. The fleeing sorcerer-wolf turns to hurl bolts of blood-red lightning at the clutching emerald behemoth, whose bulk is nearly half that of the escape craft! As all the heroes pursue Remus Sharptooth, abruptly, they observe what he has forgotten about all crafts built by Gnomlins: in the end, they stop and they explode!!! Just before this explosion, the Wolf Oversoul appears to Remus Sharptooth. He promises the sorcerer another existence to come, an incarnation in the world of Semeicardia. Thus he achieves a strange peace as...