Bruce Banner gathers a group of fill-in Defenders to help rescue his kidnapped teammates.
Dr. Strange, Valkyrie, Yellowjacket, and Nighthawk are held prisoner by coiled metal snakes. The Sons of the Serpent regale them with their racist plans to take over America and kill all the marginalized groups therein.
Strange is still unconscious from their blasts last issue, so it falls to Valkyrie to break out. She starts knocking the Sons about, until she discovers that one is actually a woman. Due to the spell placed upon Valkyrie that she can't fight women, she hesitates, and is once again zapped by the Serpents' guns.
Back in Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, Bruce Banner, Clea, and Jack Norriss try to figure out how to help. Banner asks Clea to send a mystic call for help to the people who have temporarily joined the Defenders in the past: Silver Surfer, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Daimon Hellstrom, Hawkeye, and Namor. She uses the Orb of Agamotto to contact Hellstrom and Daredevil, but then faints from the pressure of using the powerful object.
Banner calls Luke Cage on the phone. Cage, Daredevil, and Hellstrom all show up, with Hellstrom's arrival in a chariot of hellfire-ringed horses being a bit different from the other two. Clea and Banner explain what's going on, and note that they have one of the Sons of the Serpent prisoner.
Yellowjacket uses his shrinking powers to shrink out of his constraints, now that the Sons have left on their mission, with Valkyrie. Pym tries to release Nighthawk, but can't. He explores the base, and discovers it is underwater, with no exit.
Hellstrom uses his magic to get their prisoner to talk, but he was under a hypnotic suggestion to keep him from doing so. Cage uses the direct approach and beats the Son up.
However, they are interrupted by Elena, the woman the Defenders had gone to the tenement to save last issue. She shows them a TV news report where the Sons have put Valkyrie on an upside-down cross and are going to burn her alive.
Jack Norriss, who still doesn't really get that Val is not his wife, Barbara, runs off to save her. Banner changes into the Hulk, and the Defenders all go to Val's rescue. However, before they get there, Hellstrom and Cage disappear in a flash.
Hulk and Daredevil start beating up the Sons, but Daredevil is uncharacteristically overwhelmed and knocked out from behind, and the Sons use a ray to blind the Hulk. Suddenly the Defenders, who massively out-power the Sons, are at a disadvantage.
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